Canadian State Trials, Volume III : Political Trials and Security Measures, 1840-1914

The third volume in the __Canadian State Trials__ series examines Canadian legal responses to real or perceived threats to the safety and security of the state from 1840 to 1914, a period of extensive challenges associated with fundamental political and socio-economic change. Contents 5 Foreword 9 Acknowledgments 11 Contributors 13 Abbreviations 17 Introduction: From State Trials to National Security Measures 19 Part One: Fenians 53 1. ‘Stars and Shamrocks Will be Sown’: The Fenian State Trials, 1866–7 53 2. The D’Arcy McGee Affair and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus 103 Part Two: Managing Collective Disorder 141 3. The Tenant League and the Law, 1864–7 141 4. The Trials and Tribulations of Riot Prosecutions: Collective Violence, State Authority, and Criminal Justice in Quebec, 1841–92 179 5. Maintaining Order on the Pacific Railway: The Peace Preservation Act, 1869–85 222 6. Street Railway Strikes, Collective Violence, and the Canadian State, 1886–1914 275 Part Three: The North-West Rebellions 315 7. Treasonous Murder: The Trial of Ambroise Lépine, 1874 315 8. Summary and Incompetent Justice: Legal Responses to the 1885 Crisis 371 9. Another Look at the Riel Trial for Treason 429 10. The White Man Governs: The 1885 Indian Trials 469 Part Four: Securing the Dominion 501 11. ‘High-handed, Impolite, and Empire-breaking Actions’: Radicalism, Anti-Imperialism, and Political Policing in Canada, 1860–1914 501 12. Codification, Public Order, and the Security Provisions of the Canadian Criminal Code, 1892 534 Appendices: Archival Research and Supporting Documents 585 Appendix A. The Sir John A. Macdonald Fonds: Research Strategies and Methodological Issues for Archival Research 585 Appendix B. Archival Sources in Canada for Riel’s Rebellion 594 Appendix C. Supporting Documents 608 Index 641 Publications of the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History 667

The third volume in the Canadian State Trials series examines Canadian legal responses to real or perceived threats to the safety and security of the state from 1840 to 1914, a period of extensive challenges associated with fundamental political and socio-economic change. Trials for treason and related political offences, suspensions of habeas corpus, and other public order and security-related measures, supported by new institutions such as secret policing, are studied in essays by leading scholars in the field.

The book is divided into four parts: trials and related proceedings arising from the Fenian invasions; attempts to regulate large-scale manifestations of public disorder; trials following the North-West Rebellions of 1870 and 1885, including the Riel trial; and the modernization and enforcement of Canada’s national security laws. Building upon the established scholarship of the series, the essays place these legal responses in context, shedding light on the complex and changing relationship between law and politics in Canadian history.