[58:2] There is no protocol of this Cabinet meeting, only a complete report, communicated to the government of Christiania by the delegates of the Cabinet.
[59:2] On the Norwegian side they attach great praise to themselves for having given the King a few day's grace in order to form a new Ministry. The Norwegian Cabinet also blame the King (Compare with N:o 21) for not having made use of this truce, and plainly imply hereby, that the King in fact abdicated of his own accord. The King replied to this by alluding to the Cabinets open threats (Compare with N:o 19) that the man who, after being warned by the King, dared to approach the King as adviser, from that moment lost his national rights; in other words, however the King might act, the Revolution would come. The King is therefore reproached for not endeavouring to form a new Ministry, after he had been threatened with the revolution if the attempt had shown any sign of success. How truly Norwegian!
[60:3] The terms of this communication are almost word for word the same as in the address to the King.
[60:7] One reeds, for exemple, NANSENS arguments in real exaggerated Norwegian logic. (page 94).
[61:1] Compare N:o 1 § 112 and N:o 2 § 12.
[61:2] »The kingdom of Norway is a free, independent, indivisible and inalienable realm, united with Sweden under one King.»
[62:2] N:o 28. They are careful not to confute the King's defence of the legality of his action.
[Sidenote: _The question of the Justification of the Norwegian Revolution._]
Revolutions are not to be condemned under all conditions. History--even the history of Sweden--records many revolutions, which are said to have been a vital necessity. But a revolution can only be morally defended on the grounds of its having been _the extreme means of protecting most important interests_.
In these days there have been numerous comparisons made between Norway's breaking out of the Union, and Sweden's struggle for freedom from Denmark in the middle ages. Sweden's way of using its power has been stamped as an intolerable _oppression_. It can scarcely be necessary to give a more powerful confutation to these very idle fancies, than simply to refer to the fact that Norway's »struggle for freedom» has had for its object the enormously important cause--their own consuls!