Background
John Sandfield Macdonald was born on December 12, 1812, at St. Raphael West, Glengarry County, to Alexander and Nancy Macdonald, who were Roman Catholic Highland Scots.
John Sandfield Macdonald was born on December 12, 1812, at St. Raphael West, Glengarry County, to Alexander and Nancy Macdonald, who were Roman Catholic Highland Scots.
In 1832, John Macdonald entered the grammar school at Cornwall, taught by Dr. Urquhart, and so diligently did he apply himself that at the end of two years he was ahead of all his school fellows.
He was called to the bar in 1840 and opened a practice in Cornwall. In 1841 he was elected to represent Glengarry in the Legislative Assembly of Canada, and he sat for this constituency continuously until 1857, and from 1857 to 1867 he sat for Cornwall. His course in politics was independent and somewhat erratic. He leaned at first toward Conservatism, but in 1844 he sided with the Reform leaders against Sir Charles Metcalfe, and he was henceforth rated as a Reformer. From 1849 to 1851 he was solicitor-general in the second Baldwin-Lafontaine administration; but he was not included in the Hincks-Morin government, and was relegated in 1852-1854 to the position of speaker of the Assembly. He opposed the MacNab-Touch 6 and succeeding Liberal-Conservative governments; but, being a Roman Catholic and an advocate of the "double-majority" principle, he was not in harmony with the wing of the Reform party led by George Brown. He was included in 1858 in the short-lived Brown-Dorion administration as attorney-general west; but this was merely a temporary rapprochement, and when Sandfield Macdonald was invited to form a government in 1862, George Brown was not a member of it. As first minister in the Macdonald-Sicotte government (1862-1863), and in the Macdonald-Dorion government (1863-1864), he carried on the administration with considerable adroitness under difficult circumstances; but his defeat in March, 1864, and the subsequent defeat of the Taché-Macdonald ministry in June, 1864, brought about the deadlock from which issued Confederation. Sandfield Macdonald opposed Confederation, and fought against it vigorously; but once it had become an accomplished fact, he accepted it, and in 1867 he undertook the prime ministry of Ontario. He formed in Ontario a coalition government, known as "the Patent Combination"; and for over four years he administered the affairs of the province with great prudence and economy. At the end of 1871, however, he was defeated in the House by the Liberals under Edward Blake, and resigned. His health, never robust, had given way; and he died soon afterwards at Cornwall, Ontario, on June 1, 1872.
In 1840 John Sandfield Macdonald married Marie Christine Waggaman. The couple had three sons and five daughters.
Marie Christine MacDonald (Waggaman) was a daughter of George Augustus Waggaman, a former Whig senator from Louisiana.
Alexander Francis MacDonald was a politician and railway contractor.
Donald Alexander MacDonald was a Canadian politician.
Ranald Sandfield MacDonald was a postmaster.
