In 1866 Smith resigned to nurse his ailing father. After his father's death, Smith moved to the US to teach at Cornell. He settled in Toronto in 1871 to be near relatives. In 1875 he married Henry Boulton's widow and moved into THE GRANGE, where as a self-declared bystander he wrote extensively on Canadian and international affairs. Initially he supported the CANADA FIRST movement, but its collapse convinced him that Canada was not viable as a nation - a view he expressed in Canada and the Canadian Question (1891). As a journalist Smith wrote for the Liberal, the Nation, the Canadian Monthly and National Review, the Week, which he founded in 1883 with Charles G.D. ROBERTS as literary editor, The Bystander and the Weekly Sun. He opposed Canadian participation in the SOUTH AFRICAN WAR and the imperial federation movement. His Reminiscences and a selected Correspondence were published after his death.
See alsoTORONTO FEATURE: THE GRANGE.