The statement made by the Council that My resolve, not to sanction the Consular law, proposed by the Storthing, would have no legal validity, as none of the members of the Cabinet had found themselves able to countersign the Royal Decree supplies a supposition which I must declare is in conflict with fundamental law. The question of the significance of contrasignature according to Norwegian State law, is not a new question brought up to day, but is older than the present Norwegian Constitution. It was already solved at the Convention of Eidsvold. A proposal was then made that Countersignature was requisite in order that the King's commands should become valid, but was opposed on the grounds that it was against the general principles of the Constitution for the division of supreme power. The same standpoint was taken in the fundamental law of the 4th November. This opinion was also expressed by the Constitutional Committee without contradiction on two occasions, 1824 and 1839, when the Storthing had even opposed a proposal concerning another matter. The change, which Sec. 32 in the Constitution has since undergone, gives increased support to the opinion that the Prime Minister's Countersignature is intended for nothing else than a witness that the King has made a Decree of certain import. And that Sec. 31 is unconditional in its prescription of the duty of the authorised countersignature of the Prime Minister is a conception that is acceded to by those writers on State law who have framed the Constitution. When the Cabinet quoted an opinion of the Norwegian government in 1847 when the proposal for a new Act of Union was under consideration, the Cabinet has overlooked, firstly, that this opinion, in a manner that applies to Swedish government regulations Sec. 38, was intended only to refer to orders issued but not the Decree of the King included in the protocol, secondly that the Norwegian Government could not prove that the Norwegian Constitution really provided any law respecting the right to refuse countersignature. The Constitution on the contrary emphatically prescribes in Sec. 30: "But to the King it is reserved the right to form his decision according to His own judgment", and in Sec. 31: "All Commands issued by the King himself (Military Orders excepted) shall be countersigned by the Prime Minister (before 1873 the Norwegian Prime Minister).