Background
William Lyon Mackenzie was born on March 12, 1795, at Springfield, Dundee, United Kingdom, the only child of Daniel Mackenzie, a weaver, and Elizabeth Chambers.
https://www.amazon.com/Selected-Writings-William-Mackenzie-1824-1837/dp/B000KZ778S/ref=sr_1_13?dchild=1&keywords=William+Lyon+Mackenzie&qid=1604942305&sr=8-13
1960
William Lyon Mackenzie was born on March 12, 1795, at Springfield, Dundee, United Kingdom, the only child of Daniel Mackenzie, a weaver, and Elizabeth Chambers.
Mackenzie entered the Dundee parish school at age five, with the help of a bursary. He was subsequently taught at Mr. Adie's school but proved difficult to discipline. With the meticulousness which later made his filing system such a weapon against opponents, he listed by year and type the 958 books he read from 1806 to 1820. At 15 he was the youngest member of the commercial newsroom of a local newspaper. He also belonged to a scientific society where he met Edward Lesslie. Lesslie and his son James were to be Mackenzie's patrons throughout his life.
After completing his formal education, William Mackenzie entered the business, becoming in 1817 managing clerk of a canal company in Wiltshire.
In 1820 Mackenzie emigrated to British North America. In 1824 he began to publish the Colonial Advocate and before the year was out had moved its place of publication from Queenston to York (Toronto). Through his newspaper, he attacked the men of privilege and power within the colony so vigorously that on June 8, 1826, a number of young Tories smashed his printing press. This was an error on the part of the ruling clique, known as the Family Compact, for it publicized Mackenzie, his paper, and his reformist views more fully than he himself had been able to accomplish.
In 1828 Mackenzie won election to the Upper Canada Legislative Assembly for the county of York and was reelected in 1830. In 1831 he attacked the government so vigorously that he was expelled from the Assembly. He was repeatedly reelected and expelled, until in 1834 the Reform party won a majority of the Assembly seats, enabling Mackenzie to take his place once more. In 1835 he was elected to be the first mayor of the newly incorporated city of Toronto.
Mackenzie was the driving force in compiling the "Seventh Report of the Committee on Grievances," issued in 1835, which detailed the reform case in the province. In November 1835 Mackenzie visited Louis-Joseph Papineau and strengthened the alliance between the reformist groups in the two Canadas.
In the general election of 1836, Mackenzie lost his seat, and the Reformers their control of the Assembly. He was outraged at the open politicking of the new governor, Sir Francis Bond Head, and at the general intransigence of the Tory faction. Mackenzie became the center of a group of men advocating radical measures. In July 1837 a vigilance committee was appointed under his direction with the task of establishing centers for possible future revolution. Mackenzie and his followers moved toward open rebellion until, on November 25, 1837, he proclaimed a provisional government.
It was not Mackenzie and his followers who moved to the attack, however, but rather the Tories, led by Governor Bond Head. On December 7, 1837, the rebels were attacked by the loyal Tory forces; the rebels were soon in disarray, and Mackenzie fled to the United States. He proclaimed a provisional government from the sanctuary of Navy Island in the Niagara River but soon withdrew. In 1839 he was arrested by American authorities and sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment for breaking the neutrality laws.
For the next decade, Mackenzie supported his family through journalism and, for a time, employment in the New York Customs House. In 1849 the Legislative Assembly of the United Province of Canada passed a general amnesty, and Mackenzie returned to Canada. In 1850 he was elected to the legislature for the Riding of Haldimand and sat in the Assembly until his retirement from politics in 1858. But he little understood responsible government and the institutions that had been fashioned to make that principle operative in the political life of the United Province of Canada, and he played no leading part in its political life henceforth, as he had prior to rebellion in 1837.
Though Mackenzie had failed to bring about those reforms which he had believed desirable, his actions and the abortive rebellion he led acted as catalysts for change, and much of the subsequent political history of the Canadas was influenced by what he had written and done. He died at Toronto on August 28, 1861.
Mackenzie's legacy has been fraught with controversy, and he has been hailed as both a political failure and a political hero. His critics describe him as an ineffectual mayor, unable to cope with Toronto's debt or its divided council. Detractors cite his lack of coherent leadership as a fatal flaw.
Yet despite the failed rebellion of 1837, Mackenzie helped to define the necessary elements of a democratic society in a fledgling nation. In his 2002 biography of Mackenzie, former Toronto Mayor John Sewell argues that Mackenzie's radical democratic ideals, including a fair election process, open public discussion of political issues, and the public's involvement in the democratic process, remain relevant in the 21st century as they encourage greater public participation in politics. However, reports of Mackenzie's eccentricities, such as his fiery temper, short stature and red wig, have at times detracted from his political legacy as a leader in the struggle for a responsible and responsive government in Upper Canada.
In Canadian literature, Mackenzie has appeared as a character in Dennis Lee's poem 1838 and in Rick Salutin's 1976 play entitled 1837: The Farmers' Revolt produced by Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto.
Mackenzie was a Presbyterian. He espoused anti-Catholic opinions and criticised the Papacy in the Message in 1859.
Mackenzie's venomous attacks on the local oligarchy brought reprisals in the form of libel suits, threats, and physical assaults, as well as an attack on his printing office in 1826, which left his press wrecked and the type thrown into the lake. Mackenzie’s scathing attacks on his opponents also led to his repeated expulsion from the Assembly, although he was continually re-elected by his rural constituents. In 1832 he visited England to present his political supporters' grievances before the imperial government. The sympathetic hearing he received outraged Upper Canadian conservatives. In 1834, when the Reformers won a majority on the newly created Toronto City Council, he was elected its first mayor. At the end of 1834, he was elected to the provincial Parliament again. However, he was defeated at the polls in 1836, and by late fall 1837 an embittered Mackenzie turned his mind to armed revolt.
On December 5, 1837, convinced that he would gain spontaneous support, he led an erratic expedition down Yonge Street towards Toronto. The rebels planned to march to the house of Lieutenant-Governor Sir Francis Bond Head and perhaps City Hall. However, the plan failed due to disorganized leadership and a lack of discipline. As the force neared Toronto it was dispersed by a few shots from loyalist guards. On 7 December, loyalist troops under Head marched north to Montgomery's Tavern and easily defeated the rebels. Mackenzie fled to the US and attempted to continue the rebellion from Navy Island in the Niagara River. He declared a provisional government and issued a proclamation calling for American-style democratic reform. Canadian militia bombarded the island and sank the rebel supply ship Caroline. Fellow rebels Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews were captured and executed for treason after pleading guilty to participating in the rebellion.
Quotations: "The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, nor of any distant authority, but of the people constituting a government suited to their necessities - a constitution contains the principles on which the government shall be established."
In his own day, Mackenzie was distrusted and had difficulty in being elected to any public office. Among other things he knowingly spread falsehoods, misled his followers and espoused vehement anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic opinions.
In 1822, William Mackenzie immigrated to Upper Canada. His mother had chosen for him a wife named Isabel Baxter, who also traveled to Upper Canada. Although William and Isabel were schoolmates, they did not know each other well before meeting in Upper Canada. The couple married on July 1, 1822.
(married 1822)
