While it shrank, it became more violent, mainly through the support of the Hunters' Lodges, a secret United States–based militia that emerged around the Great Lakes, and launched the Patriot War in 1838.

While these rebellions differed in that they also struggled for republicanism, they were inspired by similar social problems stemming from poorly regulated oligarchies, and sought the same democratic ideals, which were also shared by the United Kingdom's Chartists.

[7] Lacking the minimum capital needed to found the bank, the corporate leaders persuaded the government to subscribe for a quarter of its shares.

[7] The Upper Canada Central Political Union was organized in 1832–33 by Thomas David Morrison and collected 19,930 signatures on a petition protesting William Lyon Mackenzie's expulsion from the House of Assembly.

The Society took its final form as the Toronto Political Union in 1837 and they organized local "Vigilance Committees" to elect delegates to a Constitutional Convention in July 1837.

[15] The Reform-dominated Assembly responded by refusing to pass the money bill, which halted the payment of salaries and pensions to many government workers.

They prepared a petition to the Crown protesting the abuses, carried to London by Charles Duncombe, but the Colonial Office refused to hear him.

The new Tory-dominated Legislature passed laws that exacerbated tensions including continuing the Legislative session after the death of the King, prohibiting members of the Legislature from serving as Executive Councillors, making it easier to sue indebted farmers, protecting the Bank of Upper Canada from bankruptcy, and giving Legislative Councillors charters for their own banks.

[20] On July 10, 1832, US President Andrew Jackson vetoed the bill for the refinancing of the Second Bank of the United States, causing a depression in the Anglo-American world.

[21] Among the more than 150 lawsuits they launched that year, the Bank of Upper Canada, sued Sheldon, Dutcher & Co., a foundry and Toronto's largest employer with over 80 employees in late 1836, bankrupting the company.

[22] Mackenzie's first plan for rebellion involved calling on Sheldon & Dutcher's men to storm the city hall, where the militia's guns were stored.

[citation needed] The Reformers were incensed at the debt that the Family Compact incurred as the results of general improvements to the province, such as the Welland Canal.

The meeting created the Committee of Vigilance and signed a declaration urging every community to send delegates to a congress in Toronto and discuss remedies for their concerns.

[25] Farmers organised target practice sessions and forges in the Home District and Simcoe County created weapons for the rebellion.

[27] Mackenzie gathered reformers at John Doel's brewery and proposed kidnapping Bond Head, bringing him to city hall and forcing him to let the Legislature choose the members of the Executive Council.

[31] Mackenzie sought out support in rural communities but he also proclaimed that an armed rebellion would happen on December 7 and assigned Samuel Lount and Anthony Anderson as commanders.

[36] The mayor of Toronto refused to ring the City Hall bell if a rebellion began because he felt Fitzgibbon was causing unnecessary concern over a possible revolt.

[45] As they were approaching Montgomery's Tavern Powell mortally shot Anthony Anderson in the neck and escaped back to Toronto to report to Bond Head.

[54] Morrison was arrested and charged with treason while Rolph sent a letter encouraging Mackenzie to send the rebels home then fled to the United States.

[55] On Wednesday morning Peter Matthews arrived at the tavern with sixty men, but Mackenzie could still not convince the rebel forces to march towards Toronto.

[56] The rebels raided a mail coach, stole the passenger's money and looked for information about the progress of the rebellion in London, Upper Canada.

[64] Upon hearing more details about the rebellion in Toronto, Duncombe convened a series of public meetings to spread news of the supposed atrocities committed by Bond Head against all suspected reformers to help increase anti-government support.

[65] Colonel Allan MacNab, who had just finished leading Upper Canadian militiamen during the Battle of Montgomery's Tavern, was sent to engage Duncombe's uprising.

[67] Mackenzie, Duncombe, Rolph and 200 supporters fled to Navy Island in the Niagara River and declared themselves the Republic of Canada on December 13.

[70] Van Egmond died of an illness he acquired while imprisoned[71] while Lount and Peter Matthews were sentenced to the gallows for leading the rebellion.

[74] Dent wrote that the rebellion caused England to notice the concerns of Canadian reformers and reconsider their colonial rule of the province.

[75] He thought the rebellion hastened the changes Reformers advocated by drawing attention to the province from the Colonial Office and the production of the Durham Report.

[73] Paul Romney argued that the above assessments are a failure of historical imagination and the outcome of an explicit strategy adopted by reformers in the face of charges of disloyalty to Britain in the wake of the Rebellions of 1837.

In his view, the linkage of the "fight for responsible government" with disloyalty was solidified by the Rebellion of 1837, as reformers took up arms to finally break the "baneful domination" of the mother country.

Struggling to avoid the charge of sedition, reformers later purposefully obscured their true aims of independence from Britain and focused on their grievances against the Family Compact.