A Tumultuous Decade

Abstract This chapter examines the turbulent elections of the 1840s in British North America (Canada), as emblematic of the deliberative engagement of both enfranchised voters and non-voting crowd participants in electoral processes. They represent a variation in the taxonomy of revolutionary and highly consequential elections as articulated in this Handbook. This chapter also offers elements for a comparative dimension to the study of elections in the Western Hemisphere during the nineteenth century. The politics of the electoral crowds during the 1840s examined in this chapter suggests a closer association with tensions in the United States during the decades of the Early Republic, while attempts top forge coalitions across the political divide suggest similarities with the complicated distribution of power in Latin American countries like Argentina.