America Celebrates as Norton XIII Assumes Throne

April 1, 2013 - PRLog -- America's 133-year interregnum, which began with the death of Emperor Norton I in 1880, officially comes to its end as his successor assumes the throne on Monday.

"[A]t the peremptory request and desire of a large majority of the citizens of these United States," the former Thomas L. Knapp declares and proclaims himself Norton XIII in his inaugural decree, skipping 12 imperial numerators "to resolve and clarify the situation vis a vis prior pretenders to the succession ... in the simplest manner possible."

Making a clean sweep of old institutions, His Majesty has decreed a move of the national capital from San Francisco, California to Florida. He's also given the existing placeholder federal government a little less than three weeks notice to dissolve, simultaneously reclaiming assets temporarily held in custody by that regime and voiding its debts in advance of his reign.

Norton will rule by decree for an unspecified period, but leaves open the  possibility of assembling a legislature and other governing institutions in the near future. A source close to the Emperor indicates that decrees dealing with taxation and foreign policy will be issued in the first week of the monarch's reign.