A Political Revolution: The Formation of the Coalition Government

The formation of the Coalition government and the announcement of its policy of general federation created an enormous sensation throughout British North America. In his very first meeting with Macdonald and Galt in the St. Louis Hotel, Brown had predicted that people would be scandalized by the unseemly spectacle of such mortal enemies as himself and John A. Macdonald acting together. The storm of comment that broke after the 22nd of June certainly proved him right. The mere fact of the existence of the Coalition was in itself a shock. The policy of British American union, and the acceptance of the 'federal principle' -- now deeply suspect after three years of civil war in the United States -- as the means of achieving it, were equally sensational. In Canada, where the Coalition had the awful appearance of a political revolution, people had first to digest and then recover from this affront to their ingrained partisan feelings.

--Donald Creighton, The Road to Confederation: The Emergence of Canada, 1863-1867, Wynford Project (Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2012), 70.