294 ICELAND : ITS HISTORY AND INHABITANTS, 



1843, a deliberative council was established in Iceland, and when 

 Denmark had got her own free constitution, a national assembly, a 

 " constituante " met in July, 1851, at Reykjavik. Denmark proposed 

 to extend her constitution to Iceland, which was to send six members 

 of Parliament to Copenhagen. But a committee, under the leader- 

 ship of Jon Sigurdsson, who was equally eminent as historian, anti- 

 quarian, and politician, declared that as Iceland, by the treaty of union 

 in 12G2, entered of her own free will into union with the Crown, on 

 certain conditions, she claimed, not provincial independence as pro- 

 posed by Denmark, but a sovereign status, taxation, a high court, 

 ministers in Iceland responsible to the Althing; in short, personal 

 anion. The constituent assembly was dissolved or dispersed with 

 threats of military interference, but this constitutional struggle went 

 on under the leadership of Jon Sigurdsson, until the King of Den- 

 mark came to Iceland in 1874 with a constitution which was a com- 

 promise. From 1874 to 1900 more than fifty bills passed by the 

 Althing were vetoed at Copenhagen, where the Danish minister of 

 justice was simultaneously minister for Iceland. At last, in 1902, a 

 new liberal government at the Danish capital conceded all the de- 

 mands of Iceland. An Icelandic minister for Iceland now resides at 

 Reykjavik, solely responsible to the Althing. The King can veto a 

 bill onl}^ on his advice. 



Thus the geographical isolation of Iceland, instead of relegating 

 her to oblivion, has given her an opportunity to play a part on the 

 stage of history as an asylum for the old institutions, faith, and cus- 

 toms of the Teutonic race. With the language of the tenth century 

 unaltered, it is to-day a living Pompeii where the northern races can 

 read their past. 



