Joseph Howe, the Tragic Figure of Confederation

Of all the men who fought against Confederation, and so against Macdonald, Howe was the one Macdonald respected the most. Years later, he told his secretary Joseph Pope that Howe possessed "the most seminal mind" he had ever met. Yet Howe was the tragic figure of Confederation. He opposed it, and lost. The true source of his pain, though, was that he lost his faith in Britain.

--Richard Gwyn, John A: The Man Who Made Us; The Life and Times of John A. Macdonald (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2008), 360.