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

grantor: University of TorontoThis thesis analyzes the emergence of 'public opinion' as a new form of authority in Upper Canada from the colony's inception in 1791 until 1854. The original understanding of the colony's constitution assumed that the vast majority of Upper Canadians were not sufficiently capable of judging the common good to govern alone. By the 1820's and 1830's, an increasing range of commentators argued that authoritative decisions about the common good could and should be generated by critical discussion among private persons outside the control of traditional institutions or elites. These decisions were 'public opinion.' Debates about the nature and power of public opinion were not only matters of political rhetoric, but drew strength from people's experience of concrete social, economic and cultural changes. In particular, the quantity and distribution of printed texts, the nature and number of sites for reading and discussing those texts, and institutions that fostered certain skills and norms of behaviour lent credence to the concept of public opinion. Finally, the thesis argues that constitutional debate in the 1840's and 1850's revolved around how to integrate 'public opinion' into the province's social and constitutional self-understanding. After several alternatives were canvassed, deliberative democracy in Upper Canada, whereby the province's public was deemed capable of judging the collective good, took the form of parliamentary government.Ph.D