Christian August Selmer

Christian Selmer, full name: Christian August Selmer, ( born November 16, 1816 in Halden (now Halden ), † September 1, 1889 in Bygdøy (now Oslo) ) was a Norwegian lawyer and politician.

Life

His parents were the wholesale merchant Johan Christian Selmer (1783-1830) and his wife Johanne Ditlevine Michea Vibe ( 1788-1879 ). On 24 December 1848 he married Anna Sylvia Leganger (October 4, 1825 - January 5, 1896 ), daughter of Henrik Sorenskrivers Leganger ( 1788-1874 ) and his wife Christiane Cathrine Dass ( 1794-1865 ).

Selmer grew up in Halden, began in 1837 a law degree, which he completed in 1842 with honors. He began his career as Commissioner of Sorenskrivers in Hedmark, then in 1846 in Christiania Kopist until the Department of Justice, and later in the Department of Finance. In 1849 he was commissioner of the Procurator PA Midelfart in Drammen. He accepted this position two years later. 1862 to 1874 he was Byfogd in Drammen. Until 1872, he was there at the same mayor.

Politically Selmer had no ambitions. Just out of sense of duty he had himself elected in 1870 as MP for Drammen Storting and in 1873 set up for re-election. He also took over without ambition in 1874, the Office of the Army Minister. As a parliamentarian, he opposed the extension of voting rights and against the admission of members of the government to the Stortingssitzungen, fearing a shift in the set by the constitutional balance of power in connection with separation of powers. As a passionate supporter of the existing system, he was soon appointed to the government. When he was in 1880 called to follow Stangs as Minister of State, this was because the king looked at him for him against particularly loyal - unlike Stang. Both for the Høyre and for the Venstre he was regarded as a political lightweight, and he failed to give his term of office a personal touch. His weak heart also meant that he had to stay away from many Cabinet meetings.

The majority of the Venstre in the Storting tried to force a change of government in that they sought the position of his government by rejecting all budgetary allocations and decisions which interfered with the administration to make untenable. They also followed the previous applications further to be able to quote the Minister before the Storting. The king had rejected these decisions every time. Once that decision had been taken identical for the third time and rejected for the third time, it developed into a constitutional conflict, which has become known as " State thing " in the Norwegian constitutional history. The government expected that a steadily increasing proportion of the population would turn against the aggressive nationalist course of Venstre and their attack on the existing social order. But the election to the Storting from 1882 came to a renewed defeat the government. Venstre prevailed in many traditionally belonging to the Høyre places. Venstre received the Supreme Court majority: all seats in Lagting and the majority in Odelsting fell to her. But Selmer was determined to continue the fight until the next election and relied on the support of the King and it came to the recent dispute between the royal government and the Storting, whether the king zukomme an absolute veto on constitutional change laws. It came in the aftermath to further conflicts in which the Storting watched as injured in his rights.

The refusal of the government of Selmer, to advise the king to approve the adopted bill, led to an indictment against all members of the government before the Supreme Court and their conviction and thus to the loss of office. The question now was whether the king would submit to the judgment. Because the Constitution did the king put a government. Then neither the Storting nor the Supreme Court could dismiss the Government. An assumption of the judgment by the king meant the transition to parliamentary government with ministerial responsibility before the Storting. This Selmer saw as a revolution that was necessary to fight it even by military means. He was also of the opinion that the King should overrule the judgment of the Supreme Court. But the other members of the government forced the king to accept the judgment of 27 February 1884 and subsequently went back Selmer on March 1, 1884, received on 11 March resign.

Selmer but was not discouraged and turned to elect a chairman for the 1884 newly founded party " Høyre ". He saw himself as a martyr for the right cause in a purely political process. But he received only nine votes. The party rejected the political system by Frederik Stang, had occurred for which Selmer, and turned to the moderate - conservative politics Emil Stang to.

After that, he held the office of Generalauditeurs for the army and the navy.

He received in 1880 the Grand Cross of the North Star Order, 1882 St. Olavsorden and was also a Knight of the Seraphim Order.

Comments

The article is from the Norsk biografisk leksikon substantially. Any other information is reported separately.