Only male British subjects (by birth or naturalisation), aged 21 or older, were eligible to vote, and only if they met a property qualification.

For residents of larger cities, the qualification was to own or occupy real property assessed at three hundred dollars or more.

In addition to being male, twenty-one or older, and a subject of Her Majesty (by birth or naturalisation), a candidate had to be free from all legal incapacity, and be the proprietor in possession of lands or tenements worth at least $2,000, over and above all encumbrances and charges on the property.

[13] Those requirements were: The provisions of the British North America Act, 1867 did not explicitly bar women from being called to the Senate of Canada.

[15] Boucher de Boucherville and the Conservatives won a strong majority in the 1875 election, 44 out of the 65 seats in the Legislative Assembly.

Letellier de St-Just was a strongly partisan Liberal, and continued to be so after his appointment to the position of lieutenant governor.

The Quebec government was cash-strapped, and the legislature passed statutes to require municipalities to contribute to the cost of building railways which ran through them.

He called on the Leader of the Opposition, Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, to form a government, even though the Liberals were in the minority in the Legislative Assembly.

The government were attacked by the Conservative opposition for the actions of the lieutenant governor, which were alleged to be contrary to the principles of the neutrality of the Crown.

[16] The 1875 election returned a majority in the Legislative Assembly for the Conservative Party, led by Premier Boucher de Boucherville.

Following the 1875 election, Boucher de Boucherville made some changes to the Cabinet, but largely retained the previous composition.

Because of his lack of majority in the Assembly, Joly de Lotbinière found it necessary to appoint two individuals to Cabinet who did not initially have seats in the Assembly: David Alexander Ross as Attorney General and François Langelier as Commissioner of Crown lands.

Joly de Lotbinière then immediately advised the Lieutenant Governor to dissolve the Legislative Assembly and call a general election.

Returned to office, Joly de Lotbinière initially retained the ministers in the same positions, but carried out a Cabinet shuffle the next year, in 1879.

Joly de Lotbinière called an election two weeks after being appointed premier, without any sittings of the legislature.