He was educated at Horton Academy, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, graduating MD in 1843.

Following the passage of the British North America Act in 1867, Tupper resigned as premier of Nova Scotia and began a career in federal politics.

In 1895, the government of Mackenzie Bowell floundered over the Manitoba Schools Question; as a result, several leading members of the Conservative Party of Canada demanded the return of Tupper to serve as prime minister.

[5] After graduating in 1839, he spent a short time in New Brunswick working as a teacher, then moved to Windsor, Nova Scotia, to study medicine (1839–1840) with Dr. Ebenezer Fitch Harding.

Although Tupper won his seat, the 1855 election was an overall disaster for the Nova Scotia Conservatives, with the Liberals, led by William Young, winning a large majority.

At a caucus meeting in January 1856, Tupper recommended a new direction for the Conservative party: they should begin actively courting Nova Scotia's Roman Catholic minority and should eagerly embrace railroad construction.

[5] Tupper had thus embarked on the major theme of his political life: that Nova Scotians (and later Canadians) should downplay their ethnic and religious differences, focusing instead on developing the land's natural resources.

[5] Tupper reached a compromise with Archbishop Connolly whereby Catholic-run schools could receive public funding, so long as they provided their religious instruction after hours.

[5] Tupper outlined his changed position in a lecture delivered at Saint John, New Brunswick, entitled "The Political Condition of British North America".

[5] A conference to discuss the proposed union of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island was scheduled to be held in Charlottetown in September 1864.

[5] However, the French Canadian delegates to the conference, notably George-Étienne Cartier and Hector-Louis Langevin, strongly opposed the idea of a legislative union.

[5] He was therefore surprised when the deal he had negotiated at Quebec was roundly criticized by Nova Scotians: the Opposition Leader Adams George Archibald was the only member of the Liberal caucus to support Confederation.

[5] In April 1866, Tupper secured a motion of the Nova Scotia legislature in favour of union by promising that he would renegotiate the Seventy-two Resolutions at the upcoming conference in London.

[5] In the November 1867 provincial elections in Nova Scotia, the pro-Confederation Hiram Blanchard was defeated by the leader of the Anti-Confederation Party, William Annand.

[5] With the outbreak of the Red River Rebellion in 1869, Tupper was distressed to find that his daughter Emma's husband was being held hostage by Louis Riel and the rebels.

In February 1873, Tupper was shifted from Inland Revenue to become Minister of Customs, and in this position he was successful in having British weights and measures adopted as the uniform standard for the united colonies.

[5] When Mackenzie proved unable to achieve reciprocity, Tupper began shifting toward protectionism and became a proponent of the National Policy which became a part of the Conservative platform in 1876.

"[5] Tupper traveled to London in summer 1879 to attempt to persuade the British government (then headed by the Earl of Beaconsfield in his second term as prime minister) to guarantee a bond sale to be used to construct the railway.

[5] Tupper remained committed to leaving Ottawa, however, and in May 1883, he moved to London to become unpaid High Commissioner, though he did not surrender his ministerial position at the time.

[5] Although he was not a full plenipotentiary, he represented Canada at a Paris conference in 1883, where he openly disagreed with the British delegation; and in 1884 he was allowed to conduct negotiations for a Canadian commercial treaty with Spain.

[5] His other duties as High Commissioner included: putting Canadian exporters in contact with British importers; negotiating loans for the Canadian government and the CPR; helping to organize the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886; arranging for a subsidy for the mail ship from Vancouver, British Columbia, to the Orient; and lobbying on behalf of a British-Pacific cable along the lines of the transatlantic telegraph cable and for a faster transatlantic steam ship.

[5] Acting as High Commissioner, Tupper pressured the British government (then led by Lord Salisbury) to stand firm in defending Canada's rights.

The Conservative Party was bitterly divided on how to handle the Manitoba Schools Question, and as a result, on January 4, 1896, seven cabinet ministers resigned, demanding the return of Tupper.

[5] In 1895, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled that the Canadian federal government could pass remedial legislation to overrule the Manitoba Schools Act (see Disallowance and reservation).

[5] However, the Conservatives were so bitterly divided over the Manitoba Schools Question that wherever he spoke, he was faced with a barrage of criticism, most notably at a two-hour address he gave at Massey Hall in Toronto, which was constantly interrupted by the crowd.

However, they captured only about half of the seats in English Canada, while Laurier's Liberals won a landslide victory in Quebec, where Tupper's reputation as an ardent imperialist was a major handicap.

As Leader of the Opposition during the 8th Canadian Parliament, Tupper attempted to regain the loyalty of those Conservatives who had deserted the party over the Manitoba Schools Question.

He sat on the executive committee of the British Empire League and advocated closer economic ties between Canada and Britain, while continuing to oppose Imperial Federation and requests for Canada to make a direct contribution to imperial defense costs (though he supported Borden's decision to voluntarily make an emergency contribution of dreadnoughts to the Royal Navy in 1912).

[5] He also gave a series of interviews to journalist W. A. Harkin which formed the basis of a second book published in 1914, entitled Political Reminiscences of the Right Honourable Sir Charles Tupper.

Historians noted that despite Tupper's elderly age, he showed a determination and spirit during his brief time as prime minister that almost beat Laurier in the 1896 election.