Capital of the Netherlands to 1795 there remained a strong animosity between the Orange faction and the republican faction in Dutch politics. The former supported the idea of hereditary political leadership vested in the princes of Orange as Stadtholders, and had its powerbase in The Hague and the rural areas. The latter supported civic independence and found its support mainly in the cities and towns of Holland, with Amsterdam as its progenitor and most outspoken representative. When in 1814 the new kingdom was formed, the appointment of Amsterdam, still the most prominent city in the kingdom, as capital city was also very much a
Suriname (Kingdom of the Netherlands) had propaganda purposes; the Dutch government had the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in mind, and hoped to appease public opinion in the United States, which had become skeptical towards colonialism. After Indonesia became independent, a federal construction was considered too heavy, as the economies of Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles were insignificant compared to that of the Netherlands. In the Charter, as enacted in 1954, Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles each got a Minister Plenipotentiary based in the Netherlands, who had the right to participate in Dutch cabinet meetings when it discussed affairs that applied to the Kingdom as