The Governments of Europe

by Frederic Austin Ogg

632. Bernadotte and the Treaty of Kiel.—As has been pointed out, the kingdom of Sweden acquired independence of Denmark near the end of the first quarter of the sixteenth century. The liberation of Norway was delayed until the era of Napoleon, and when it came it meant, not the independence which the Norwegians craved, but forced affiliation with their more numerous and more powerful neighbors on the east. The succession of events by which the new arrangement was brought about was engineered principally by Napoleon's ex-marshal Bernadotte. May 28, 1810, Prince Charles Augustus of Augustenburg, whom the Riksdag had selected as heir to the infirm and childless Charles XIII., died, and after a notable contest, Bernadotte was agreed upon unanimously by the four estates (August 21) as the new heir. November 5 the adventuresome Frenchman received the homage of the estates and was adopted by the king as crown prince under the name of Charles John.[807] By reason of the infirmity of the sovereign, Bernadotte acquired almost at once virtual control of the government. From the outset he believed it to be impossible for Sweden to recover Finland; but he believed no less that she might recoup herself, with the assent of the powers, by the acquisition of the Danish dominion of Norway. In March and April, 1813, Great Britain and Russia were brought to the point of giving the desired assent, and by the Treaty of Kiel, January 14, 1814, the king of Denmark, under pressure applied by the Allies, made the desired surrender.[808]

633. The Movement for Norwegian Independence: the Constitution of 1814.—In Norway there was small disposition to accept the new arrangement. Instead there was set up the theory that when the Danish sovereign renounced his claim to the throne of his northern dominion the Norwegian state legally reverted forthwith to its former condition of independence. Upon this assumption 112 representatives of the nation, of whom 82 were opposed to union with Sweden, met at the Eidsvold iron-works near Christiania, and drew up a liberal constitution modelled principally on the French instrument of 1791, under which was established a national Storthing, or parliament. May 17, furthermore, Prince Christian Frederick, the Danish governor of the country, was elected king of Norway. From the Swedish point of view these sovereign acts were absolutely invalid, and upon Norway's rejection of mediation by the powers Bernadotte invaded the country at the head of a Swedish army. In a short, sharp campaign the Norwegians were hopelessly beaten,[809] and the upshot was that Christian Frederick was forced to abdicate (October 7, 1814), the Storthing was compelled to give its assent to the union with Sweden (October 20), the Eidsvold constitution was revised (November 4) to bring it into accord with the conditions of the union, and the Storthing went through the formality of electing Charles XIII. king of Norway and of recognizing Bernadotte as heir to the throne. Fifty of the one hundred ten articles of the Eidsvold constitution were retained unaltered; the remainder were revised or omitted. Amended upon a number of subsequent occasions, this constitution of November 4, 1814, has continued in operation to the present day as the Grundlov, or fundamental law, of the Norwegian state. No constitution was ever born of a more interesting contest for national dignity and independence.

634. Nature of the Union.—The union of the two states was of a purely personal character; that is to say, it was a union solely through the crown. Each of the kingdoms maintained its own constitution, its own ministry, its own legislature, its own laws, its own financial system, its own courts, its own army and navy. The legal basis of the affiliation was the Riksakt, or Act of Union, of August, 1815,—an ultimate agreement between the two states which in Norway was formally adopted by the Storthing as a part of the Norwegian fundamental law, but which in Sweden was regarded as a treaty, and hence was never incorporated by the Rigsdag within the constitution. In each of the states the functions and status of the crown were regulated by constitutional provisions; and the character of the royal power was by no means the same in the two. In Sweden, for example, the king possessed independent legislative power and his veto was absolute; in Norway he possessed no such independent prerogative and his veto was only suspensive. There was a common ministry of war and another of foreign affairs; beyond this the functions of a common administration were vested in a complicated system of joint councils of state. Matters of common concern lying outside the jurisdiction of the crown were regulated by concurrent resolutions or laws passed by the Riksdag and the Storthing independently. But in all matters of internal legislation and administration the two kingdoms were as separate as if no legal relations had been established between them. There was not even a common citizenship.

635. Causes of Friction.—From the outset the union was menaced by perennial friction. Differences between the two kingdoms in respect to language, manners, and economic concerns were pronounced; differences of social and political ideas were still more considerable; differences in governmental theories and institutions were seemingly irreconcilable. In Sweden the tone of the political system, until far in the nineteenth century, was distinctly autocratic, and that of the social system aristocratic; in Norway the principle that preponderated was rather that of democracy. Between the two states there was disagreement upon even the fundamental question of the nature of the union. The Swedish contention was that at the Peace of Kiel Norway was ceded to Sweden by Denmark and that the mere fact that, following the unsuccessful attempt of the Norwegians to establish their independence, Sweden had chosen to grant the affiliated kingdom a separate statehood and local autonomy did not contravene Norway's essentially subordinate position within the union. The Norwegians, on the other hand, maintained that, in the last analysis, they comprised an independent nation and that their union with Sweden rested solely upon their own sovereign decision in 1814 to accept Charles XIII. as king; from which the inference was that Norway should be dealt with as in every respect co-ordinate with Sweden. The conflicts which sprang from these differences of conception were frequent and serious. There was no disguising the fact that the administration of the joint affairs of the kingdoms was conducted from a point of view that was essentially Swedish, and the history of the union throughout the period of its existence is largely a story of the struggle on the part of the Norwegians, through the medium of the Storthing, to attain in practice the fully co-ordinate position which they believed to be rightfully theirs. Again and again amendments to the constitution in the interest of the royal power were submitted by successive sovereigns, only to be rejected by the Storthing.

In 1860 the Swedish estates insisted upon a revision of the Act of Union which should include the establishment of a common parliament for the two countries, in which, in approximate accordance with population, there would be twice as many Swedish members as Norwegian. The Storthing, naturally enough, rejected the proposition. In 1869 the Storthing fortified its position by adopting a resolution in accordance with which its sessions, theretofore triennial, were made annual, and in 1871 the first annual Storthing rejected an elaborate modification of the Act of Union, to which the Conservative ministry of Stang had been induced to lend its support, whereby the supremacy of Sweden would have been recognized explicitly and the bonds of the union would have been tightened correspondingly. Two years later the new sovereign, Oscar II. (1872-1907), gave reluctant assent to a measure by which the office of viceroy in Norway was abolished. Thereafter the head of the government at Christiania was the president of the ministry, or premier; and, following a prolonged contest, in the early eighties there was forced upon the crown the principle of ministerial responsibility (in Norway).

636. The Question of the Consular Service.—The rock upon which the union foundered eventually, however, was Norway's participation in the management of diplomatic and consular affairs. The subject was one which had been left in 1814 without adequate provision, and throughout the century it gave rise to repeated difficulties. In 1885, and again in 1891, there was an attempt to solve the problem, but upon each occasion the only result was a deadlock, the Storthing insisting upon, and the Swedish authorities denying, Norway's right, as an independent kingdom, to participate equally with Sweden in the conduct of the foreign relations of the two states. In 1892 the Storthing resolved upon the establishment of an independent Norwegian consular service; but to this the king would not assent. Norwegian trading and maritime interests had come to be such that, in the opinion of the commercial and other influential classes of the kingdom, separateness of consular administration was indispensable, and upon the success of this reform was made to hinge eventually the perpetuity of the union itself. Throughout several years the deadlock continued. At the Norwegian elections of 1894 and 1897 the Liberals were overwhelmingly successful, and it was made increasingly apparent that the Norwegian people were veering strongly toward unrestricted national independence. July 28, 1902, a lengthy report was submitted by a Swedish-Norwegian Consular Commission, constituted upon Swedish initiative earlier in the year, in which the practicability of two entirely separate consular systems was asserted, and, March 24, 1903, an official communiqué announced the conclusion of an agreement between representatives of the two countries under which there were to be worked out two essentially identical codes of law for the government of the two systems. Upon the nature of these codes, however, there arose serious disagreement, and when, in 1904, the Boström ministry of Sweden submitted as an absolute condition that any Norwegian consul might be removed from office by the Swedish foreign minister, the entire project was brought to naught.

637. The Norwegian Declaration of Independence: the Separation.—March 1, 1905, the Norwegian ministry presided over by Hagerup resigned and was replaced by a ministry made up by Christian Michelsen, which included representatives of both the Liberal and Conservative parties. May 23 the Storthing, by unanimous vote, passed a new bill for the establishment of Norwegian consulships. The king, four days later, vetoed the measure; whereupon the Michelsen government resigned. The king refused to accept the resignation; the ministers refused to reconsider it. June 7 Michelsen and his colleagues placed their resignation in the hands of the Storthing, and that body, impelled at last to cut the Gordian knot, adopted by unanimous vote a resolution to the effect (1) that, the king having admitted his inability to form a Government, the constitutional powers of the crown had become inoperative, and (2) that Oscar II. having ceased to act as king of Norway, the union with Sweden was to be regarded as ipso facto dissolved. By another unanimous vote the ministerial group was authorized to exercise temporarily the prerogatives hitherto vested in the sovereign.

On the part of certain elements in Sweden there was a disposition to resist Norwegian independence, and for a time there was prospect of war. The mass of the people, however, cared but little for the maintenance of the union. The prevailing national sentiment was expressed with aptness by the king himself when he affirmed that "a union to which both parties do not give their free and willing consent will be of no real advantage to either." June 20 the Riksdag was convened in extraordinary session to take under advisement the situation. Dreading war, this body eventually decided to sanction negotiations looking toward a separation, provided, however, that the Norwegian people, either through the agency of a newly elected Storthing or directly by referendum, should avow explicitly their desire for independence. During a recess of the Riksdag a Norwegian plebiscite was taken, August 13, with the result that 368,211 votes were cast in favor of the separation and but 184 against it. Two weeks later eight commissioners representing the two states met at Karlstad, in Sweden, and negotiated a treaty, signed September 23, wherein the terms of the separation were specifically fixed. This instrument, approved by the Storthing October 9 and by the reassembled Riksdag October 16, provided for the establishment of a neutral, unfortified zone on the common frontier south of the parallel 61° and stipulated that all differences between the two nations which should prove impossible of adjustment by direct negotiation should be referred to the permanent court of arbitration at the Hague, provided such differences should not involve the independence, integrity, or vital interests of either nation. October 27 King Oscar formally relinquished the Norwegian crown.

III. The Norwegian Constitution—Crown and Ministry

638. The Revised Fundamental Law.—In Norway there was widespread sentiment in favor of the establishment of a republic. The continuance of monarchy was regarded, however, as the course which might be expected to meet with most general approval throughout Europe, and in a spirit of conciliation the Storthing tendered to King Oscar an offer to elect as sovereign a member of the Swedish royal family. The offer was rejected; whereupon the Storthing selected as a candidate Prince Charles, second son of the then Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark, the late King Frederick VIII. November 12 and 13, 1905, the Norwegian people, by a vote of 259,563 to 69,264, ratified the Storthing's choice, the advocates of a republic recording some 33,000 votes. The new sovereign was crowned at Trondhjem June 22, 1906. By assuming the title of Haakon VII. he purposely emphasized the essential continuity of the present Norwegian monarchy with that of mediæval times.[810]