ced 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 (p. 578)
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 deg. 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