The premier versus the aristocrat; Francis Hincks, John G. Vansittart, and voters in the Oxford-general Election of 1851.(Report)

They axed me how I was going to vote. I said I would vote for--; and as soon as the word was out of my mouth the blood was out of my nose.

(Zorra-Township elector on the 1851 Oxford-general election) (1)

In December 1851 the Hon. Francis Hincks defeated his Tory opponent, John George Vansittart, by 86 votes out of 2,500 votes cast. The Rev. W.A. MacKay, in his 1899 memoir, Pioneer Life in Zorra, recalled the election as "one of the most exciting contests ever witnessed in the county." (2) The Oxford riding also held interest provincially and received extensive coverage in the non-local press. (3)

The Oxford contest unfolded during a fundamental realignment of parties in Canada West, following Canada's attainment of responsible government in 1849 and the resignation of its Baldwin-La-Fontaine ministry in 1851. On the ultra-Reform left, an ascendant Clear-Grit movement pushed for radical democracy on the American model, voluntaryism (4) in place of establishment religion, and principled politics before party solidarity. Also in the ultra-Reform camp was George Brown, proprietor of the Toronto Globe, who championed voluntaryism but opposed radical democracy. On the right, a reactionary Toryism gave way to an ascendant moderate Toryism, which took a middle-ground position on establishment religion and a pragmatic approach to politics. The Hincks-Morin ministry, successor to the Baldwin-LaFontaine ministry, represented the Reform middle ground. Although nominally committed to Reform-party principles, it used pragmatism and compromise to keep the divergent elements of its coalition together. What placed Oxford at the centre of things was its Reform candidate--none other than the Hon. Francis Hincks, co-premier of Canada and the architect of a ministry that was organized expressly to deal with explosive new issues and the realignment of parties.

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The authors use anecdotal evidence and cliometric methods to revisit the 1851 Oxford-general election. They open with the setting--the electoral process, the electorate, the voter turnout, the candidates, and the local issues: railway politics, radical democracy, and establishment religion. Then through analysis of voters, they investigate why Hincks--the incumbent, the province's co-premier in the Hincks-Morin administration (1851-54), but also a non-resident--prevailed over Vansittart--the prominent, eldest son of the deceased Vice-Admiral Henry Vansittart (1777-1843. a retired half-pay naval officer, a founder of Woodstock, and a sometime leader of the Woodstock aristocracy). The central finding is that establishment religion, and in particular the clergy reserves, was the decisive issue in Oxford, with Vansittart and Hincks offering alternative middle-ground positions between the ultra-Tory and ultra-Reform extremes. The contrasting religious and ethnic traditions of the riding's 2,500 voters gave Hincks a narrow win.

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