THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Howe was too shrewd a politician to have harbored any very great 
hopes of defeating the Confederation bill, after he had had an oppor- 
tunity of studying the situation in England. Nevertheless he fought 
it with undiminished energy to the ‘end. Confederation being then 
an accomplished fact, no one could fairly blame him if he decided to 
accept gracefully the situation. Howe, however, was essentially a 
fighter. He had no sooner returned to Nova Scotia than he threw 
himself into the local campaign to defeat Tupper and the Confederate 
party in Nova Scotia. The elections were held in September, and the 
Anti-Confederates swept the province, carrying thirty-six of the thirty- 
eight seats. In the elections for the new Dominion Parliament, eight- 
een out of nineteen constituencies returned Anti-Confederates. 
Howe carried Hants by an overwhelming majority, and led his almost 
solid phalanx of Anti-Confederates to Ottawa. The only fly in his 
ointment was the fact that his old enemy Tupper had been re-elected 
in Cumberland. 
The opponents of Confederation having captured Nova Scotia, 
decided to agitate for a repeal of the British North America Act 
so far as their province was concerned. An address was adopted by 
the Assembly praying His Majesty to grant repeal; and at a public 
meeting held in Temperance Hall, Halifax, on January 13th, 1868, 
the following Resolutions were adopted: 
“Whereas, owing to the great diversity of interests and feeling 
between the Provinces of Nova Scotia and Canada, the public senti- 
ment of the people of Nova Scotia is distinctly opposed to the Con- — 
federation of this Province with the Province of Canada. 
And whereas, the people of Nova Scotia never did become assent- 
ing parties to the Act of Union, the Legislature which sanctioned such 
Act having done so in direct opposition to the well understood wishes 
of the People, and by assuming a power never entrusted to them. 
Therefore Resolved That in the opinion of this meeting the Act 
of Union, as passed and made law by the Imperial Parliament, has no 
_ claims upon the Loyalty of the People of Nova Scotia, any obedience 
yielded to such Act, being a matter of coercion and not given with the 
free assent of a free people. 
And be it also Resolved That this meeting hails with much satis- 
faction the action of the members of the Nova Scotia Legislature and 
also of the Nova Scotia Members of the Dominion House of Commons 
who have signified their determination to use all constitutional means 
to bring about a Repeal of so much of the Act of Union as refers to 
the Province of Nova Scotia—and also express the hope that the 
Legislature of this Province immediately after assembling for despatch 
