League of the Maritime Provinces

Executive Officers:
President: Hon. Joseph Howe
Vice Presidents: W.J. Stairs, Esq., Patrick Power, Esq.
Secretaries: Mr William Garvie,
Robt. L. Weatherbee Esq.,
Treasurer: Robt. Boak, Jr, Esq.

The Maritime Provinces of British America now enjoy all the blessings of self-government, controlling their own revenues, forming, controlling and removing their own Cabinets; appointing their own Judges, Councillors, and Public Officers; regulating her own Trade, training their own Militia, and discharging all the duties of loyal British Subjects in due subordination and steadfast allegiance to the Crown.

The people of these Provinces have lived in harmony with each other — have no disputes with neighboring States — no controversies with the Mother Country, have ever been prone to mutual sympathy and protection, and are ready to uphold the honor of the national flag, and the integrity of the Empire.

They are willing to promote well-considered measures for the joint construction of railways, and the establishment of Inter colonial lines of steamers— for the interchange of staple and of domestic manufactures; for the adjustment of a uniform currency; the general extension of Free Trade, and for the arrangement of such measures of mutual defence as shall place, in time of war; all the physical force of the Provinces under the control of the Military and Naval Commanders-in-chief appointed by the Queen.

But they are opposed to rash innovation and revolutionary changes. They are specially opposed to the scheme of Confederation arranged by certain gentlemen at Quebec in 1864, without any authority from the people they profess to represent; and they are equally opposed to the measure now in contemplation, by which it is intended to overthrow the established institutions of these Provinces by an Act of Parliament prepared by a secret committee, without the sanction of the loyal People, whose future it is intended to bind, and whose interests and wishes it is designed, in a most high-handed and unconstitutional manner, to override and disregard.

This League is formed to protect the institutions of the Maritime Provinces from such rash innovation — to assert the right of the people to be consulted before their revenues are swept away; and a distant authority, which they can never influence, is invested with powers of dictation and control which the Queen’s Government, for a quarter of a century, has not pretended to exercise.

The undersigned pledge themselves, each to the other, to protect the Maritime Provinces from radical changes by all lawful means and agencies, and, with this simple end in view, enroll themselves as members of this League.

League of the Maritime Provinces. Executive Officers of the League: President, Hon. Joseph Howe .. [S.l.: s.n., 186?] https://hdl.handle.net/2027/aeu.ark:/13960/t9k37059t