The Ninety-Two Resolutions were drafted by

Louis-Joseph Papineau Louis-Joseph Papineau (October 7, 1786 – September 23, 1871), born in Montreal, Quebec, was a politician, lawyer, and the landlord of the ''seigneurie de la Petite-Nation''. He was the leader of the reformist Patriote movement before the Lowe ...

and other members of the ''

Parti patriote The Parti canadien () or Parti patriote () was a primarily francophone political party in what is now Quebec founded by members of the liberal elite of Lower Canada at the beginning of the 19th century. Its members were made up of liberal pr ...

'' of

Lower Canada The Province of Lower Canada (french: province du Bas-Canada) was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the current Province of Quebec ...

in 1834. The resolutions were a long series of demands for political reforms in the British-governed colony. Papineau had been elected speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada in 1815. His party constantly opposed the unelected colonial government, and in 1828 he helped draft an early form of the resolutions, essentially a list of grievances against the colonial administration. To ensure that the views of the Legislative Assembly be understood by the British House of Commons, the ''Parti patriote'' had sent its own delegation to London in order to submit a memoir and a petition signed by 78,000 people. On February 28, 1834, Papineau presented the Ninety-Two Resolutions to the Legislative Assembly, which were approved and sent to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. The resolutions included, among other things, demands for an elected Legislative Council and an Executive Council responsible before the house of representatives. Under the Constitutional Act of 1791, Lower Canada was given an elected legislative assembly, but members of the upper house were appointed by the governor of the colony. In the resolutions, the elected representatives once again reiterated their loyalty to the British Crown but expressed frustration that the government of London had been unwilling to correct the injustices caused by the past governments of the colony. Papineau's resolutions were ignored for almost three years; meanwhile, the Legislative Assembly did all it could to oppose the un-elected upper houses while avoiding outright rebellion. British Colonial Secretary Lord John Russell eventually responded to them by issuing ten resolutions of his own (the Russell Resolutions). All of the Legislative Assembly's demands were rejected. The ten resolutions reached Canada in 1837, and many of Papineau's reformists began to agitate for a rebellion. See the

Lower Canada Rebellion The Lower Canada Rebellion (french: rébellion du Bas-Canada), commonly referred to as the Patriots' War () in French, is the name given to the armed conflict in 1837–38 between rebels and the colonial government of Lower Canada (now southe ...

References

External links

* {{cite book , chapter=The Ninety-Two Resolutions of 1834 , editor=W.P.M. Kennedy , title=Statutes, treaties and documents of the Canadian Constitution, 1713–1929 , location=Toronto , publisher=Oxford University Press , date=1930 , pages=270–290 , chapter-url=https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_03428/299?r=0&s=1

English: The Ninety-Two Resolutions of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada

Français: Les 92 Résolutions de 1834 1834 in Lower Canada 92 Resolutions Lower Canada Rebellion February 1834 events 1834 documents