MACDONALD, SIR JOHN ALEXANDER (1815 1891), first premier of the dominion of Canada, was born in Glasgow on Jan. II, 1815, the third child of Hugh Macdonald (d. 1841), a native of Sutherlandshire. The family emigrated to Canada in 182o, settling first at Kingston, Ontario. At the age of fifteen Macdonald entered a law office; he was called to the bar in 1836, and began practice in Kingston, with immediate success.
In 1844 Macdonald was elected to the provincial assembly as Conservative member for Kingston. A sentence in his first address to the electors strikes the dominant note of his public career: "I therefore need scarcely state my firm belief that the prosperity of Canada depends upon its permanent con nection with the mother country, and that I shall resist to the utmost any attempt (from whatever quarter it may come) which may tend to weaken that union." In 1847 he was made receiver general with a seat in the executive council.
One of the first acts of the Reform government which suc ceeded that of which Macdonald was a member was to pass the Rebellion Losses Bill. In the controversy on the British con nection which followed that event, Macdonald helped to found a British-American league, having for its object the confedera tion of all the provinces, the strengthening of the connection with the mother country, and the adoption of a national commercial policy. He remained in opposition from 1848 till 1854, holding together under difficult circumstances an unpopular party with which he was not entirely in sympathy. The two great political issues of the time were the secularization of the clergy reserves in Ontario, and the abolition of seigniorial tenure in Quebec. Both of these reforms Macdonald long opposed, but when successive elections had proved that they were supported by public opinion, he brought about a coalition of Conservatives and moderate reformers for the purpose of carrying them. Out of this coalition was gradually developed the Liberal-conservative party, of which until his death Macdonald continued to be the most considerable figure, and which for more than forty years largely moulded the history of Canada. From 1854 to 1857 he was attorney-general of Upper Canada, and then, on the retirement of Colonel Tache, he became prime minister.
At this critical period of Canadian history a proposal was made for a coalition of parties in order to carry out a broad scheme of British-American confederation. Macdonald, at the head of a representative delegation from Ontario and Quebec, met the public men of the maritime provinces in conference at Charlotte town in 1864, and the outline of confederation then agreed upon was filled out in detail at a conference held at Quebec soon after wards. The actual framing of the British North America Act, into which the resolutions of these two conferences were con solidated, was carried out at the Westminster Palace Hotel in London, during December 1866 and January 1867, by delegates from all the provinces working in co-operation with the law officers of the Crown, under the presidency of Lord Carnarvon, then secretary of state for the colonies. Macdonald took the leading part in all these discussions, and he thus naturally became the first premier of the Dominion. He was made a K.C.B. in recognition of his services to the empire.
The difficulties of organizing the new Dominion, the questions arising from diverse claims and the Various conditions of the country, called for infinite tact and resource on the part of the premier. Federal rights were to be safeguarded against the provincial governments, always jealous of their privileges. The pledge made at confederation with regard to the building of the Intercolonial railway to connect the maritime provinces with those of the St. Lawrence was fulfilled. The North-West Terri tories were secured as a part of confederated Canada by the purchase of the rights of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the establishment of Manitoba as a province in 187o. Canada's interests were protected during the negotiations which ended in the Treaty of Washington in 1871, and in which Macdonald took a leading part as one of the British delegates. In this year British Columbia entered the confederation, one of the provisions of union being that a transcontinental railroad should be built within ten years. This was declared by the opposition to be impossible. It was possible only to a leader of indomitable will. Charges of bribery against the government in connection with the contract for the building of this line led to the resignation of the cabinet in 1874, and for four years Macdonald was in opposition.
During the summer of 1876 he travelled through Ontario addressing the people on the subject of a commercial system look ing to the protection of native industries. This was the celebrated "National Policy," which had been in his thoughts as long ago as the formation of the British-American League in 185o. The government of Alexander Mackenzie refused to consider a pro tection policy, and determined to adhere to Free Trade, with a tariff for revenue only. On these strongly defined issues the two parties appealed to the people in 1878. The Liberal party was almost swept away, and Macdonald, on his return to power, put his policy into effect with a thoroughness that commanded the admiration even of his opponents, who, after long resistance, adopted it on their accession to office in 1896. He also undertook the immediate construction of the Canadian Pacific railway, which had been postponed by the former government. The line was begun in 188o, and finished in November 1885-an achieve ment which Macdonald ranked among his greatest triumphs.
During the remaining years of his life his efforts at administra tion were directed mainly towards the organization and develop ment of the great North-West. From 1878 until his death in 1891 Macdonald retained his position as premier of Canada, and his history is practically that of Canada (q.v.). For forty-six years of a stormy political life he remained true to the cardinal policy that he had announced to the electors of Kingston in "A British subject I was born; a British subject I will die," says his last political manifesto to the people of the Dominion. At his advanced age the anxiety and excitement of the contested election of 1891 proved too great. On May 29, he suffered a stroke of paralysis and died on June 6.