It was his work that led to the deep-sea
expeditions of The Challenger and other similar voyages.
Note 45.
TO JOHAN SVERDRUP. Written in November, 1869. Johan Sverdrup
(1816-1892) was the greatest political leader and statesman of
Norway in the nineteenth century, and left the deepest traces in all its recent history. He settled in Laurvik in 1844 as a lawyer, was
soon active in municipal politics, laboring for the interests of the
working-class, was elected to the Storting in 1851. Re?lected in
1854, and regularly thereafter till 1885, his authority in the
Storting and his power in public life steadily increased. From 1871
on he was President of the Storting, except in 1881 for reasons
of health; from 1884 to 1889 he was Prime Minister. A consistent
democrat, he created and led the party of the Left, or "Peasant-
Left," and contended all his active life for the establishment of
real government by the people, i.e., a constitutional democracy with
parliamentary rule. This, the fulfillment of his famous saying, "All
power ought to be gathered in this hall [i.e., in the Storting],"
was consummated in June, 1884. Few men in Norway have been so
bitterly assailed by political opponents, and few so idolized by
followers. He was a masterful orator, inferior only to Bj?rnson.
Assassination. An allusion to Ibsen's The Young Men's Union, first
performed in Christiania on September 30, 1869.
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