Sir John Alexander Macdonald,GCB, KCMG, PC (January 10, 1815 – June 6, 1891) was the first Prime Minister of Canada and the dominant figure of Canadian Confederation. Macdonald's tenure in office spanned 19 years, making him the second longest serving Prime Minister of Canada. He is the only Canadian Prime Minister to win six majority governments. He was the major proponent of a national railway, completed in 1885, linking Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. He won praise for having helped forge a nation of sprawling geographic size, with two diverse European colonial origins, and a multiplicity of cultural backgrounds and political views.

John Alexander Macdonald was born in Glasgow, Scotland on January 10, 1815. His father was Hugh Macdonald, an unsuccessful merchant, who had married his mother, Helen Shaw, on October 21, 1811. Together, they produced five children. The first-born, William died in infancy. The next was Margaret who was followed a year and a half later by John Alexander, then a younger brother, James and a baby sister named Louisa. After the failure of Hugh Macdonald's business ventures, the family emigrated to Kingston, Upper Canada in 1820 along with thousands of others seeking affordable land and promises of new prosperity.

Bad luck followed the family to their new country. When he was only seven, Macdonald watched as his younger brother, James was struck and killed by a drunken servant who was supposed to be looking after them. And, Hugh Macdonald's business ventures in the Kingston area were scarcely more successful than they had been in Scotland. However, the family still managed to scrape up the money to send Macdonald to Kingston's Midland Grammar School where, according to biographer Donald Creighton, he studied subjects such as Latin, French and mathematics. "Already he was a voracious reader," Creighton writes, "and he would sit for hours deep in a book, almost oblivious to what was going on." At 14, Macdonald switched to a school for "general and classical education" founded by a newly-arrived Presbyterian minister from Scotland. It was one of the few schools in Upper Canada that taught both boys and girls.

At the risk of reading too much into it, Macdonald's co-educational experience, reinforced by the female-centred household he grew up in, may explain one of the qualities that set him apart from most men of his day --- and of a good many still. In the company of women, Macdonald was always wholly at his ease. He was never awkward or shy or predatory with them. He could flirt and play the gallant, but he never patronized women.

Macdonald's formal schooling ended at 15, a common experience at the time when only the most prosperous were able to attend university. Nevertheless, Macdonald later regretted leaving school when he did remarking to his private secretary Joseph Pope that if he had attended university, he might have embarked on a literary career. "He did not add, as he might have done," Pope wrote in his biography of Macdonald, "that the successful government of millions of men, the strengthening of an empire, the creation of a great dominion, call for the possession and exercise of rarer qualities than are necessary to the achievement of literary fame."

Macdonald's parents decided he should become a lawyer after leaving school. As Donald Creighton writes, "law was a broad, well-trodden path to comfort, influence, even to power." It was also "the obvious choice for a boy who seemed as attracted to study as he was uninterested in trade." Besides, Macdonald needed to start earning money immediately to support his family because his father's business ventures were failing. "I had no boyhood," he complained many years later. "From the age of 15, I began to earn my own living."

Macdonald travelled by steamboat to Toronto (then known as York), where he passed an examination set by the Law Society of Upper Canada. In 1830, there were no law schools, so prospective lawyers wrote the entrance exam, then learned the trade through on-the-job training by articling with an established lawyer. Macdonald was extremely fortunate to begin his apprenticeship with George Mackenzie, a young lawyer who was a prominent member of Kingston's rising Scottish community. Mackenzie practised corporate law, a lucrative specialty that Macdonald himself would later pursue. A promising law student, Macdonald was managing a branch office for Mackenzie in Napanee at age 17. It meant much more independence and responsibility. In 1833, Mackenzie permitted his articling student to leave his firm to run the law practice of Macdonald's ailing cousin, Lowther Pennington Macpherson, at Picton. By all accounts, the 19-year-old Macdonald did well. But in the summer of 1835, he decided to return to Kingston to open his own practice after George Mackenzie's sudden death during a cholera epidemic. Biographer Donald Swainson writes that Macdonald was determined to step into Mackenzie's shoes as the "leading lawyer within Kingston's Scottish Presbyterian community, a community that was quickly becoming the dominant force in the life of the city."

Macdonald was then called to the Bar on February 6 1836. Soon after opening his own law firm he took in two students: Oliver Mowat, a future premier of Ontario and like Macdonald himself, a Father of Confederation, and Alexander Campbell, future Father of Confederation, federal cabinet minister and Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. With the help of his students, Macdonald "busied himself with lucrative but tedious work, such as chasing down unpaid bills and searching titles." Then suddenly, in 1837, Macdonald switched to criminal law for two years. Biographer Richard Gwyn writes that although there's no documentary evidence, there is a "plausible explanation" for Macdonald's motives:

As a criminal lawyer who took on dramatic cases, Macdonald got himself noticed well beyond the narrow confines of the Kingston business community. He was operating now in the arena where he would spend by far the greatest part of his life --- the court of public opinion. And while there he was learning the arts of argument and of persuasion that would serve him all his political life.

Macdonald unsuccessfully defended a man accused of raping an eight-year-old girl but won praise from a local newspaper for conducting "a very able defence." He then won the acquittal of a man accused of murdering a friend after an argument. Alexander Campbell, Macdonald's student wrote years later that Macdonald had persuaded the jury by his "humour and strong liking for anecdote more than for his professional knowledge."

The Rebellions of 1837 in Upper and Lower Canada proved to be a crucial turning point in Macdonald's legal career. In fact, biographer Donald Creighton argues that the rebellions "made him as a lawyer," giving him the "reputation of a conservative who was not afraid to battle for liberal principles." Macdonald showed he was willing to take professional risks first by defending eight political prisoners from nearby counties who had been charged with treason for allegedly participating in the uprisings against colonial authorities. Macdonald succeeded in winning acquittals for all eight earning praise for his "ingenuity and ability" from a Kingston newspaper which also noted that the young barrister "is rapidly rising in his profession."

Then, Macdonald served as co-counsel for John Ashley, the man in charge of a local military jail, who had himself been arrested and briefly imprisoned for allegedly helping 15 political prisoners escape from custody. Ashley sued Colonel Dundas, the military commander for illegal arrest. Dundas was a popular figure, but Macdonald helped persuade the jury to award Ashley substantial monetary damages. Macdonald, Creighton writes, was now associated "with the defence of the plain people against the encroachments of military power. The solid blue of his inherited conservatism was varied now, in a pleasantly interesting fashion, with a few threads of a different and livelier colour." Finally, Macdonald took his biggest risk of all by agreeing to advise American raiders who had participated in an abortive invasion to liberate Canada from what they saw as the yoke of British colonial oppression. The inept raiders had been captured after the Battle of the Windmill (1838, near Prescott, Ontario) --- a battle in which 16 Canadians were killed and 60 wounded. Worst of all, the American invaders were accused of mutilating the body of a dead Canadian lieutenant. Creighton writes that Kingston was "mad with grief and rage and horror." At least two other lawyers refused to help when the brother-in-law of one of the Americans pleaded with them to provide legal advice. Macdonald must have hesitated, but eventually said yes after the frantic brother-in-law knocked on his door one morning before he was out of bed.

It was surely wisdom to have nothing to do with the whole affair. And yet, he took the case. Even he might have found it difficult to say why. A curious interest in people, a relish for cases which were odd and difficult, a jaunty recognition of the fact that professional prestige involved publicity, and, perhaps, a certain stubborn, independent conviction that these helpless and deluded men deserved at least the bare minimum of assistance --- all these may have helped to move him to his decision.

There was little Macdonald could do to defend the Americans. Under military rules governing courts martial, civilian lawyers were not allowed to question witnesses or address the judge. Macdonald could only give private advice which helped the brother-in-law to ask searching questions during his trial, but did not save him from the gallows. Macdonald also advised "General" Nils Szoltevcky Von Schoultz, the brave and charismatic Polish immigrant who had led the American raiders after their real commanders abandoned them at Windmill Point. Von Shoultz insisted on pleading guilty and wanted to leave Macdonald $100 in his will. Macdonald had to refuse it, but he never forgot the tragic story of the tall, handsome Pole.

Biographer Donald Creighton writes that although the rebellions and their aftermath helped Macdonald's career, they also had lasting psychological effects. "For him, and for Kingston," Creighton writes, "the 'rebellion' had been not so much a native uprising as a succession of American raids; and from then on he never quite lost a certain lingering anxiety for the problem of British North American defence."

In 1843, Macdonald entered politics, standing for the office of Alderman in Kingston, a position to which he was elected. In 1844 he was elected to the legislature of the Province of Canada to represent Kingston, gained the recognition of his peers and in 1847 was appointed Receiver General in William Henry Draper's administration. However, Macdonald had to give up his portfolio when Draper's government lost the next election. He left the Conservatives, hoping to build a more moderate and palatable base. In 1854, he helped with the founding of the Liberal-Conservative Party under the leadership of Sir Allan McNab. Within a few years, the Liberal-Conservatives would attract all of the old Conservative base as well as some centrist Reformers. The Liberal-Conservatives came to power in 1854 and under the new administration Macdonald was appointed Attorney-General. During his time in cabinet, Macdonald was usually the most powerful minister, even when other men held the premiership. In the next election Macdonald continued his rise in politics by becoming Joint Premier of the Province of Canada with Sir Étienne-Paschal Taché of Canada East for the years 1856 and 1857.

Taché resigned in 1857, and George-Étienne Cartier took his place. In the election of 1858, the Macdonald-Cartier government was defeated and they resigned as Premiers. In an interesting piece of politics, the Governor General of Canada asked Cartier to become the senior Premier, only a week after his defeat. Cartier accepted and brought Macdonald into office along with him. This was legal as any member of the cabinet could re-enter the cabinet provided they did so within a month of resigning their previous position. Macdonald focused on communications and defence, especially the Intercolonial Railway. Canada had to pressure the Colonial Office, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island to, as one historian notes, "consider an ambitious scheme proposed by their pushing and turbulent neighbour, Canada." [Creighton, 1956, p. 273]

The coalition government was again defeated in 1862. Macdonald then served as the leader of the opposition until the election of 1864, when Taché came out of retirement and joined ranks with Macdonald to form the governing party yet again.

To prevent the frequent government in the Province of Canada, George Brown (Canadian politician), the leader of the Reformers (the forerunners to the Liberal Party of Canada) and an extremely vocal opponent of Macdonald's Conservatives, joined with Macdonald in 1864 to form the "Great Coalition." This was an important step towards Confederation. Macdonald then spent 1864 to 1867 organizing the legislation needed to confederate the colonies into the country of Canada. In September 1864, he led the Canadian delegation at the Charlottetown Conference in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, to present his idea to the Maritime colonies, who were discussing a union of their own. In October 1864 delegates for confederation met in Quebec City, Quebec, for the Quebec Conference, where the Seventy-Two Resolutions were created -- the plan for confederation. By 1866, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Province of Canada had agreed to confederation. Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island were opposed. In the final conference of confederation held in 1866 in London, England the agreement to confederate was completed.

In 1867 the agreement was brought to the British Parliament, which passed the British North America Act, creating the Dominion of Canada. Upon the creation of the Dominion of Canada, the Province of Canada was then divided into the individual provinces of Quebec and Ontario.

Queen Victoria knighted John A. Macdonald for playing an integral role in bringing about Confederation. His creation as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George was announced at the birth of the Dominion, July 1, 1867. An election was held in August which put Macdonald and his Conservative party into power.

Macdonald's vision as Prime Minister was to enlarge the country and unify it. Accordingly, under his rule Canada bought Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory from the Hudson's Bay Company for £300,000 (about $11,500,000 in modern Canadian dollars). This land became the Northwest Territories. In 1870 Parliament passed the Manitoba Act, creating the province of Manitoba out of a portion of the Northwest Territories in response to the Red River Rebellion led by Louis Riel.

In 1871 Britain added British Columbia to Confederation, making it the sixth province. Macdonald promised a transcontinental railway connection to persuade the province to join, which his opponents decried as a highly unrealistic and expensive promise. In 1873 Prince Edward Island joined Confederation, and Macdonald created the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (then called the "North-West Mounted Police") to act as a police force for the vast Northwest Territories.

After the Pacific scandal in 1873, in which Macdonald was accused of taking bribes to award contracts for the construction of the railway, he was forced to resign and Liberal leader Alexander Mackenzie formed a caretaker government. The subsequent 1874 federal election was won by the Mackenzie Liberals.

Macdonald was returned to power in 1878 on the strength of the National Policy, a plan to promote trade within the country by protecting it from the industries of other nations and renewing the effort to complete the previously promised Canadian Pacific Railway, which was accomplished in 1885. That year, Louis Riel also returned to Canada and launched the North-West Rebellion in the territory of Saskatchewan, but now that there was a railway through the area the North-West Mounted Police were quickly sent to put it down. The trial and subsequent execution of Riel for treason caused a deep political division between French Canadians, who supported Riel (a culturally French Métis) and English Canadians, who supported Macdonald.

In 1891, Macdonald won the elections again, but by this time, the 76-year-old political warhorse started to feel the years of overwork, stress, drink and several bouts of severe illness, including a gallstone problem in 1870 that turned his office into a sick room for two months. On May 29, 1891, Sir John A. suffered a severe stroke, which robbed him of the ability to speak, and from which he would never recover. He died a week later on June 6, 1891 at the age of 76. He would lie in state in the Canadian Senate Chamber (Prime Ministers now lie in state in the Hall of Honour in the Centre Block) where grieving Canadians turned out in the thousands to pay their respects. His state funeral was held on June 9, attended by hundreds of thousands of people. He is buried in Cataraqui Cemetery in Kingston, Ontario. None of his children left heirs; he is survived by relative Hugh Gainsford.

John A. Macdonald's adult life was marked by illness, death, drunkenness and tragedy. Yet, he rose above his private unhappiness and personal failings to become a well-loved and highly successful public figure, applying "all his passion to politics". He officially became head of his family on September 29, 1841, with the sudden death of his father Hugh from a brain hemorrhage. Now, John A. was solely responsible for the financial support of his mother and two unmarried sisters. Fortunately, his law practice was going well and his income was supplemented by extensive business activities. He served for example, as a director of the prosperous Commercial Bank of the Midland District as well as its lawyer. The Bank provided him with a large part of his income. He also bought real estate and eventually became a director of a dozen Kingston companies.

But at the same time, he frequently suffered from an undiagnosed illness. The symptoms, weakness and listlessness, began in 1840 and continued sporadically throughout 1841. Macdonald decided he needed a complete rest, and in January 1842 he set sail for Britain, his pockets full of the money (about two thousand dollars) he had won during three nights of playing a card game called Loo. Macdonald's trip proved to be fateful. He recovered his health and met his first cousin Isabella Clark. Isabella's features were gentle and tranquil, according to biographer Donald Creighton, "her hair brushed smoothly away from its centre part in the demure fashion of the 1840s." She also had "large, beautiful blue eyes with an imploring expression that melted more than one observer's heart." "Isa," as Macdonald called her, followed him home to Kingston and on September 1, 1843, they were married. Macdonald was 28, Isabella, 34.

For the first year and a half, the Macdonalds lived the life of a happy, successful couple. John A. had been elected city alderman a few months before his marriage, so he was now a prominent local politician, and his law partnership with his former student, Alexander Campbell continued to flourish. In the fall of 1844, Macdonald was elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament for Kingston. Then, in 1845, everything changed when his beloved "Isa" got sick. She suffered periodic attacks that included severe headaches and numbness. Biographer Patricia Phenix writes that Isabella was diagnosed "as suffering from everything from tic douloureux, a devastating pain in the fifth nerve of her face, to 'uterine neuralgia.'". To relieve the pain, she drank liquid opium as well as sherry. The opium and alcohol combined with the painful attacks left her groggy, exhausted and bedridden. Her chronic illness may also have had psychological causes rooted in an "hysterical personality" compounded by migraine headaches and her dependence on opium. As the illness continued, Macdonald feared Isabella would die. "The warm, pleasant edifice of his domestic happiness," Donald Creighton writes, "was crumbling towards utter ruin."

John A. responded to his wife's protracted illness by taking her to Savannah, Georgia where he hoped the warm climate and the company of her sisters would restore her health. They set off on their journey in the summer of 1845. The trip turned out to be long and gruelling with Isabella often unable to walk and suffering excruciating pain. They first joined Isabella's sisters in New Haven, Connecticut, finally reaching Savannah in late November. John A. was anxious to return home to continue his political career. He had to remain in the American south however, until Isabella's sisters arrived in mid-January 1846. He would not see his wife again until Christmas when they were reunited in New York City. There something of a miracle occurred. Isabella became pregnant. After Macdonald returned to Canada, she remained under medical care in New York. Their first son, John Alexander, was born in New York on August 3, 1847 after a long and agonizing labour. "His eyes are dark blue, very large & nose to match," Macdonald wrote to his sister-in-law. "When born his length was 1 foot 9 inches & was strong and healthy, though thin," he continued, "that was not to be wondered at, seeing he had been living on pills so long."



Macdonald rented Bellevue House in Kingston in 1848 in the hope that the fresh suburban air and quiet would help Isabella's condition after her return from New York. This experiment, however, was a failure. Worse still, shortly after the Macdonalds moved into their new home, 13-month-old John Alexander was found dead in his crib, a possible victim of SIDS or sudden infant death syndrome. Isabella became pregnant again in 1849, yet another miracle for a 40-year-old chronically-ill woman. Their second son, Hugh John, was born on March 13, 1850. "We have got Johnnie back again," Macdonald wrote to his sister. "I don't think he is so pretty, but he is not so delicate. He was born fat & coarse."

Hugh John and his father were never close. The boy was raised by Macdonald's sister Margaret and her husband, James Williamson, after Isabella's death in 1857. Hugh John went on to become premier of the Province of Manitoba.

Macdonald's frequent absences from his law practice to care for Isabella and the expenses of providing medical and nursing care drove him into debt. His partner objected to his casual habit of using law firm revenues to pay his expenses and in 1849, Alexander Campbell decided to leave the partnership. Macdonald had already turned to the bottle for solace during the 12 lonely years of Isabella's illness. They were years in which, according to Donald Creighton, he had become "a bachelor husband who had to go for companionship to bars and lounges and smoking rooms; a frustrated host who drank too much on occasion, partly because it was the only way he could entertain, and because it passed the empty time, and because it was an easy way to forget."

In 1867, at the age of 52, Macdonald married his second wife Susan Agnes Bernard (1836-1920). They had one daughter, Margaret Mary Theodora Macdonald (1869-1933), who was born with hydrocephalus and suffered from physical and mental disabilities. Macdonald always hoped she would recover, but she never did. She died in 1933 and apparently was left an orphan after both Macdonald and Agnes died.

Macdonald chose the following jurists to be appointed as justices of the Supreme Court of Canada by the Governor General: * Christopher Salmon Patterson (October 27, 1888 – July 24, 1893) * John Wellington Gwynne (January 14, 1879 – January 7, 1902) * Sir William Johnstone Ritchie (as Chief Justice, January 11, 1879 – September 25, 1892; appointed a Puisne Justice under Prime Minister Mackenzie, September 30, 1875)

Macdonald was a Freemason, initiated in 1844 at St. John’s Lodge No. 5 in Kingston. In 1868, he was named by the United Grand Lodge of England as its Grand Representative near the Grand Lodge of Canada (in Ontario) and the rank of Past Grand Senior Warden conferred upon him. He continued to represent the Grand Lodge of England until his death in 1891. His commission, together with his apron and gauntlets, are in the Masonic Temple at Kingston, along with his regalia as Past Grand Senior Warden. Among the books in his library was a very rare copy of the first Masonic book published in Canada, A History of Freemasonry in Nova Scotia (1786).

*Macdonald was well known for his wit and also for his alcoholism. He is known to have been drunk for many of his debates in parliament. Two apocryphal stories are commonly repeated; the first describing an election debate in which Macdonald was so drunk he began vomiting while on stage. His opponent quickly pointed this out and said: "Is this the man you want running your country? A drunk!" Collecting himself, Macdonald replied "I get sick ... not because of drink [but because] I am forced to listen to the ranting of my honourable opponent." The second version has Macdonald responding to his opponent's query of his drunkenness with "It goes to show that I would rather have a drunk Conservative than a sober Liberal." (Montreal Gazette, 30 May 1862) *Macdonald's temper sometimes got the better of him, such as in one incident in the House of Commons when Donald Smith angered him so much, that he charged across the Commons floor to physically attack him. While he was restrained, Macdonald was unrepentant, proclaiming "I'll lick him faster than Hell can scorch a feather!" *Macdonald resembled British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. At Disraeli's funeral in 1881, another British official thought that he saw Disraeli's ghost in attendance, although it was actually Macdonald. *The Vancouver Sun reported on June 30, 2005, that Macdonald's birthplace in Glasgow, Scotland, is under threat of demolition. *In 2003, Nafekh Technologies, Inc. created a John A. Macdonald action figure which was initially sold in specialty stores. The National Post reported on June 30, 2005, that Canadian Wal Mart stores are selling the figure. *Macdonald's private train car, which he named The Jamaica, was given to him by the Canadian Pacific Railway for his work on the railway. *According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Macdonald's nicknames included Old Chieftain and Old Tomorrow*. *For his habit of putting off any large political problems until conditions were personally favourable to him. *Macdonald's nephew Newton Ford was the father of iconic Canadian-American actor Glenn Ford. *As of 2006: Macdonald was the first of two Canadian prime-ministers to die in office (The other is John Thompson). *Having personally written the largest part of the Canadian constitution (BNA Act), and having been the main lobbyist for its adoption at London, Macdonald can truly be called the "Father of his country." *Macdonald was the favourite target of the "Grip" magazine's premier cartoonist John Wilson Bengough; who came to fame by ridiculing Macdonald's government, during the Pacific Railroad scandal. *At least three bronze public statues of Macdonald stand in Canadian city parks. One in downtown Montreal, one in Kingston Ontario's city park, and at Toronto's Queen's Park. *The school that Bruno and Melvin "Boots" attend in the series Bruno and Boots by Gordon Korman was named after Sir John. *Macdonald spoke a fluent Scots Gaelic, as did around 250 000 other Canadians at the time.

Macdonald is depicted on the Canadian ten-dollar bill. He also has bridges (Macdonald-Cartier Bridge), airports (Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport, and highways (Macdonald-Cartier Freeway) named after him, as well as a plethora of schools across the country. In Kingston, Macdonald Park and Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard are both named in his honour. Macdonald and his son, Hugh John Macdonald briefly sat together in the Canadian House of Commons prior to the elder Macdonald's death.



In 2004, Macdonald was nominated as one of the top 10 "Greatest Canadians" by viewers of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He is considered by some Canadian political scientists to be the founder of the Red Tory tradition.

* Creighton, Donald. (1952), John A. Macdonald: The Young Politician vol 1: 1815-1867. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited. * Creighton, Donald. (1955) John A. Macdonald: The Old Chieftain vol 2: 1867-1891. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited. * Creighton, Donald. (1964) The Road to Confederation: The Emergence of Canada: 1863-1867. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. * Guillet, Edwin C, (1967) You'll Never Die, John A!. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. * Gwyn, Richard. (2007) The Man Who Made Us: The Life and Times of Sir John A. Macdonald. vol 1: 1815-1867. Random House Canada. * Johnson, J.K. (1969) Affectionately Yours: The Letters of Sir John A. Macdonald and His Family. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. * Johnson, J.K. and Waite, P.B. (2007) "Sir John Alexander Macdonald," in Canada's Prime Ministers, Macdonald to Trudeau: Portraits from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. * McSherry, James. (1984) "The invisible lady: Sir John A. Macdonald's first wife." In Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, pp. 91-97. * Phenix, Patricia. (2006) Private Demons, The Tragic Personal Life of John A. Macdonald. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. * Pope, Joseph. (1894) Memoirs of the Right Honourable Sir John Alexander Macdonald, G.C.B., First Prime Minister of The Dominion of Canada, Vols. 1&2. Ottawa: J. Durie & Son. * Pope, Joseph. (1915) The Day of Sir John Macdonald: A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion. Toronto: Brook & Co. * Pope, Joseph (1921) Correspondence of Sir John Macdonald: selections from the correspondence of Sir John Alexander Macdonald. Toronto: Oxford University Press. * Sletcher, Michael. (2004) "Sir John A. Macdonald," in James Eli Adams, and Tom and Sara Pendergast, eds., Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era. 4 vols., Danbury, CT: Grolier Academic Reference. * Swainson, Donald. (1989) Sir John A. Macdonald: The Man and the Politician. Kingston, ON: Quarry Press. * Waite, P. B. (1975) Macdonald: His Life and World. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. * Waite, P. B. (1976) John A. Macdonald. Don Mills, ON: Fitzhenry and Whiteside Limited. * Wallace, W. Stewart. (1924) Sir John Macdonald. Toronto: The MacMillan Company of Canada Limited.

* * * *The Canadian Museum of Civilization - Face-to-Face - The Canadian Personalities Hall *John A. Macdonald: Architect of Modern Canada *John A. Macdonald, Confederation and Canadian Federalism *Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online *"Sir John A. Macdonald, Freemason" *Synopsis of federal political experience from the Library of Parliament * Image of The Jamaica with Sir and Lady Macdonald aboard *John Macdonald's Gravesite *Correspondence of Sir John Macdonald; selections from the correspondence of the Right Honorable Sir John Alexander Macdonald, first Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada, made by his literary executor Sir Joseph Pope (1921) * * Dictionary of Canadian Biography article by J. K. Johnson and P. B. Waite

MacDonald, John A.