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Canadian State Trials Volume III: Political Trials and Security Measures, 1840-1914
2009 
edited by Barry Wright, Department of Law, Carleton University, and Dr. Susan Binnie. Published with the University of Toronto Press, 2009.
This third volume of the Osgoode Society’s Canadian State Trials series covers the period from the 1840s to the First World War. It examines a range of political trials as traditionally defined, including those arising from the Fenian invasions and the North-West Rebellions. The volume also expands the definition of state trials to include studies on the early development of secret policing and the evolution of the legal regulation of riot and public order. The editors have assembled a team of experts from across the country in a variety of fields, and produced a comprehensive and fascinating set of studies of the use of law to control political dissent and public disorder.
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Contents
Contents
Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xi
Contributors xiii
Abbreviations xvii
Introduction: From State Trials to National Security Measures 3
SUSAN BINNIE and BARRY WRIGHT
Part One: Fenians
1 ‘Stars and Shamrocks Will be Sown’: The Fenian State Trials,
1866-7 35
R. BLAKE BROWN
2 The D’Arcy McGee Affair and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus 85
DAVID A. WILSON
Part Two: Managing Collective Disorder
3 The Tenant League and the Law, 1864-7 123
IAN ROSS ROBERTSON
4 The Trials and Tribulations of Riot Prosecutions: Collective
Violence, State Authority, and Criminal Justice in Quebec,
1841-1892 161
DONALD FYSON
5 Maintaining Order on the Pacific Railway: The Peace
Preservation Act, 1869-85 204
SUSAN BINNIE
6 Street Railway Strikes, Collective Violence, and the
Canadian State, 1886-1914 257
ERIC TUCKER
Part Three: The North-West Rebellions
7 Treasonous Murder: The Trial of Ambroise Lépine, 1874 297
LOUIS A. KNAFLA
8 Summary and Incompetent Justice: Legal Responses to the
1885 Crisis 353
BOB BEAL and BARRY WRIGHT
9 Another Look at the Riel Trial for Treason 411
J.M. BUMSTED
10 The White Man Governs: The 1885 Indian Trials 451
BILL WAISER
Part Four: Securing the Dominion
11 ‘High-handed, Impolite, and Empire-breaking Actions’: Radicalism,
Anti-Imperialism, and Political Policing in Canada, 1860-1914 483
ANDREW PARNABY and GREGORY S. KEALEY with KIRK NIERGARTH
12 Codification, Public Order, and the Security Provisions of the
Canadian Criminal Code, 1892 516
DESMOND H. BROWN and BARRY WRIGHT
Appendices: Archival Research and Supporting Documents
A. The Sir John A. Macdonald Fonds: Research Strategies and
Methodological Issues for Archival Research 567
JUDI CUMMING
B. Archival Sources in Canada for Riel’s Rebellion 576
GILLES LESAGE
C. Supporting Documents 590
Index 623
Reviews
Volume 3 [of the Osgoode Society's State Trials series] is a comprehensive collection of studies covering the period 1830 to 1914 ... contributed by sixteen scholars in the fields of law and history. All regions of the country are represented except British Columba.... One important theme in the collection is that in the past the full might of the law in 'political' surveillance and prosecutions has been tempered more by political expediency or realities than by the abstract principles of the rule of law.... The book is somewhat intimidating in size but well worth the effort. Greg Marquis, Canadian Historical Review, vol 91, 2010.
[A] fascinating window onto a broader legal culture in the process of being forged in the decades before and after Confederation. Robert Diab, Canadian Journal of Law and Society, vol 25, 2010.
