Liberal-Conservative coalition of 1854
In Canadian history during the 1850s and 1860s, many of the political parties were results of the British attitudes toward British North America. The liberal-conservative coalition of 1854 was formed as a relationship among several political groups at the time. The Coalition comprised three main groups, the Tories, French Bleus, and Hinckesite Reformers of Canada West. The groups joined in order to secularize the clergy reserves and do away with the seigneurial system in Lower Canada, which had been outgrown and was unpopular among the French Canadians. The French Bleus, which held a minority in the Assembly up until this point, were now able to hold a majority and, for that reason, strongly against representation by population, as it would place them once again into the minority.
The opposition to the Coalition was largely the Clear Grits, led by George Brown. A.A. Dorion, leader of the Parti Rouge in Canada East, also tried to establish an alliance with the Clear Grits, similar to the Liberal-Conservative Coalition of 1854. A Brown-Dorion government was even formed in 1858 but only lasted two days as the relationship between these two parties simply did not function as well.
