Responsible Government League

In the 19th century, various Anti-Confederates were strengthened in their resolve by outspoken figures such as Charles Fox Bennett who successfully championed Responsible Government's cause in an election on the confederation issue in 1869. Bennett was opposed to Confederation because he feared the Québécois: he thought that if Newfoundland joined in Confederation with Quebec, then the Canadian Parliament would be dominated by Canada East (Quebec); he feared there would be a whole dynasty of French-Canadian statesmen who would centralize power in Ottawa and ignore the people of Newfoundland; he feared a National Unity Crisis within Canada and believed that Newfoundland would lose control of its natural resources to the new federal government. Both before and during the Confederation debates of the 1860s, there was a "Native Newfoundlanders" movement: The Newfoundland Natives' Society was formed in 1840 to lobby for more labour and employment rights in the forestry and fishery for Newfoundland residents. Also, songs such as "The Anti-Confederation Song" and "The Antis of Plate Cove" were popular at the time.

In 1869, the people of the Colony of Newfoundland voted in a General Election against Confederation with Canada. The Confederation debates were furious and sometimes ludicrous: Anti-Confederates charged Newfoundland children would be drafted into the Canadian Army and die to be left unburied in distant sandy, dry Canadian deserts. There was also vague, xenophobic, anti-French sentiment. Because Newfoundland did not join Canada in 1869, it would remain a separate political entity for a further four generations. During the 1890s the question of Confederation again arose but Canadian diplomats were cold to the idea.

The colony was granted dominion status at the same time as New Zealand.

During World War I, Newfoundland mustered its own Regiment, and sent it to both Gallipoli, Turkey and the Western Front, France. In return for this contribution, the Prime Minister of Newfoundland was appointed to Britain's House of Lords. Newfoundland was granted dominion status and was as independent as Australia, Canada, or New Zealand in this Period. This was confirmed in the Balfour declaration and in The Statute of Westminster, 1931. The Great Depression hit the Newfoundland economy hard causing the dominion government to collapse in bankruptcy.

Newfoundland's economy experienced many cycles of recession. Its government's finances collapsed completely in the early 1930s due in part to considerable debts incurred by the government in its aid of the Allied effort during the First World War and the large government debt acquired in constructing a railway across the island. Economic collapse led to political crisis. In 1932, due to economic dislocations brought about by the Great Depression, government corruption and a resulting riot and the lingering effects of a large public debt noted above, the Newfoundland economy collapsed and the government was forced out of office. A new government led by Frederick C. Alderdice came to power after promising to ask the British Government to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the possibility of suspending responsible government. That Royal Commission recommended a "rest from politics," after which the Newfoundland legislature requested that the British appoint a Commission of Government. In February 1934 the island reverted to something similar to crown colony status. A Commission of Government was established to govern the Dominion.