Confederation’s advocates and
opponents used the press to present a wide array of arguments in support of their various positions, often appealing to local concerns. One of the best anti-confederation satirists was Jean-Baptiste
CÔTÉ, a wood engraver, and caricaturist in Quebec City:
“This humorous paper [La Scie] denounced, among other things, the proposal for confederation, seeing it as national suicide for French Canadians. The ‘crafty types,’ those ‘men with an elastic conscience,’ were traitors who had sold out for money. Politicians George-Étienne Cartier*, Joseph-Édouard Cauchon*, Hector-Louis Langevin, and George Brown*, as well as journalists François Évanturel*, Hector Fabre, and Hector Berthelot* were the favourite targets of La Scie. … Among the most famous [caricatures was that of] La Confédération (2 Dec. 1864), depicted as a dragon with seven heads, being ridden by Brown while Cartier and Cauchon sprinkle incense on it, and preparing to swallow a sheep (Quebec).”
For more information on opinions published in the press concerning the project of a union of the colonies, we invite you to consult the following biographies:
