It soon became evident that the times were not ripe for such a radical novelty, and for the next years Sverdrup knit a loose alliance with the peasant leader Ole Gabriel Ueland (1799–1870).

[2][3] In 1870, Ueland died, and the loose leadership of the alliance of peasants went over to Søren Jaabæk (1814–1894), an economically extremely conservative politician, whose views hardly exceeded the most primitive cutting of every part of the budget, even if the money in question would be used to the furthering of democracy and education, two of his most important topics.

Such negative policy-making (Jaabæk's name was changed by the ministerial adherents and press to Neibæk after the Norwegian word nei 'no' contrasting with ja 'yes') would never produce great results, which Sverdrup clearly foresaw.

The ministerials, as they were called, were now unanimously against, because they had seen the formation of the peasants' friends as a threat to what they deemed to be the ideal, the totally independent representative.

The peasants and the radicals on the other hand, had drawn the obviously correct conclusion that this reform would further the influence of the elected towards the appointed ministers.

The new prime minister, Christian Selmer, was not such a leader and force in the Council, and Sverdrup was ready for the next move, which should constitutionally have been taken in 1881.

[8] In the fall 1883, the judges convened and the trials took several months and resulted in loss of position without honor for most of the ministers and huge fines.

The king appointed a new Council led by Christian Schweigaard, but was a rather lame move, since Sverdrup immediately threatened with a new impeachment trial.

The new Council was named the April Ministry, which says something about how long the king's struggle to find a solution to the total crisis that had occurred, which he could deem acceptable.

In Norwegian tradition the transition from Montesquieu's ideal of checks and balances to a parliamentary system took place when he became the prime minister.

His great mistake was to refuse to include anyone from the radical faction and to further alienate them by not accepting their advice in any of the difficult political situations that arose in those years.

The original party, now led by Sverdrup's leading opponents, Ullmann and Steen, voted against him and mocked the elder statesman for clinging to the "Chair", but he was saved by Høyre which had no intentions to diminish the strife within the Venstre, and believed that their best hope was to leave the Sverdrup ministry in peace until the general elections in 1888.

It can not be denied that Sverdrup was an extremely skilled and able opposition leader and strategist whose influence of domestic politics was enormous for about 30 years.

What can be said against such a viewpoint, is that most of the results of his opposition was destructive because he sold his radical and social liberal political views in order to gain influence in Jaabæk's loosely knit alliance of peasants.