The Toronto Police Were Domestic Missionaries in the Battle for a Christian Moral Society

With the increasing incorporation of municipalities across Upper Canada, the battle for a Christian moral society gradually shifted to elected councils and municipal police forces. Far from giving up the struggle, they gave it new life. Nicholas Rogers describes the Toronto police of the later nineteenth century as 'domestic missionaries' in the cause, adopting moral reform as their 'particular vocation.'

--David Murray, Colonial Justice: Justice, Morality, and Crime in the Niagara District, 1791-1849, Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History (2002; repr., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 88.

Enforcement of a Strict Christian Moral Code in Upper Canada

The enforcement of a strict Christian moral code had a long royal pedigree in Upper Canada, as it did in Britain. Ever since the conquest of Quebec, the King had instructed the men who governed the Canadas to 'cause all Laws already made against Blasphemy, Profaneness, Adultery, Fornication, Polygamy, Incest, Profanation of the Lord's Day, Swearing and Drunkenness, to be vigorously put in Execution in every part of your Government; And ... [to] take due care for the Punishment of these, and every other Vice and Immorality ...'

--David Murray, Colonial Justice: Justice, Morality, and Crime in the Niagara District, 1791-1849, Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History (2002; repr., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 77-78.

Chief Justice Robinson's Legal Opinion on Extraditing Fugitive Slaves Back to the United States

In his original despatch to the British government the lieutenant governor had included a legal opinion from the chief justice of the province, John Beverley Robinson. Bond Head's request for a separate legal opinion indicated how seriously he and his government took the larger question of policy on slave extradition and the applicability of the Fugitive Offenders Act in cases of fugitive slaves. Robinson was not at all impressed with the humanitarian arguments advanced by the African Canadian community and their supporters. He was willing to admit that slavery 'politically considered is a great evil' and 'morally wrong,' but he could not countenance admitting slaves into Upper Canada who had murdered their masters, burned their masters' houses, or stolen their masters' goods. Robinson believed in reciprocity with the United States when it came to extradition. If Upper Canada held itself out 'as a place of refuge for atrocious criminals from other Countries,' it could 'expect consequences fatal to its own security and independence.' Robinson was opposed both legally and morally to such a position, and his strongly argued opinion left no doubt whatever of his stand on slave extradition.

--David Murray, Colonial Justice: Justice, Morality, and Crime in the Niagara District, 1791-1849, Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History (2002; repr., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 202.

The Criminal Lunatics Act of 1800 and the Question of Criminal Intent

In England the passage of the Criminal Lunatics Act in 1800 made lunatics 'a formal species' defined in law. It also formalized a procedure for dealing with them and if during a criminal trial a jury found the defendant to be insane, the court could order him to be kept in custody although no verdict had been reached on the criminal charge. This post-1792 English law did not apply in Upper Canada, but it was well known to judges like Robinson. One of its key legal principles was that if the defendant was insane and could not understand his rights within a trial, he was not fit to plead. These rights included challenges to the jury impanelled. The real concern of the law was with the question of intent. In the words of Joel Eigen, 'only intentional behaviour was punishable by law: the perpetrator who failed to understand the wrongfulness of an action could not be said to have acted with criminal intent.'

--David Murray, Colonial Justice: Justice, Morality, and Crime in the Niagara District, 1791-1849, Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History (2002; repr., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 92.

Upper Canada Was a Segregated Society with Racial Persecution

Most of the African Canadian members of the Niagara community were recent refugees from the United States and slavery. The legal freedom they found in this northern sanctuary did not free them from the rigours of the British colonial justice system, or from racial persecution. Jason Silverman has written that the American fugitive slave arriving in Upper Canada 'often found a segregated society, along with antagonism and resentment... Many Canadians deeply shared the prejudices and racial practices of their American neighbours; an attitude which ultimately manifested itself in anti-black newspaper attacks, discriminatory legislation, and an educational system reminiscent of the antebellum American North and the later Jim Crow South.' These refugees were promised equality under British law, but even the legal records perpetuated the discrimination they suffered.

--David Murray, Colonial Justice: Justice, Morality, and Crime in the Niagara District, 1791-1849, Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History (2002; repr., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 170.