4th Quebec Legislature
legislative term of the National Assembly of Quebec (1878-1882)
The Fourth Legislature of Quebec was the provincial legislature of Quebec, Canada that existed from 1878 to 1881, following the general election of 1878.
The 1878 election was called by Premier Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, after he had been installed in office by the Lieutenant Governor Luc Letellier de St-Just. The Lieutenant Governor had dismissed the former Conservative Premier, Charles Boucher de Boucherville, over a dispute about railway legislation proposed by the Boucher de Boucherville government.
Since the Liberals did not have a majority in the Legislative Assembly, Joly de Lotbinière called an election immediately. The election resulted in a hung parliament, with neither party having a majority in the Legislative Assembly. Joly de Lotbinière was able to stay in office for one year with a minority government, supported by two Independent Conservatives, but lost a confidence vote in 1879. The Quebec Conservative Party led by Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau then formed a majority government for the remainder of the term of the legislature.
The legislature held four annual sessions, with the first session called on June 4, 1878. The legislature was dissolved on November 7, 1881, leading to the 1881 general election on December 2, 1881.
Structure of the legislature
The Legislature of Quebec was created by the British North America Act, 1867.
The public source identifies “4th Quebec Legislature” as legislative term of the National Assembly of Quebec (1878-1882). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Quebec, Legislature and legislative.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2817033. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1878, 1881, 1879 and 1867.
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This entry incorporates text from “4th Quebec Legislature” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.