The Rebellion of 1837 had taken place six years before the Kinnear and Montgomery murders in 1843, but it still affected public sentiment. The Rebellion terrorized the upper classes even though the rebels were quickly defeated. Government reforms made soon after the Rebellion reduced corruption and restricted the power of the ruling oligarchies, which also worried the upper classes. The idea that the lower classes could rise above their station by hard work or cleverness (rather than by ancestry and inheritance) was finding acceptance in the United States, so the Canadian aristocracy, basing their identity on their English heritage, felt threatened.[8]
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