Abolition
The seigneurial system was formally abolished by the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada and assented to by Governor Lord Elgin on 22 June 1854 in An Act for the Abolition of Feudal Rights and Duties in Lower Canada which was brought into effect on 18 December of that year.
The act called for the creation of a special Seigneurial Court composed of all the justices of Lower Canada, which was presented a series of questions concerning the various economic and property rights that abolition would change.
Some of the vestiges of this system of landowning continued into the 20th century as some of the feudal rents continued to be collected. The system was finally abolished when the last residual rents were repurchased through a system of Quebec provincial bonds.
Read more about this topic: Seigneurial System Of New France
Famous quotes containing the word abolition:
“There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“We Abolition Women are turning the world upside down.”
—Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)