Note: For French Canadians, the Catholic religion was a way of asserting one’s difference from the English Protestants. Do you understand the meaning of this statement?

Excerpt: “Canadians are […] religious by principle and political by passion”

Source:  Alexis de Tocqueville. «Lettre du 7 septembre 1831.» Regards sur le Bas-Canada. Montréal, Typo, 2003. p. 196.