But in 1851, when the assembly finally met, the political tide had turned and conservative forces had regained strength.
[1] The Danes presented a bill to the assembly which would have made the Danish Constitution of 1849 valid in Iceland with an exception concerning the legislative power.
The delegates prepared an alternative bill, proposing a constitution for a practically independent Iceland in personal union with the Danish king.
Seeing that the delegates would never agree to the Danish bill and believing them to have no authority to discuss the alternative bill, Governor Jørgen Ditlev Trampe decided to dissolve the Assembly.
The constitutional status of Iceland was to remain an unresolved issue for decades to come.