Editing Canadian Confederation (section)

===Early attempts===
The idea of joining the various colonies in North America was being floated as early as 1814. That year, [[Chief Justice of Quebec#Chief Justice of Lower Canada (1791-1841)|Chief Justice of Lower Canada]] [[Jonathan Sewell]] sent a copy of his report, ''A Plan for the federal Union of British Provinces in North America'', to [[Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn|Prince Edward]] (both a son of King [[George III]] and the father of [[Queen Victoria]]), whom Sewell had befriended when they both resided in [[Quebec City]]. Edward replied, "nothing can be better arranged than the whole thing is, or more perfectly", going on to suggest a unified Canada consisting of two provinces—one formed from Upper and Lower Canada and the other from the Maritime colonies—each with a lieutenant governor and executive council, one located in [[Montreal]] and the other in either [[Annapolis Royal]] or [[Windsor, Nova Scotia|Windsor]].<ref>{{citation| title=Journal of the House of Assembly of Upper Canada| year=1839| page=103}}</ref> Edward said he would pass the report on to [[Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst|the Earl Bathurst]], the then-[[Secretary of State for War and the Colonies]]; the Prince's comments and critiques were later cited by both the Earl of Durham and participants of the [[Charlottetown Conference|Charlottetown]] and [[Quebec Conference, 1864|Quebec Conferences]].
[[File:George etiene cartier.jpg|thumb|[[George-Étienne Cartier]]]]

Lord Durham presented his idea of unification in 1839 ''[[Report on the Affairs of British North America]]'',<ref name=KaufmanMacpherson2005tg>{{cite book| first1=Will| last1=Kaufman| first2=Heidi Slettedahl| last2=Macpherson| title=Britain and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HbBbn3x7PZsC&pg=PA822| year=2005| publisher=ABC-CLIO| isbn=978-1-85109-431-8| page=822}}</ref> which resulted in the Act of Union 1840. Beginning in 1857, [[Joseph-Charles Taché]] proposed a federation in a series of 33 articles published in the ''Courrier du Canada''.{{sfn|Waite|1962|p=40}} Two years later, [[Alexander Tilloch Galt]], [[George-Étienne Cartier]], and [[John Ross (Canadian politician)|John Ross]] travelled to the United Kingdom to present the British Parliament with a project for confederation of the British colonies. The proposal was received by the London authorities with polite indifference.

The [[Royal tours of Canada#1860 royal tour|royal tour of British North America]] undertaken by Queen Victoria's son, Prince Albert Edward (later King [[Edward VII]]) in 1860, however, helped lead to the unification of the colonies by confirming a common bond between their inhabitants;<ref>{{citation| url=https://www.historicplaces.ca/en/pages/28_royalty_royaute.aspx| title="At Home in Canada": Royalty at Canada's Historic Places| publisher=Canad's Historic Places| access-date=April 30, 2023}}</ref> indeed, the monarchy played a "pivotal legal and symbolic role [...] in cementing the new Canadian union".<ref>{{citation| url=https://www.constitutionalstudies.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/22.1-Full-Issue.pdf| editor-last1=Lagassé| editor-first1=Philippe| editor-last2=MacDonald| editor-first2=Nicholas A.| title=The Crown in the 21st Century| last1=Newman| first1=Warren J.| series=Some Observations on the Queen, the Crown, the Constitution, and the Courts| journal=Review of Constitutional Studies| volume=22| issue=1| year=2017| page=59| publisher=Centre for Constitutional Studies| location=Edmonton| access-date=5 June 2023}}</ref> Further, by 1864, it was clear that continued governance of the Province of Canada under the terms of the 1840 Act of Union had become impracticable. Therefore, a [[grand coalition]] of parties, the [[Great Coalition]], formed in order to reform the political system.{{sfn|Waite|1962|p=44}} Queen Victoria remarked on "the impossibility of our being able to hold Canada; but, we must struggle for it; and by far the best solution would be to let it go as an independent kingdom under an English prince."<ref name=TCE>{{citation| last=Stacey| first=C.P.| title=British Military Policy in the Era of Confederation| journal=CHA Annual Report and Historical Papers| volume=13| year=1934| page=25}}</ref>