Editing Durham Report (section)

===Racial context===
Several references to "race" are made in this report, referring to French Canadians or Canadiens as a one race and to the English or Anglo-Canadians as another.

<blockquote>It will be acknowledged by every one who has observed the progress of Anglo-Saxon colonization in America, that sooner or later the English race was sure to predominate even numerically in Lower Canada, as they predominate already, by their superior knowledge, energy, enterprise, and wealth. The error, therefore, to which the present contest must be attributed is the vain endeavour to preserve a French Canadian nationality in the midst of Anglo-American colonies and states.<ref name=ecodurham/>{{rp|22}}</blockquote>

<blockquote>And is this French Canadian nationality one which, for the good merely people of that people, we ought to strive to perpetuate, even if it were possible? I know of no national distinctions marking and continuing a more hopeless inferiority. The language, the laws, the character of the North American continent are English; and every race but the English (I apply this to all who speak the English language) appears in a condition of inferiority. It is to elevate them from that inferiority that I desire to give to the Canadians our English character.<ref name=ecodurham/>{{rp|94}}</blockquote>

This is because, at the time of the report, English-speakers used the word race to mean ethnicity, referring to the populations of European states as "the English race", "the German race" etc.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/race | title=Websters Dictionary 1828 - Webster's Dictionary 1828 - Race }}</ref>