During the American Civil War, Toronto, Montreal, St. Catharines and Halifax welcomed a well-financed network of Confederate spies and adventurers, bringing the war close to home with organized raids on Lake Erie and the border town of St. Albans, Vermont, where Confederate raiders were successfully defended by prominent Quebec politician J.C. Abbott, a future prime minister. Montreal’s St. Lawrence Hall Hotel had so many Confederates living there it offered mint juleps on its menu. It also afforded visits by John Wilkes Booth, who made several trips to Toronto as part of an organized plot leading up to the Good Friday 1865 assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.Perhaps the most lasting impact on Canada was Sir John A. Macdonald’s conviction that strong states’ rights were “the great source of weakness,” which led to the war. That’s why Canada emerged in 1867 with a strong federal government—including an unelected Senate—which to this day fosters endless debate between the believers of federal rights and provincial rights.

Claire Hoy is one of Canada's best known and most controversial journalists. His books include: BILL DAVIES: A BIOGRAPHY, FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES, MARGIN OF ERROR, and STOCKWELL DAY: HIS LIFE AND POLITICS.

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