Canadian Prime Ministers II: Sir John Abbott, Sir John Thompson, and Sir MacKenzie Bowell

4.  Sir John Abbott (1891-1892) Liberal-Conservative.

Abbott was the first Canadian prime minister to actually be born in Canada.  He got his law degree from McGill College in Montreal.  He successfully defended fourteen American Confederate Agents from extradition, who had made a raid from Canada on Burlington, VT which increased tensions with the US in the immediate post civil war period.  He was a successful Montreal corporate lawyer and as a young man was in favor of Canada joining the United States.  
In 1865 he changed parties to join the conservatives. He was tainted by the Pacific Scandal and was defeated along with MacDonald's party.   He became Prime Minister on McDonald's death in 1891.  Although the original candidate was John Thompson, his Catholic faith led to Abbott's appointment instead.   Thompson eventually succeeded him anyway, after Abbott, already suffering from a brain tumor and in failing health, had to leave office in 1892.  


5. Sir John Thompson (1892-1894) Liberal-Conservative.

Thompson was of Irish descent and came from Nova Scotia.  He served in various offices in that province before becoming Prime Minister in 1892.  He was one of the founders of the Dalhousie Law School. 

Originally a Methodist, he converted to Catholicism on his marriage to Anne Affleck.   He gained acclaim for his hard line against the followers of Louis Riel, though he was passed over for Prime Minister the first time because of his Catholicism. 

As PM he almost succeeded in wooing Newfoundland and persuading it to join the confederation, but it held out until 1949.    In 1893 he succeeded in an international arbitration over the dispute with the US over its exclusive claim to the seal harvest in the Bering Sea, winning rights for Canadian sealers.  He died while at a conference in London at the rather early age of 49.

6. Sir MacKenzie Bowell (1894-1896)
Liberal-Conservative.

The main problems confronting MacKenzie Bowell were the religious and ethnic tensions in Manitoba and in Quebec.  As the growing English-Canadian and Protestant population had grown in the province, the province of Manitoba eliminated public funding of Catholic and mainly French schools in the province.  This led to a crisis in Bowell's government which was split between those who favored removing French Catholic schools and those who believed in some kind of compromise with Bowell in the latter group.  His inability to act on the matter brought his government down and his replacement by Sir Charles Tupper in 1896.