Sir Charles Tupper, 1st Baronet (July 2, 1821 – October 30, 1915), was a Canadian Father of Confederation who served as the sixth prime minister of Canada from May 1 to July 8, 1896. As the premier of Nova Scotia from 1864 to 1867, he led Nova Scotia into Confederation. He briefly served as the Canadian prime minister, from seven days after parliament had been dissolved, until he was dismissed by the Governor General on July 8, 1896, following his party's loss in the 1896 Canadian federal election. He is the only medical doctor to have ever held the office of prime minister of Canada, and his 69-day tenure as prime minister is the shortest in Canadian history.
Tupper was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, to the Rev. Charles Tupper and Miriam Lockhart. He was educated at Horton Academy, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, graduating MD in 1843. By the age of 22 he had handled 116 obstetric cases. He practiced medicine periodically throughout his political career (and served as the first president of the Canadian Medical Association). He entered Nova Scotian politics in 1855 as a protégé of James William Johnston. During Johnston's tenure as premier of Nova Scotia in 1857–1859 and 1863–1864, Tupper served as provincial secretary. Tupper replaced Johnston as premier in 1864. As premier, he established public education in Nova Scotia and expanded Nova Scotia's railway network in order to promote industry.
By 1860, Tupper supported a union of all the colonies of British North America. Believing that immediate union of all the colonies was impossible, in 1864, he proposed a Maritime Union. However, representatives of the Province of Canada asked to be allowed to attend the meeting in Charlottetown scheduled to discuss Maritime Union in order to present a proposal for a wider union, and the Charlottetown Conference thus became the first of the three conferences that secured Canadian Confederation. Tupper also represented Nova Scotia at the other two conferences, the Quebec Conference (1864) and the London Conference of 1866. In Nova Scotia, Tupper organized a Confederation Party to combat the activities of the Anti-Confederation Party organized by Joseph Howe and successfully led Nova Scotia into Confederation.
Following the passage of the British North America Act in 1867, Tupper resigned as premier of Nova Scotia and began a career in federal politics. He held multiple cabinet positions under Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, including President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada (1870–1872), Minister of Inland Revenue (1872–1873), Minister of Customs (1873–1874), Minister of Public Works (1878–1879), and Minister of Railways and Canals (1879–1884). Initially groomed as Macdonald's successor, Tupper had a falling-out with Macdonald, and by the early 1880s, he asked Macdonald to appoint him as Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. Tupper took up his post in London in 1883, and would remain High Commissioner until 1895, although in 1887–1888, he served as Minister of Finance without relinquishing the High Commissionership.
In 1895, the government of Mackenzie Bowell floundered over the Manitoba Schools Question; as a result, several leading members of the Conservative Party of Canada demanded the return of Tupper to serve as prime minister. Tupper accepted this invitation and returned to Canada, becoming prime minister in May 1896. Just before he was sworn in as prime minister, the 1896 federal election was called, in which his party lost to Wilfrid Laurier and the Liberals. Tupper served as leader of the Opposition from July 1896 until he resigned in February 1901, just months after his second defeat at the polls in 1900. He returned to London, England, where he lived until his death in 1915 and was buried back in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was the last surviving Canadian father of Confederation. In 2016, he was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.
Early life, 1821–1855
Charles Tupper Jr. was born on July 2, 1821, in Amherst, Nova Scotia, to Charles Tupper Sr. and Miriam Lowe, née Lockhart. He was a descendant of Richard Warren, a Mayflower Pilgrim who signed the Mayflower Compact. Charles Tupper Sr. (1794–1881) was the co-pastor of the local Baptist church. He had been ordained as a Baptist minister in 1817, and was editor of Baptist Magazine 1832–1836. He was an accomplished Biblical scholar, and published Scriptural Baptism (Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1850) and Expository Notes on the Syriac Version of the Scriptures.
Beginning in 1837, at age 16, Tupper attended Horton Academy in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, where he learned Latin, Greek, and some French. After graduating in 1839, he spent a short time in New Brunswick working as a teacher, then moved to Windsor, Nova Scotia, to study medicine (1839–1840) with Dr. Ebenezer Fitch Harding. Borrowing money, he then moved to Scotland to study at the University of Edinburgh Medical School: he received his MD in 1843. During his time in Edinburgh, Tupper's commitment to his Baptist faith faltered, and he drank Scotch whisky for the first time.
Returning to Nova Scotia in 1846, he broke off an engagement that he had contracted at age 17 with the daughter of a wealthy Halifax merchant, and instead married Frances Morse (1826–1912), the granddaughter of Colonel Joseph Morse, a founder of Amherst, Nova Scotia. The Tuppers had three sons (Orin Stewart, Charles Hibbert, and William Johnston) and three daughters (Emma, Elizabeth Stewart (Lilly), and Sophy Almon). The Tupper children were raised in Frances's Anglican denomination and Charles and Frances regularly worshipped in an Anglican church, though on the campaign trail, Tupper often found time to visit Baptist meetinghouses.
Tupper set himself up as a physician in Amherst, Nova Scotia, and opened a drugstore.
Early years in Nova Scotia politics, 1855–1864
The leader of the Conservative Party of Nova Scotia, James William Johnston, a fellow Baptist and family friend of the Tuppers, encouraged Charles Tupper to enter politics. In 1855 Tupper ran against the prominent Liberal politician Joseph Howe for the Cumberland County seat in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. Joseph Howe would be Tupper's political opponent several times in years to come.
Although Tupper won his seat, the 1855 election was an overall disaster for the Nova Scotia Conservatives, with the Liberals, led by William Young, winning a large majority. Young consequently became Premier of Nova Scotia.
At a caucus meeting in January 1856, Tupper recommended a new direction for the Conservative party: they should begin actively courting Nova Scotia's Roman Catholic minority and should eagerly embrace railroad construction. Having just led his party into a disastrous election campaign, Johnston decided to basically cede control of the party to Tupper, though Johnston remained the party's leader. During 1856 Tupper led Conservative attacks on the government, leading Joseph Howe to dub Tupper "the wicked wasp of Cumberland". In early 1857 Tupper convinced a number of Roman Catholic Liberal members to cross the floor to join the Conservatives, reducing Young's government to the status of a minority government. As a result, Young was forced to resign in February 1857, and the Conservatives formed a government with Johnston as premier. Tupper became the provincial secretary.
In Tupper's first speech to the House of Assembly as provincial secretary, he set forth an ambitious plan of railroad construction. Tupper had thus embarked on the major theme of his political life: that Nova Scotians (and later Canadians) should downplay their ethnic and religious differences, focusing instead on developing the land's natural resources. He argued that with Nova Scotia's "inexhaustible mines", it could become "a vast manufacturing mart" for the east coast of North America. He quickly persuaded Johnston to end the General Mining Association's monopoly over Nova Scotia minerals.
In June 1857, Tupper initiated discussions with New Brunswick and the Province of Canada concerning an intercolonial railway. He traveled to London in 1858 to attempt to secure imperial backing for this project. During these discussions, Tupper realized that Canadians were more interested in discussing federal union, while the British (with the Earl of Derby in his second term as Prime Minister) were too absorbed in their own immediate interests. As such, nothing came of the 1858 discussions for an intercolonial railway.
Sectarian conflict played a major role in the May 1859 elections, with Catholics largely supporting the Conservatives and Protestants shifting toward the Liberals. Tupper barely retained his seat. The Conservatives were barely re-elected and lost a confidence vote later that year. Johnston asked the Governor of Nova Scotia, Lord Mulgrave, for dissolution, but Mulgrave refused and invited William Young to form a government. Tupper was outraged and petitioned the British government, asking them to recall Mulgrave.
For the next three years, Tupper was ferocious in his denunciations of the Liberal government, first Young, and then Joseph Howe, who succeeded Young in 1860. This came to a head in 1863 when the Liberals introduced legislation to restrict the Nova Scotia franchise, a move which Johnston and Tupper successfully blocked. Tupper continued practicing medicine during this period. He established a successful medical practice in Halifax, rising to become the city medical officer. In 1863 he was elected president of the Medical Society of Nova Scotia.
In the June 1863 election, the Conservatives campaigned on a platform of railroad construction and expanded access to public education. The Conservatives won a large majority, taking 44 of the House of Assembly's 55 seats. Johnston resumed his duties as premier and Tupper again became provincial secretary. As a further sign of the Conservatives' commitment to non-sectarianism, in 1863, after a 20-year hiatus, Dalhousie College was re-opened as a non-denominational institution of higher learning. Johnston retired from politics in May 1864 when he was appointed as a judge, and Tupper was chosen as his successor as premier of Nova Scotia.
Premier of Nova Scotia, 1864–1867
Tupper introduced ambitious education legislation in 1864 creating a system of state-subsidized common schools. In 1865 he introduced a bill providing for compulsory local taxation to fund these schools. Although these public schools were non-denominational (which resulted in Protestants sharply criticizing Tupper), they did include a program of Christian education. However, many Protestants, particularly fellow Baptists, felt that Tupper had sold them out. To regain their trust he appointed Baptist educator Theodore Harding Rand as Nova Scotia's first superintendent of education. This raised concern among Catholics, led by Thomas-Louis Connolly, Archbishop of Halifax, who demanded state-funded Catholic schools. Tupper reached a compromise with Archbishop Connolly whereby Catholic-run schools could receive public funding, so long as they provided their religious instruction after hours.
Making good on his promise for expanded railroad construction, in 1864 Tupper appointed Sandford Fleming as the chief engineer of the Nova Scotia Railway in order to expand the line from Truro to Pictou Landing. In January 1866 he awarded Fleming a contract to complete the line after local contractors proved too slow. Though this decision was controversial, it did result in the line's being completed by May 1867. A second proposed line, from Annapolis Royal to Windsor initially faltered, but was eventually completed in 1869 by the privately owned Windsor & Annapolis Railway.
Tupper's role in securing Canadian Confederation
In the run-up to the 1859 Nova Scotia election, Tupper had been unwilling to commit to the idea of a union with the other British North American colonies. By 1860, however, he had reconsidered his position. Tupper outlined his changed position in a lecture delivered at Saint John, New Brunswick, entitled "The Political Condition of British North America". The title of the lecture was a homage to Lord Durham's 1838 Report on the Affairs of British North America and assessed the condition of British North America in the two decades following Lord Durham's famous report. Although Tupper was interested in the potential economic consequences of a union with the other colonies, the bulk of his lecture addressed the place of British North America within the wider British Empire. Having been convinced by his 1858 trip to London that British politicians were unwilling to pay attention to small colonies such as Nova Scotia, Tupper argued that Nova Scotia and the other Maritime colonies "could never hope to occupy a position of influence or importance except in connection with their larger sister Canada". Tupper therefore proposed to create a "British America", which "stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, would in a few years exhibit to the world a great and powerful organization, with British Institutions, British sympathies, and British feelings, bound indissolubly to the throne of England".
Charlottetown Conference, September 1864
With the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Tupper worried that a victorious North would turn northward and conquer the British North American provinces. This caused him to redouble his commitment to union, which he now saw as essential to protecting the British colonies against American aggression. Since he thought that full union among the British North American colonies would be unachievable for many years, on March 28, 1864, Tupper instead proposed a Maritime Union which would unite the Maritime provinces in advance of a projected future union with the Province of Canada. A conference to discuss the proposed union of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island was scheduled to be held in Charlottetown in September 1864.
Tupper was pleasantly surprised when the Premier of the Province of Canada, John A. Macdonald, asked to be allowed to attend the Charlottetown Conference. The Conference, which was co-chaired by Tupper and New Brunswick Premier Samuel Leonard Tilley, welcomed the Canadian delegation and asked them to join the conference. The conference proved to be a smashing success, and resulted in an agreement-in-principle to form a union of the four colonies.
Quebec Conference, October 1864
The Quebec Conference was held on October 10, as a follow-up to the Charlottetown Conference, with Newfoundland only attending to observe. Tupper headed the Nova Scotia delegation to the Quebec Conference. He supported a legislative union of the colonies (which would mean that there would be only one legislature for the united colonies). However, the French Canadian delegates to the conference, notably George-Étienne Cartier and Hector-Louis Langevin, strongly opposed the idea of a legislative union. Tupper threw his weight behind Macdonald's proposal for a federal union, which would see each colony retain its own legislature, with a central legislature in charge of common interests. Tupper argued in favour of a strong central government as a second best to a pure legislative union. He felt, however, that the local legislatures should retain the ability to levy duties on their natural resources.
Concerned that a united legislature would be dominated by the Province of Canada, Tupper pushed for regional representation in the upper house of the confederated colonies (a goal which would be achieved in the makeup of the Senate of Canada).
On the topic of which level of government would control customs in the union, Tupper ultimately agreed to accept the formula by which the federal government controlled customs in exchange for an annual subsidy of 80 cents a year for each Nova Scotian. This deal was ultimately not good for Nova Scotia, which had historically received most of its government revenue from customs, and as a result, Nova Scotia entered Confederation with a deficit.
Aftermath of the Quebec Conference
Although Tupper had given up much at the Quebec Conference, he thought that he would be able to convince Nova Scotians that the deal he negotiated was in some good for Nova Scotia. He was therefore surprised when the deal he had negotiated at Quebec was roundly criticized by Nova Scotians: the Opposition Leader Adams George Archibald was the only member of the Liberal caucus to support Confederation. Former premier Joseph Howe now organized an Anti-Confederation Party and anti-Confederation sentiments were so strong that Tupper decided to postpone a vote of the legislature on the question of Confederation for a full year. Tupper now organized supporters of Confederation into a Confederation Party to push for the union.
In April 1866, Tupper secured a motion of the Nova Scotia legislature in favour of union by promising that he would renegotiate the Seventy-two Resolutions at the upcoming conference in London.
London Conference, 1866
Joseph Howe had begun a pamphlet campaign in the UK to turn British public opinion against the proposed union. Therefore, when Tupper arrived in the UK, he immediately initiated a campaign of pamphlets and letters to the editor designed to refute Howe's assertions.
Although Tupper did attempt to renegotiate the 72 Resolutions as he had promised, he was ineffective in securing any major changes. The only major change agreed to at the London Conference arguably did not benefit Nova Scotia – responsibility for the fisheries, which was going to be a joint federal-provincial responsibility under the Quebec agreement, became solely a federal concern.
The final push for Confederation
Following passage of the British North America Act in the wake of the London Conference, Tupper returned to Nova Scotia to undertake preparations for the union, which came into existence on July 1, 1867, and on July 4, Tupper turned over responsibility for the government of Nova Scotia to Hiram Blanchard.
In honour of the role he had played in securing Confederation, Tupper was made a Companion in The Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1867. He was now entitled to use the postnomial letters "CB".
Career in the Parliament of Canada, 1867–1884
Fighting the Anti-Confederates, 1867–1869
The first elections for the new House of Commons of Canada were held in August–September 1867. Tupper ran as a member for the new federal riding of Cumberland and won his seat. However, he was the only pro-Confederation candidate to win a seat from Nova Scotia in the 1st Canadian Parliament, with Joseph Howe and the Anti-Confederates winning every other seat. As an ally of John A. Macdonald and the Liberal-Conservative Party, it was widely believed that Tupper would have a place in the first Cabinet of Canada. However, when Macdonald ran into difficulties in organizing this cabinet, Tupper stepped aside in favour of Edward Kenny. Instead, Tupper set up a medical practice in Ottawa and was elected as the first president of the new Canadian Medical Association, a position he held until 1870.
In the November 1867 provincial elections in Nova Scotia, the pro-Confederation Hiram Blanchard was defeated by the leader of the Anti-Confederation Party, William Annand. Given the unpopularity of Confederation within Nova Scotia, Joseph Howe traveled to London in 1868 to attempt to persuade the British government (headed by the Earl of Derby, and then after February 1868 by Benjamin Disraeli) to allow Nova Scotia to secede from Confederation. Tupper followed Howe to London where he successfully lobbied British politicians against allowing Nova Scotia to secede.
Following his victory in London, Tupper proposed a reconciliation with Howe: in exchange for Howe's agreeing to stop fighting against the union, Tupper and Howe would be allies in the fight to protect Nova Scotia's interests within Confederation. Howe agreed to Tupper's proposal and in January 1869 entered the Canadian cabinet as President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada. With the outbreak of the Red River Rebellion in 1869, Tupper was distressed to find that his daughter Emma's husband was being held hostage by Louis Riel and the rebels. He rushed to the northwest to rescue his son-in-law.
Privy Council president and other Ministry roles, 1870–1874
When Howe's health declined the next year, Tupper finally entered the 1st Canadian Ministry by becoming Privy Council president in June 1870. The next year was dominated by a dispute with the United States regarding US access to the Atlantic fisheries. Tupper thought that the British should restrict American access to these fisheries so that they could negotiate from a position of strength. When Prime Minister Macdonald travelled to represent Canada's interests at the negotiations leading up to the Treaty of Washington (1871), Tupper served as Macdonald's liaison with the federal cabinet.
On January 19, 1872, Tupper's service as Privy Council president ended and he became Minister of Inland Revenue. Tupper led the Nova Scotia campaign for the Liberal-Conservative party during the Canadian federal election of 1872. His efforts paid off when Nova Scotia returned not a single Anti-Confederate Member of Parliament to the 2nd Canadian Parliament, and 20 of Nova Scotia's 21 MPs were Liberal-Conservatives. (The Liberal-Conservative Party changed its name to the Conservative Party in 1873.)
In February 1873, Tupper was shifted from Inland Revenue to become Minister of Customs, and in this position he was successful in having British weights and measures adopted as the uniform standard for the united colonies. He would not hold this post for long, however, as Macdonald's government was rocked by the Pacific Scandal throughout 1873. In November 1873, the 1st Canadian Ministry was forced to resign and was replaced by the 2nd Canadian Ministry headed by Liberal Alexander Mackenzie.
Years in Opposition, 1874–1878
Tupper had not been involved in the Pacific Scandal, but he nevertheless continued to support Macdonald and his Conservative colleagues both before and after the 1874 election. The 1874 election was disastrous for those Conservatives, and in Nova Scotia, Tupper was one of only two Conservative MPs returned to the 3rd Canadian Parliament.
Though Macdonald stayed on as Conservative leader, Tupper now assumed a more prominent role in the Conservative Party and was widely seen as Macdonald's heir apparent. He led Conservative attacks on the Mackenzie government throughout the 3rd Parliament. The Mackenzie government attempted to negotiate a new free trade agreement with the United States to replace the Canadian–American Reciprocity Treaty which the U.S. had abrogated in 1864. When Mackenzie proved unable to achieve reciprocity, Tupper began shifting toward protectionism and became a proponent of the National Policy which became a part of the Conservative platform in 1876. The sincerity of Tupper's conversion to the protectionist cause was doubted at the time, however: according to one apocryphal story, when Tupper came to the 1876 debate on Finance Minister Richard John Cartwright's budget, he was prepared to advocate free trade if Cartwright had announced that the Liberals had shifted their position and were now supporting protectionism.
Tupper was also deeply critical of Mackenzie's approach to railways, arguing that completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which would link British Columbia (which entered Confederation in 1871) with the rest of Canada, should be a stronger government priority than it was for Mackenzie. This position also became an integral part of the Conservative platform. As on previous occasions when he was not in cabinet, Tupper was active in practicing medicine during the 1874–78 stint in Opposition, though he was dedicating less and less of his time to medicine during this period. Tupper was a councillor of the Oxford Military College in Cowley and Oxford, Oxfordshire from 1876 to 1896.
Minister of Public Works, 1878–1879
During the 1878 election Tupper again led the Conservative campaign in Nova Scotia. The Conservatives under Macdonald won a resounding majority in the election, in the process capturing 16 of Nova Scotia's 21 seats in the 4th Canadian Parliament.
With the formation of the 3rd Canadian Ministry on October 17, 1878, Tupper became Minister of Public Works. His top priority was completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which he saw as "an Imperial Highway across the Continent of America entirely on British soil". This marked a shift in Tupper's position: although he had long argued that completion of the railway should be a major government priority, while Tupper was in Opposition, he argued that the railway should be privately constructed; he now argued that the railway ought to be completed as a public work, partly because he believed that the private sector could not complete the railroad given the recession which gripped the country throughout the 1870s.
Minister of Railways and Canals, 1879–1884
In May 1879, Macdonald decided that completion of the railway was such a priority that he created a new ministry to focus on railways and canals, and Tupper became Canada's first Minister of Railways and Canals. Tupper's motto as Minister of Railways and Canals was "Develop our resources". He stated "I have always supposed that the great object, in every country, and especially in a new country, was to draw as [many] capitalists into it as possible." Tupper traveled to London in summer 1879 to attempt to persuade the British government (then headed by the Earl of Beaconsfield in his second term as prime minister) to guarantee a bond sale to be used to construct the railway. He was not successful, though he did manage to purchase 50,000 tons of steel rails at a bargain price. Tupper's old friend Sandford Fleming oversaw the railway construction, but his inability to keep costs down led to political controversy, and Tupper was forced to remove Fleming as chief engineer in May 1880.
1879 also saw Tupper made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, and thus entitled to use the postnominal letters "KCMG". In 1880, George Stephen approached Tupper on behalf of a syndicate and asked to be allowed to take over construction of the railway. Convinced that Stephen's syndicate was up to the task, Tupper convinced the cabinet to back the plan at a meeting in June 1880 and, together with Macdonald, negotiated a contract with the syndicate in October. The syndicate successfully created the Canadian Pacific Railway in February 1881 and assumed construction of the railway shortly thereafter. In the following years, Tupper was a vocal supporter of the CPR during its competition with the Grand Trunk Railway. In December 1883 he worked out a rescue plan for the CPR after it faced financial difficulties and persuaded his party and Parliament to accept the plan.
In addition to his support for completion of the CPR, Tupper also actively managed the existing railways in the colonies. Shortly after becoming minister in 1879, he forced the Intercolonial Railway to lower its freight rates, which had been a major grievance of Maritime business interests. He then forced the Grand Trunk Railway to sell its Rivière-du-Loup line to the Intercolonial Railway to complete a link between Halifax and the St. Lawrence Seaway. He also refused to give the CPR running rights over the Intercolonial Railway, though he did convince the CPR to build the Short Line from Halifax to Saint John. In terms of canals, Tupper's time as Minister of Railways and Canals is notable for large expenditures on widening the Welland Canal and deepening the Saint Lawrence Seaway.