The ceremony concluded with a speech from the Emperor, in the French language, bearing witness to the sentiments with which he had received the homage and oath of the country's representatives, and testifying that it was an Act of Union that had just been effected.
The Emperor and Grand Duke submitted to the Diet propositions on the four following questions:—
1. The organisation of the Government of the land, or the institution of a State Council.
2. Taxes and finance.
3. Military organisation.
4. Monetary system.
Thus was Finland's new destiny inaugurated.
The conqueror found himself in the presence of a people firmly attached to their political institutions and their civil laws, the liberal principles of which had taken root in the minds and habits of the citizens. To have employed physical force in order to incorporate this country with Russia would not have accorded with the Emperor's personal views, nor conduced to the immediate pacification which the political interests of the Empire necessitated. Hence Alexander preferred an "Act of Union." He confirmed the old Constitution, and summoned the representatives of the nation, so as to establish, conjointly with them, the new order of things.
The Finlanders, foreseeing the final issue of the war and the impossibility of a return to the past, could not hesitate to meet half-way the proposals of the Emperor Alexander, who had given them, as a security for the future, the most formal assurance to maintain the former Constitution. In Sweden the king had been dethroned; the Swedish government had no more power over Finland; the Finnish Estates, elected and assembled according to law, could alone at that moment represent with perfect right the Finnish people. Hence the authority they made use of in binding the inhabitants of the country by the oath taken to the new sovereign, on the basis of the Constitution confirmed by him, was acknowledged both by the Emperor and the people. The Emperor expressed this in his manifesto "to all the inhabitants of Finland," published at Borgå, April 4, 1809. No protest was heard in the country.
The union thus established was clearly defined by the Emperor, not only in the above-mentioned speech of 29th March and his speech at the conclusion of the Diet, on July 18, 1809, but also on other occasions—for example, in the manifesto of March 27, 1810, concerning the militia, from which we extract the introduction:—