The Second American Revolution": Expressions of Canadian Identity in News Coverage at the Outbreak of the United States Civil War
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In this paper, I will discuss Brian Gabrial’s article, “The Second Revolution”: Expressions of Canadian Identity in News Coverage at the Outbreak of the United States Civil War. Gabrial’s article is about how the Canadian identity was challenged by the American Civil War. In particular, he argues that Canadian identity is significant in five important themes: the importance of British identity, antipathy toward Americanism and suspicion of American democracy, a well-grounded fear of American militarism, a patronizing sympathy for Americans in crisis and liberal and conservative political threads. After summarizing Gabrial’s main arguments, I shall be claiming that the article has valuable points for many different reasons.
The article makes different point for each of the main five themes that are played throughout. The first theme is Identification of British, it focuses on Canadian editorials and newspapers that indicated strong loyalty to Great Britain, and helps define Canadian identity as British. However, before Confederation, Canada was politically, diplomatically, military and interactions with the United States depended on Great Britain. The U.S., British, and Canadian relations was trapped by Canadian foreign affairs and focused on Great Britain reaction to the American crisis that separated Canadian concerns. Great Britain recognized that the Confederate states and Army right to trade over open seas, several news editorials noted that the relation between the United States and Great Britain were tense on their past. By April 20, the Globe editorial warned England would not tolerate U.S. interference with Canadian shipping that might support the South if these transgress occurred. By May 13, Globe editor, states that ...
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...k of the United States Civil War. Gabrial’s articles cover many several point such as the importance of British identity, antipathy toward “Americanism” and suspicion of American democracy, fear of U.S. militarism, patronizing sympathy for Americans in crisis, and liberal and conservative political thoughts. I have argued that while he is right in the identity as British and antipathy towards Americanism, this does not mean that some ideas need to more expanded and have more evidence. Further development and discussion of this issue especially in the area of Canadian identity express in the Civil War is needed advance research on these matters.
Works Cited
Gabrial , Brian . "The Second American Revolution": Expressions of Canadian Identity in News Coverage at the Outbreak of the United States Civil War." Canadian Journal of Communication 33 (2008): 21-37. Print.