pee Poss Sines ; oY Ops on December 16 & 16, Je. Benoit after i Was pillaged and burned. by British tre 1837. THE LESSONS OF 1837 In retrospect it is possible to draw some valuable revolutionary lessons from 1837. First and foremost is the need for unity. By 1833 the reform movement in Upper Canada had split into a radical and a moderate wing. The personal animosities and ambitions of William Lyon Mackenzie and Egerton Ryerson did not help to heal the breach. Many Methodists, despite their strong tradition of dissent, were won away from the radical wing by Ryerson. As the economic and political crisis of 1837 approached, Ryerson used the power of his newspaper to persuade his co-religionists to vote for the Tories and against Reform. Thus the radicals lost the allegiance of their natural allies. In 1837, rather than shoulder arms, most Methodists remained neutral. And historic struggles cannot be won if, at crucial moments, half one’s potential supporters stay at home. Unity is the key to the success of any revolutionary movement. Lack of organization also played a part in the defeat of the Revolution of 1837. In Upper Canada the radicals had established a Political Union with 200 branches. In the months prior to the uprising, Mackenzie worked feverishly to transform the Union into a military organization. However, he was defeated in the end by a defect in the command structure which allowed a nervous Dr. Rolph to call out some of the men four days early, thereby throwing the revolutionary organization into confusion and exposing its hand before it was ready to strike. ; The level and sophistication of organization in Lower Canada was much greater. Since 1827 the Patriotes had been building a network of parish and regional committees. In 1834 these committees began sending delegates to the Permanent and Central Committee in Montreal which co-ordinated their work. The Patriotes had a youth movement, the Sons of Liberty, and an Association of Patriote Women. All Patriotes paid the ‘“‘Papineau Penny,” a voluntary tax, which was used to maintain a parallel government, complete with an administrative apparatus, an elected judiciary and a militia, whose officers were also elected. Their Correspondence Committee maintained communications not only with the radicals in Upper Canada but with revolutionary movements in France, America and England. As extensive as the Patriotes’ organization, however, it proved insufficient. As a people in arms they failed to find the weak chinks in the armour of the colonial power. Closely’connected with the need for more unity and organization in 1837 was the crucial question of leadership. The radical wing of the reform movement, as the lists of those arrested attest, largely consisted of farmers and workmen. The leadership, how- ever, was held by merchants‘and businessmen like Ketchum, Montgomery, Armstrong and Lesslie, or professional men like Gibson, Mackenzie, Morrison and Rolph. In moments of crisis many of these leaders demonstrated a marked tendency to panic, balk or run away. It was blacksmiths like Lount and farmers like Matthews and Gould who proved in the course of battle to be the best, most resolute leaders. Finally, the events of 1837 demonstrate very clearly that the inertia of the system weighs heavily against those seeking change. Any class which wants to overthrow the status quo must boldly seize the initiative. In Lower Canada the Patriotes had two large armies. Together they could have caught Sir John Colborne in Montreal and forced him to fight on two fronts at once with a hostile population at his back. But the Patriotes stood pat: their frame of mind was purely defensive. So Colborne first trapped the southern army in a pincer movement, then the northern, using precisely the tactics the Patriotes should have adopted. In Upper Canada the rebel army dithered and delayed until it had lost all its tactical advantages. Twice it could have seized an undefended Toronto but held back in uncertainty. Even its diversionary tactics were too little too late. For days it camped at Montgomery’s Farm while its enemies mustered their strength. This kind of passive attendance on events spells defeat for any revolutionary movement. Those who want to change history must seize every opportunity and learn to turmall flux to their advantage. PAST AND FUTURE Despite everything that has been done to dim our memory, the tradition of 1837 is not dead. The 100th anniversary found men and women fighting for democracy and freedom in Spain, proudly calling themselves the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. Today, after a century and a half, the spirit of the rebels who rode with Mackenzie can still be found on picket lines or among the work brigades setting out for Nicaragua. Canadians still lay flowers on the graves, seek out the monuments, celebrate the anniversaries, still write plays and poems and songs and claim kinship with the courage and ideals of those distant revolutionary days which, in many ways, seem more like tomorrow than yesterday. — Brian Davis 8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 20, 1988 Blacksmiths forging pthes for the uprising. % ¢ sibilant R cvolutionary croops at Beauharnots, punted by a (PISONEL, jane blice, tt 1887.