The capacity to judge : public opinion and deliberative democracy in Upper Canada, 1791-1854

Arguing that voluntary associations and the press created a reading public capable of reasoning on matters of state, McNairn traces the emergence of 'public opinion' as a new form of authority in mid-19th century Upper Canada.

By the mid-nineteenth-century, 'public opinion' emerged as a new form of authority in Upper Canada. Contemporaries came to believe that the best answer to common questions arose from deliberation among private individuals. Older conceptions of government, sociability and the relationship between knowledge and power were jettisoned for a new image of Upper Canada as a deliberative democracy.

The Capacity to Judge asks what made widespread public debate about common issues possible; why it came to be seen as desirable, even essential; and how it was integrated into Upper Canada's constitutional and social self-image. Drawing on an international body of literature indebted to Jürgen Habermas and based on extensive research in period newspapers, Jeffrey L. McNairn argues that voluntary associations and the press created a reading public capable of reasoning on matters of state, and that the dynamics of political conflict invested that public with final authority. He traces how contemporaries grappled with the consequences as they scrutinized parliamentary, republican and radical options for institutionalizing public opinion. The Capacity to Judge concludes with a case study of deliberative democracy in action that serves as a sustained defense of the type of intellectual history the book as a whole exemplifies.

Contents 7 Preface 9 Introduction 13 Part One. Creating a Public 33 Chapter I: ‘The very image and transcript’: Transplanting the Ancient Constitution 33 Chapter II. Experiments in Democratic Sociability: The Political Significance of Voluntary Associations 75 Chapter III. ‘The most powerful engine of the human mind’: The Press and Its Readers 128 Chapter IV. ‘A united public opinion that must be obeyed’: The Politics of Public Opinion 188 Part Two. Debating the Alternatives 247 Chapter V. ‘We are become in every thing but name, a Republic’: The Metcalfe Crisis and the Demise of Mixed Monarchy 247 Chapter VI. Publius of the North: Tory Republicanism and the American Constitution 284 Chapter VII. Mistaking ‘the shadow for the substance’: Laying the Foundations of Parliamentary Government 316 Chapter VIII. ‘Its success ... must depend on the force of public opinion’: Primogeniture and the Necessity of Debate 372 Conclusions and Speculative Questions 423 Bibliography of Printed Primary Sources 451 Illustration Credits 461 Index 463 "The Capacity to Judge asks what made widespread public debate about common issues possible; why it came to be seen as desirable, even essential; and how it was integrated into Upper Canada's constitutional and social self-image. Drawing on an international body of literature indebted to Jurgen Habermas as well as extensive research in period newspapers, Jeffrey L. McNairn argues that voluntary associations and the press created a reading public capable of reasoning on matters of state, and that the dynamics of political conflict invested that public with final authority. He traces how contemporaries grappled with the consequences as they scrutinized parliamentary, republican, and radical options for institutionalizing public opinion. The Capacity to Judge concludes with a case study of deliberative democracy in action that serves as a sustained defence of the type of intellectual history the book as a whole exemplifies."--Résumé de l'éditeur "The Capacity to Judge asks what made widespread public debate about common issues possible; why it came to be seen as desirable, even essential; and how it was integrated into Upper Canada's constitutional and social self-image. Drawing on an international body of literature indebted to Jurgen Habermas as well as extensive research in period newspapers, Jeffrey L. McNairn argues that voluntary associations and the press created a reading public capable of reasoning on matters of state, and that the dynamics of political conflict invested that public with final authority. He traces how contemporaries grappled with the consequences as they scrutinized parliamentary, republican, and radical options for institutionalizing public opinion. The Capacity to Judge concludes with a case study of deliberative democracy in action that serves as a sustained defence of the type of intellectual history the book as a whole exemplifies."--Jacket