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The general result of the election was favourable to the Hincks-Morin administration. A large part of the interval between the election and the first session of the new parliament was spent by Mr.
Immediately after the prorogation, parliament was dissolved and the Hincks-Morin ministry presented itself to the people, who were now called upon to elect a larger number of representatives under the act passed in 1853. Of the constitutionality of the course pursued by the government in this political crisis, there can now be no doubt.
Were a Lower Canadian summoned, his principal Upper-Canadian colleague was associated with him in the leadership of the Government. Thus Canada had the administrations of Baldwin-LaFontaine, Hincks-Morin, Taché-Macdonald, Macdonald-Cartier, Cartier-Macdonald, and others.
This was the reason why every ministry had its double name the Lafontaine-Baldwin, the Hincks-Morin, the Taché-Macdonald, the Brown-Dorion, the Macdonald-Sicotte. This was the reason why every ministry had its attorney-general east for Lower Canada and its attorney-general west for Upper Canada.
In accordance with its general progressive policy, the Hincks-Morin ministry passed through the legislature an act empowering municipalities in Upper Canada, after the observance of certain formalities, to borrow money for the building of railways by the issue of municipal debentures guaranteed by the provincial government.
Augustin Morin, the reputed author of the Ninety-Two Resolutions, who had spent the winter of 1837-38 in hiding, became the colleague of Francis Hincks in the Hincks-Morin administration. George Étienne Cartier, who had shouldered a musket at St Denis, became the lifelong colleague of Sir John Macdonald and was made a baronet by his sovereign.
The Hincks-Morin ministry was then urged to bring in at once a measure disposing finally of the question, in accordance with the latest imperial act; but, as we have read in a previous chapter, it came to the opinion after anxious deliberation that the existing parliament was not competent to deal with so important a question.
Louis Thomas Drummond, who was attorney-general in both the Hincks-Morin and MacNab-Morin ministries, is deserving of honourable mention in Canadian history for the leading part he took in settling this very perplexing question.
He was defeated in Haldimand by William Lyon Mackenzie, who stood on an advanced Radical platform; and in 1851 his opponent in Kent and Lambton was Malcolm Cameron, a Clear Grit, who had joined the Hincks-Morin government.
He assumed the responsibility and formed the government known in the political history of Canada as the Hincks-Morin ministry; but before we consider its personnel and review its measures, it is necessary to recall the condition of political parties at the time it came into power.
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