However opinions may have varied, respecting the conception of the unity which the Union agreements have created for the binding together of the two Kingdoms, one fact remains clear, that Royal power is also an institution of the Union. This position of the King’s as being not only King of Norway or of Sweden, but also as Monarch of the United Kingdoms, makes it the King’s duty, not to form decisions in conflict with the Act of Union § 5, respecting the settlement of matters in one country, which would also affect the other. The King’s duty in the aforesaid respect is incompatible with the opinion that the one Kingdom, by the refusal of Countersignature by its Prime Minister or otherwise, could undo a Royal Decree, by which he refused to make a resolution prejudicial to the other Kingdom or injurious to the Union. In Norway, when they endeavoured to adhere to an opposite opinion, when the Norwegian people claimed the right to force the King to form his decision in conflict with what he considers his right as King of the Union to concede, there was no other way of attaining this object than making the Union, and also the King of Sweden, in his actions, totally dependent on the will of the Norwegian people, its Storthing and its Cabinet.

A Sovereign power of this kind I must characterize as being in strife with the Union between the Kingdoms as confirmed by the Act of Union

It has been My constant endeavour to give Norway that position within the Union to which it has a just claim. My Royal duty has forced Me, even in conflict with general opinion in Norway, to try to maintain the legal principles of the Union.

My coronation oath and the good of the United Kingdoms prompted My Decree concerning the settlement of the Consular question, but in this I have been met, not only by the Norwegian Cabinet’s refusal of Countersignature, but also the resignation of its members. When I declared, »As it is clear to Me, that no other government can now be formed therefore I cannot consent to the resignation of the Cabinet», the Cabinet answered by the threat that the Norwegian who assented to My Decree would in the same moment lose all national rights. I was therefore placed in such a situation that I must either break the oaths I took under the Act of Union, or expose Myself to being without Ministers. I had no choice. After having in conflict with the fundamental law, tried to undo the King’s lawfully made resolution, the Council, by resigning their office at the Storthing, have left the King without advisers. The Storthing has approved of this breaking of the law, and by a Revolutionary proceeding declared that the lawful King of Norway has ceased to reign, and hat the Union between the Kingdoms is dissolved.

It now becomes the bounden duty of Sweden and Myself as King of the Union to decide whether Norway’s attack on the existing Union shall lead to the legal dissolution of the same.

May the opinions of our contemporaries and also those of posterity judge between Me and the People of Norway!

28.
The Norwegian Storthings documentary address to the King. Dated Christiania June 19th 1905.

To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty!

Norway’s Storthing appeals, in all humility, to Your Majesty and through the Your Majesty to the Diet and the People of Sweden to be allowed to express the following:

That which has now happened in Norway is the necessary results of the late events in Union politics, and cannot be undone. And as it is certain that the nation does not wish to return to the old conditions of the Union, the Storthing considers it impossible to resume negotiations on the different constitutional and state-law questions, which in Your Majesty’s address to the President of the Storthing are referred to, in connection with the settled decisions, and on which the Storthing and Government have previously fully expressed themselves. The Storthing fully understands the difficult position of Your Majesty, and has not for a moment doubted that Your Majesty’s decree is made with the full conviction that Your Majesty has considered it to be the right and duty of Your Majesty.