ABSTRACT
The strong cultural similarity between English-speaking Canada and the United States has often led citizens of the latter to wonder why the two remain in separate polities. Both nations are largely urbanized, heavily industrialized, and politically stable. They share many of the same ecological and demographic conditions, approximately the same level of economic development, and similar rates of upward and downward social mobility. The Loyalist emigres from the American Revolution and Canada's subsequent repeatedly aroused fears of United States encroachment fostered the institutionalization of a counterrevolutionary or conservative ethos. In these counterrevolutionary beginnings of Canada, we find the clue to the continuance of British ascriptive and elitist value patterns. Despite the conviction of many revolutionary leaders that the struggle for independence was primarily an issue of political and national independence, large segments of the American people organized against the emergence of any ruling oligarchical forces.
