Brown spoke on the night of February 8th, his speech, occupying four hours and a half in delivery, showing the marks of careful preparation. He drew an illustration from the mighty struggle that had well-nigh rent the republic asunder, and was then within a few weeks of its close. "We are striving," he said, "to settle forever issues hardly less momentous than those that have rent the neighbouring republic and are now exposing it to all the horrors of civil war. Have we not then great cause for thankfulness that we have found a better way for the solution of our troubles? And should not every one of us endeavour to rise to the magnitude of the occasion, and earnestly seek to deal with this question to the end, in the same candid and conciliatory spirit in which, so far, it has been discussed?"
He warned the assembly that whatever else happened, the constitution of Canada would not remain unchanged. "Something must be done. We cannot stand still. We cannot go back to chronic, sectional hostility and discord--to a state of perpetual ministerial crisis. The events of the last eight months cannot be obliterated--the solemn admissions of men of all parties can never be erased. The claims of Upper Canada for justice must be met, and met now. Every one who raises his voice in hostility to this measure is bound to keep before him, when he speaks, all the perilous consequences of its rejection. No man who has a true regard for the well-being of Canada can give a vote against this scheme unless he is prepared to offer, in amendment, some better remedy for the evils and injustice that have so long threatened the peace of our country."
In the first place, he said confederation would provide a complete remedy for the injustice of the system of parliamentary representation, by giving Upper Canada, in the House of Commons, the number of members to which it was entitled by population. In the senate, the principle of representation by population would not be maintained, an equal number of senators being allotted to Ontario, to Quebec, and to the group of Maritime Provinces, without regard to population. Secondly, the plan would remedy the injustice of which Upper Canada had complained in regard to public expenditures. "No longer shall we have to complain that one section pays the cash while the other spends it; hereafter they who pay will spend, and they who spend more than they ought, will bear the brunt. If we look back on our doings of the last fifteen years, I think it will be acknowledged that the greatest jobs perpetrated were of a sectional character, that our fiercest contests were about local matters that stirred up sectional jealousies and indignation to their deepest depth." Confederation would end sectional discord between Upper and Lower Canada. Questions that used to excite sectional hostility and jealousy were now removed from the common legislature to the legislatures of the provinces. No man need be debarred from a public career because his opinions, popular in his own province, were unpopular in another. Among the local questions that had disturbed the peace of the common legislature, he mentioned the construction of local works, the endowment of ecclesiastical institutions, the granting of money for sectarian purposes, and interference with school systems.