Studies in American History 
195 
received the royal assent on March 29, 1867, and became 
operative three months later — on July 1, which was thereafter 
celebrated as “Dominion Day”. 
The United States emerged from the Civil War with an 
optimistic consciousness and courageous confidence born of 
experience. Confronted by grave foreign complications, she 
did not seek to evade or postpone the settlement of accounts. 
She began at once to rid the continent of the most prominent 
sources of future troubles. She drove France from Mexico. 
She was determined to secure indemnity from England for 
damages to American commerce committed by English-built 
Confederate cruisers during the war. The danger of war 
was foreseen, and the idea of securing Canada as an indem- 
nity for past wrongs, or to prevent future trouble, was con- 
sidered.^^ 
The plan of hastening and compelling the annexation of 
Canada by the expiration and non-renewal of the reciprocity 
treaty was also advocated by many public men in the United 
States who thought that in a few years Canada would become 
tired of “remaining in the cold” and be constrained by com- 
mercial reasons to knock for admission into the American 
Union.^'^ On February 6, 1866, when Mr. Galt (of Canada) 
before the ways and means committee at Washington suggested 
the policy of neutralizing the boundary waters. Senator 
Morrill said, “That will have to be postponed until you, gentle- 
men, assume your seats here.”-^® On March 28, 1866, the 
House requested information in regard to commercial rela- 
tions with British America for the year 1864-1865. James 
W. Taylor, who as special agent was asked by Secretary Mc- 
Cullough to furnish a report, sent his views from St. Paul 
under date of June 6. Referring to the slow but sure Ameri- 
canization of the Red River region, he predicted a much more 
rapid Americanization of the Saskatchewan region by the 
camps of the treasure-seekers from Montana, which had re- 
cently (in 1864) been organized as a separate territory as 
a result of the settlements following the rich gold discoveries 
of 1861 and thereafter. Stating that overtures should be 
Callahan, Neutrality of the American Lakes. 
35 New York Times, May 21, May 24, and July 22, 1865 : Nation, August 3, 1866 ; 
Chicago Tribune, January 6, 1866 ; also, an article in London Times, May 11, 1866, on 
“Proposal to Purchase Canada”. The construction of the Noi’thern Pacific Railway was 
also urged as a valuable politic measure in relation to Canada, {Congressional Globe, 
39-1, Appendix, 195, April 25, 1866.) 
3® Watkins, Canada and tiie States, 425. 
