The Act
The Act of Union of Security gave the king the sole power to declare war and make peace instead of sharing this power with the estates and the Privy Council. The estates would lose the ability to initiate legislation, however they would keep the ability to vote on new taxes.
Another provision was that the King was enabled to determine the number of Privy Councillors and this also enabled him to abolish the Council altogether as he determined the number of them to zero. The judicial branch of the Privy Council (in Swedish: Justitierevisionen) was then transferred to a newly established Supreme Court.
Most noble privileges were abolished with the Act, with most offices now available to all regardless of rank. It also made noble lands purchasable by anyone instead of just by nobles.
Read more about this topic: Union And Security Act
Famous quotes containing the word act:
“We all have—to put it as nicely as I can—our lower centres and our higher centres. Our lower centres act: they act with terrible power that sometimes destroys us; but they don’t talk.... Since the war the lower centres have become vocal. And the effect is that of an earthquake. For they speak truths that have never been spoken before—truths that the makers of our domestic institutions have tried to ignore.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Humour is the making others act or talk absurdly and unconsciously; wit is the pointing out and ridiculing that absurdity consciously, and with more or less ill-nature.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)