Ministers. If, meanwhile, the members
of the Council should have the power, by refusing countersignature, to
hinder every future Royal Decree, the Norwegian King would be deprived of
participating in the government. This position would be as lowering to
the Monarch as injurious to Norway herself.

To the circumstances that can thus be adduced against the validity,
according to fundamental law, of the Prime Minister's refusal of
Countersignature, and against the efficacy of the dogma that the King's
Decree in order to be valid, must bear the responsibility of some member
of the Cabinet, can be added, in questions touching the Union situation,
two more reasons, which have their foundation in the fact that the King
of Norway is also King of the Union.

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 Sec. 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 p