INTRODUCTION.
The English Constitution and the Constitution of the BN
different North American Colonies at the time furnished Constitu-
many suggestions which were embodied in the Act of Union, Ho
The House of Lords was taken as the type of the Senate
or Upper House, nomination for life being substituted for
the hereditary principle. The practice of introducing money
bills in the House of Commons on the advice of a minister
was adopted, and the procedure of the British Parliament
was followed as to the manner and method of passing
bills. No important change was introduced in the constitu.
tion of the executive or legislative bodies of the provinces,
except that the province of Canada was divided into the
provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and a separate constitution
was given to each.
During the years immediately succeeding the Union the Legisla-
Dominion was chiefly engaged in the work of organization. ty of
Different departments of state had to be created and appro- Dominion.
priate duties assigned to each minister. From 1870 to 1878
arrangements were concluded that resulted in the admission
of British Columbia, Prince Edward's Island, and the North
West Territories into the Union, in the formation of the
province of Manitoba, and in the organization of a govern-
ment for the Territories. Under the term North West Terri-
tories was included all territory not within the jurisdiction of
a province, and it embraced not only lands bordering on the
Arctic Seas, but lands between the Eastern boundary of
Ontario and the Western boundary of British Columbia, and
extending as far south as the boundary of the United States.
The acquisition of the Territories gave the Dominion juris
diction from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and rendered possible
the physical union of the provinces by means of the Canadian
Pacific Railway.
In 1875 the Dominion established a Supreme Court, but
such Court, it should be remembered, is not “supreme” in
the American sense of the term, as an appeal may lie, if
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