Union with Sweden

UNION WITH SWEDEN Three years later the nascent nation found itself suddenly transferred to the rule of the king of Sweden. The Swedes, with Bernadotte as the heir-apparent, had fought against Napoleon, while the Danes, under Frederick VI., had espoused his cause. The result was the treaty of Kiel (Jan. 14, 1814), which, as was generally understood, compensated Sweden for her loss of Fin land to Russia by giving her Norway. But the Norwegians, who had not been consulted in the matter, declared that, while the Danish king might renounce his right to their crown, it was contrary to international law to dispose of an entire kingdom without the consent of its people. A meeting was convened at Eidsvold, where, on May 17, 1814, a constitution, framed upon the constitutions of America, of France (1791), and of Spain (1812), was adopted. It made the storting, or National Assembly, a single-chamber institution, and gave the king no absolute veto, or right of dissolution. The Danish governor of Norway, Prince Christian Frederick, was unanimously elected king. Bernadotte invaded Norway, but after a fortnight opened negotiations. A convention at Moss proposed that the Norwegians should accept the Swedish king as their sovereign, but that the Eidsvold con stitution should remain. An extraordinary storting at Christiania, on Nov. 4, 1814, declared Norway "a free, independent, and indivisible kingdom, united with Sweden under one king." Prince Christian Frederick had already left the country.

The Act of Union.

The Act of Union, which was accepted by both countries in the following year, stated that the union was accomplished "not by force of arms, but by free conviction," and the Swedish foreign minister declared to the European Powers that the Treaty of Kiel had been abandoned, and that the union was due to the confidence of the Norwegians in the Swedish people. The Eidsvold constitution henceforward formed the Grundlov, or fundamental law. The union thus concluded was really an offensive and defensive alliance under a common king, each coun try retaining its own government, parliament, army, navy and customs. The Swedish people, none the less, believed that they had won Norway by arms. As the national principle grew more powerful, and the Norwegians richer, more numerous and more self-conscious, a tension developed on the question of union which was eased only by severance in 1905.

From 1814 to 1829 the king was represented by a Swedish viceroy, while the government was, of course, composed only of Norwegians. Count Wedel-Jarlsberg was its first head while several of Prince Christian Frederick's councillors of state were retained. Over the first two viceroys Count Wedel exercised considerable influence.

The end of the Napoleonic wars brought to Norway poverty and depression of trade, and her finances were in a deplorable con dition. The storting therefore cut down the army by one-half and founded a bank of Norway. The paid-up capital was pro cured by an extraordinary tax, and this, together with the growing discontent among the peasantry, brought about a rising in Hede marken, designed to dissolve the storting and to reduce taxation. The rising, however, soon subsided, and the bountiful harvest of 1819 brought more prosperous times. Meanwhile, however, the financial position had endangered independence. The settlement with Denmark of Norway's share of their joint national debt threatened to provoke the intervention of the Powers. Bernadotte, now Charles XIV. of Sweden (Feb. 5, 1818), accepted England's mediation, and in Sept. 1819 concluded a convention with Den mark, by which Norway was held liable for only 3,000,00o specie dollars (nearly £700,000). The obstinacy of the storting in 1821, however, nearly occasioned a fresh interference of the Powers. When at last the Norwegians yielded, the king doubted their sincerity, and in July 1821 assembled 3,00o Swedish and 3,000 Norwegian troops near Christiania (Oslo), ostensibly for ma noeuvres. A circular note (June I) to the Powers complained bitterly of his treatment by the storting and courted their sym pathy for any attempt to revise the Norwegian constitution. The stortings of 1815 and 1818, moreover, had passed a bill for the abolition of nobility, which the king had refused to sanction. The Norwegians maintained that the few remaining counts and barons were all Danish and of very recent origin, while the true nobility of the country were the peasants, descendants of the old jarls and chieftains. According to the constitution, any bill passed by three successive stortings, elections being held every third year, became law without the king's sanction, and, though the king did everything to obstruct it, the bill was carried.