Under the Quebec Act of 1774, which legal system applied to civil matters, and which to criminal matters?
- British civil law and French criminal law
- British law for both
- French civil law and British criminal law
- French law for both
Answer: French civil law and British criminal law
The Quebec Act of 1774 restored French civil law and kept British criminal law. Britain passed it to govern the French-speaking Catholic majority better. Canadian law today still draws on both English common law and the civil code of France.
Learn more: The British conquest and the Quebec Act
- In 1759 the British defeated the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at Québec City. This ended France’s empire in America.
- The commanders of both armies, Brigadier James Wolfe and the Marquis de Montcalm, were killed leading their troops.
- After the war, Britain renamed the colony the “Province of Quebec”.
- The French-speaking Catholic people were called habitants or Canadiens. They worked to keep their way of life in the English-speaking, Protestant British Empire.
- The Quebec Act of 1774 was passed to govern the French Roman Catholic majority better. It is one of the constitutional foundations of Canada.
- The Quebec Act gave Catholics religious freedom and let them hold public office, which was not then allowed in Britain.
- The Quebec Act restored French civil law and kept British criminal law.
- Sir Guy Carleton (Lord Dorchester), Governor of Quebec, defended the rights of the Canadiens and defeated an American invasion of Quebec in 1775.