Spurred to action by Trump's trade war, I bought Calixa Lavallée's sword

Globe and Mail

22-05-2025

Keith Johnston is a music historian and writer based in Saint-Hyacinthe, Que. He has contributed to academic publications and also works for Létourneau Organs, which builds pipe organs in Quebec for clients around the globe.
To prepare myself for Donald Trump's trade war, I decided to buy Calixa Lavallée's sword.
Well, one caveat – it isn't a sword that personally belonged to the man who wrote our national anthem (I'm fairly certain). But it appears to have been made for the Massachusetts-based organization of which Lavallée was a prominent member – an organization that agitated for an American takeover of Canada in the late 19th century.
By way of explanation, I live in Saint-Hyacinthe, Que., where from my window I can hear the yowl of the Yamaska River as it falls over the weir in the centre of town. Local legend (and a charming children's book) has it that 145 years ago this spring, musician and composer Calixa Lavallée sat by the river's edge and heard in the mighty waters the opening strains of what would become O Canada. Likely too romantic to be true, the story was promoted (if not invented), a century ago by a local historian and renaissance man, Monsignor Charles-Philippe Choquette.
'If one listens closely, a trained ear might just catch, in the majesty of that symphony, the echo of the Yamaska's murmurs joined to the ringing tone of its picturesque falls,' Choquette wrote in 1929.
Lavallée did return frequently to the region of his youth (he was raised in nearby Verchères, Que.) for concerts, but no records indicate that he was in Saint-Hyacinthe in the spring of 1880, when Choquette's tale would place him there. But there's considerably better evidence for what Lavallée actually did next. After the summer of 1880, during which he debuted O Canada and worked as a teacher, he angrily quit Canada (potentially in response to financial difficulties, though accounts differ), moved to Massachusetts and, when not composing or performing, crusaded for Canada to become what would have been the 39th state.
'Lavallée was a thorough-going American,' his close friend, Henry F. Miller, Jr. (son of the eponymous piano maker), was quoted as saying in an obituary published by the American journal Freund's Music and Drama following Lavallée's death from tuberculosis in 1891. Miller recalled Lavallée joining the Union Army as a band musician for the 4th Rhode Island infantry regiment during the American Civil War.
Aside from his U.S. military service, Miller was particularly struck by a speech Lavallée had given a few years before his death to an organization known as the Ligue des Patriotes. Established in 1885, the Fall River, Mass.,-based group provided mutual aid and acted as a kind of expatriate benevolent society for francophones who had come to Fall River seeking economic opportunity, as well as freedom from 'Orangeism and Anglo-Saxon hatred,' as Dr. Valmore St-Germain, a physician and prominent member, put it to The Boston Globe. As an active member, Lavallée wrote a tune for the Ligue every bit as rousing as O Canada, called Restons Français (Let's Stay French). In his speeches to the Ligue, however, his contributions were more nakedly political: 'He urged the annexation of Canada to the United States,' Miller recalled.
I do hope that the sword I purchased was with a member of the Ligue during one of Lavallée's rousing speeches – a silent witness to some seditious talk. It's not entirely clear why the Ligue made swords for its members, though the group did take part in parades and marches that called for militaristic dress – a popular trend in the 19th century (it's quite a dainty thing, as far as swords go).
Talk of annexation among the members of the Ligue heated up in 1890, a year before Lavallée's death, when future U.S. president William McKinley, then a congressman, proposed a bill that would wildly increase tariffs on goods coming in from Canada.
The Ligue invited a member of Quebec's National Assembly, Alfred Girard, to speak to the group in August, 1890, two months before McKinley's bill would go into effect on Oct. 1. Girard warned of the 'ruination of Canada' and cautioned that Canadian companies could go bankrupt for want of a market for their goods. Dr. St-Germain gave a speech in reply, in which he contended that America would happily welcome Canada as part of the United States.
'This speech provoked the wildest enthusiasm,' a report in The Boston Globe recounted.
But McKinley's dreams of American protectionism, and Lavallée's dream for the annexation of Canada, were not to be. Though McKinley would later win the presidency and implement a protectionist foreign policy, his first attempt at tariffs cost the Republicans the House of Representatives (and McKinley his own seat) in the U.S. election of November, 1890.
Lavallée's own fortunes took a turn for the worse as well. In poor health, he convalesced at the home of Dr. St-Germain in the fall of 1890 and died in January, 1891, never having achieved his American dream. The Freund's obituary remembered him as 'a musician peculiarly devoted to the best interests of his art, and especially free from mere personal considerations,' which is as nice a way as any to say that he died poor.
Today's tariffs – whether temporary or here to stay – are forecasted to bring more economic pain. But perhaps Lavallée still has something to offer. His tune was the inspiration for Adolphe-Basile Routhier's original French lyrics for O Canada, including this stirring middle couplet: 'Car ton bras sait porter l'épée/ Il sait porter la croix!' ('For your arm knows how to wield the sword/ It knows how to bear the cross.')
Take heart, Canada. We've been here before and can bear this economic cross together. Plus, I've got the sword.