Richard John Uniacke - Confederation

Confederation

Uniake was the first public figure to advocate for the Confederation of Canada, 51 years before it became a reality. He was afraid that the revolutionary “heresies” of atheism and democracy spreading to the “hoards of semi-barbarians” in the United States would engulf New England and then British North America. He wanted to save the colonies from republicanism, atheism, and democracy. As a result, Uniacke advocated unions of the Maritime colonies and of the Canadas, beginning in 1806 when he presented a memoir on British North America at the Colonial Office. In 1826 Uniacke brought his “Observations on the British colonies in North America with a proposal for the confederation of the whole under one government” to the Colonial Office. The “Observations” read in parts like the British North America Act of 40 years later.