Constitution of May 3, 1791

Constitution of May 3, 1791
May 3 Constitution, by Matejko (1891). King Stanisław August (left) enters St. John's Cathedral, where deputies will swear to uphold the Constitution. Background: Warsaw's Royal Castle, where it has just been adopted.
Created	October 6, 1788 – May 3, 1791
Ratified	May 3, 1791
Author(s)	King Stanisław August Poniatowski, Stanisław Małachowski, Hugo Kołłątaj, Ignacy Potocki, Stanisław Staszic, Scipione Piattoli, others

The Constitution of May 3, 1791 (Polish: Konstytucja Trzeciego Maja; Belarusian: Канстытуцыя 3 мая; Lithuanian: Gegužės trečiosios konstitucija) was adopted as a "Government Act" (Polish: Ustawa rządowa) on that date by the Sejm (parliament) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Historian Norman Davies calls it "the first constitution of its type in Europe"; other scholars also refer to it as the world's second oldest constitution.^{[1][2][3][4][a]}.

The May 3 Constitution was designed to redress long-standing political defects of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth's system of "Golden Liberty", which had conferred disproportionate rights on the nobility, had over time increasingly corrupted the Commonwealth's politics. The Constitution's adoption had been preceded by a period of agitation for reforms and by their gradual introduction, beginning with the Convocation Sejm of 1764 and the subsequent election of Stanisław August Poniatowski as the Commonwealth's last king, and culminating in the legislation of the Great Sejm, including the May 3 Constitution.

The Constitution sought to supplant the existing anarchy fostered by some of the country's magnates with a more democratic constitutional monarchy. It introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility (szlachta) and placed the peasants under the protection of the government, thus mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom. The Constitution abolished pernicious parliamentary institutions such as the liberum veto, which at one time had put the Sejm at the mercy of any deputy who might choose, or be bribed by an interest or foreign power, to undo the legislation adopted by that Sejm.

The adoption of the May 3 Constitution met with hostile political and military responses from the Commonwealth's neighbors. In the War in Defense of the Constitution, the Commonwealth's ally Prussia, under Frederick William II, broke its alliance with the Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth was effectively defeated by Catherine the Great's Imperial Russia allied with the Targowica Confederation, a coalition of Polish magnates and landless nobility who opposed reforms that might weaken their influence. King Stanisław August eventually capitulated by joining the Confederation.

The Constitution of May 3 remained in force for only 14 months and 3 weeks. Despite the King's decision to terminate the military resistance, the ensuing Second Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1793), and the 1795 demise of Poland, the May 3 Constitution remained, over the next 123 years of Polish partitions, a beacon in the struggle to restore Polish sovereignty. In the words of two of its co-authors, Ignacy Potocki and Hugo Kołłątaj, it was "the last will and testament of the expiring Country."^[b]

Background

End of the Golden Age

The May 3 Constitution responded to the increasingly perilous situation of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth,^[5] only a century earlier a major European power and indeed the largest state on the continent.^[6] Already two hundred years before the May 3 Constitution, when the remarkable noble democracy was at its peak, King Sigismund III Vasa's court preacher, the Jesuit Piotr Skarga, had famously condemned the individual and collective weaknesses of the Commonwealth.^[7] Likewise, in the same period, other writers and philosophers such as Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski^[8] and Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki,^[9] and Jan Zamoyski's egzekucja praw (Execution-of-the-Laws) reform movement, had advocated reforms.^[10] Sigismund's son, King John Casimir, whose reign witnessed highly destructive wars and szlachta obstructionism, correctly predicted already in 1661, as he was struggling with the Sejm, that the Commonwealth was heading for a partition by Russia, Brandenburg and Austria.^[11]

Rejtan, by Matejko. In September 1773, Rejtan (lower right) tried to prevent ratification of the First Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by barring other Sejm deputies from the chamber.

As their warnings failed to be heeded and sufficient reforms failed to be implemented, the state machinery became increasingly dysfunctional. Many historians hold that a major cause of the Commonwealth's downfall was the peculiar parliamentary institution of the liberum veto ("free veto"), which since 1652 had in principle permitted any Sejm deputy to nullify all the legislation that had been adopted by that Sejm.^[12] This had set up a dangerous precedent.^[12] Thus deputies bribed by magnates or foreign powers (primarily from the Russian Empire, Kingdom of Prussia and France), or simply content to believe they were living in an unprecedented "Golden Age", for over a century paralysed the Commonwealth's government.^[12][13] The threat of the liberum veto could be only overridden by the establishment of a "confederated sejm", which operated immune from the liberum veto.^[14] Declaring a sejm to be a "confederation" or belong to a confederation was a contrivance used in the 18th century (prominently by foreign interests) to force a legislative outcome.^[15]

By the early 18th century, the magnates of Poland and Lithuania controlled the state – or rather, they managed to ensure that no reforms would be carried out that might weaken their privileged status (the "Golden Freedoms").^[16] They spent lavishly on banquets, drinking bouts and other amusements, while the peasants languished in abysmal conditions and the towns, many of which were wholly within the private property of a magnate who feared the rise of an independent middle class, were kept in a state of ruin.^[16][17]

The matters were not helped by the inefficient monarchs elected to the Commonwealth throne at the turn of the century:^[18] Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland of the House of Wettin. The Wettins, used to the absolute rule practiced in their native Saxony, attempted to rule through intimidation and the use of force, which led to the a series of conflicts between their supporters and opponents (including another pretender to the Polish throne, King Stanisław Leszczyński).^[18] Those conflicts often took the form of confederations – legal rebellions against the king permitted under the Golden Freedoms (some conflicts of that era included the Warsaw Confederation (1704), Sandomierz Confederation, Tarnogród Confederation, Dzików Confederation and the War of the Polish Succession).^[18] Only 8 out 18 Sejm sessions during the reign of Augustus II passed legislation.^[19] For a period in 30 years around the reign of Augustus III, only one session was able to pass legislation.^[20] The government was near collapse, giving rise to the term "Polish anarchy", and the country was managed by provincial assemblies and magnates.^[20]

There were also reform attempts in the Wettin era, led by individuals such as Kazimierz Karwowski, Stanisław Dunin-Karwicki, Stanisław A. Szczuka and Józef Massalski; for the most part they proved to be futile.^[13][18]

Early reforms

From his election, King Stanisław August Poniatowski worked to develop an executive government council. In 1775 the Partition Sejm established a Permanent Council, after Russia's Catherine the Great concluded it would serve her purposes.^[21]

The Enlightenment European cultural movement had gained great influence in certain Commonwealth circles during the reign (1764–95) of its last king, Stanisław August Poniatowski. Poniatowski, himself an "enlightened" Polish magnate, had been a deputy to the Sejms of 1750, 1758, 1760, 1761, 1762 and 1764, and as such had a much deeper understandings of Polish politics than previous monarchs elected to the Polish throne.^[22] Just before Poniatowski's election, the Convocation Sejm of 1764 took place; it was controlled by the Czartoryski family's reformist Familia party and enforced by the Russian military forces (Familia's main opponents were silenced), whom the Czartoryskis invited.^[23] The confederated Convocation Sejm passed a number of reform measures, including the weakening of liberum veto, made no longer applicable to treasury and economic matters, such as taxation.^[22][23][24] A more comprehensive reform package was first presented by Andrzej Zamoyski, but the Prussian, Russian and Polish nobility (szlachta) opposition thwarted the more ambitious projects, including the adoption of majority voting in all instances.^[23] Upon his election, in reality imposition by Empress Catherine the Great, King Poniatowski, whose political position was from the beginning rather weak, proceeded with cautious reforms such as the establishment of fiscal and military ministries and a national customs tariff (the customs tariff soon had to be abandoned because of the opposition from Frederick II the Great of Prussia).^[23] Those measures had already been authorized by the Convocation Sejm. Furthermore, additional Familia and King inspired legislative and executive improvements continued to be adopted and implemented during and after the Coronation Sejm of 1764.^[23]

The idea of reforming the Commonwealth was however viewed with suspicion not only by its magnates but also by neighboring countries, which were content with the deteriorated state of the Commonwealth's affairs and abhorred the thought of a resurgent and democratic power on their borders.^[25] With the Commonwealth Army reduced by that time to around 16,000, it was easy for its neighbors to intervene directly (the Imperial Russian Army numbered 300,000; the Prussian Army and Imperial Austrian Army, 200,000).^[26]

King Stanisław August, principal author of the May 3 Constitution. A year later he acquiesced in its overthrow.

Accordingly, Russia's Empress Catherine and Prussia's King Frederick II provoked a conflict between some members of the Sejm and the King over civil rights for religious minorities (Protestant and Greek Orthodox, whose position, guaranteed as equal with the Catholic majority by the Warsaw Confederation of 1573, had since worsened considerably)^{[24][27][28][29]} Catherine and Frederick declared their support for the szlachta and their "liberties," and by October 1767 Russian troops had assembled outside the Polish capital, Warsaw, in support of the conservative Radom Confederation.^[28][29][30] The King and his adherents, in face of the superior Russian military force, were left with little choice but to acquiesce to Russian demands and during the Repnin Sejm (named after the unofficially presiding Russian ambassador Nicholas Repnin) accept the five "eternal and invariable principles" which Catherine vowed to "protect for all time to come in the name of Poland's liberties": the election of kings; the right of liberum veto; the right to renounce allegiance to, and raise rebellion against, the king (rokosz); the szlachta's exclusive right to hold office and land; and a landowner's power over his peasants,^{[24][25][28][29]} except that the right to apply the death penalty against serf laborers was in this legislation taken away from their szlachta overlords.^[31][32] Thus all the privileges of the nobility that had made the Commonwealth's political system ("Golden Liberty") ungovernable were guaranteed as unalterable in the Cardinal Laws.^[28][29][30] The Cardinal Laws and the rights of "religious dissenters" passed by Repnin Sejm were personally guaranteed by Empress Catherine, which made it the earliest case of Russia's formal involvement in constitutional foundations of the Commonwealth.^[31] During the 1768 Sejm, Repnin showed his disregard for local resistance by arranging the abduction and imprisonment (until 1773) of several vocal opponents to the recently proclaimed politics (including religious toleration) and foreign domination: Kajetan Sołtyk, Józef A. Załuski, Wacław Rzewuski and Seweryn Rzewuski.^[33] The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had thus become, legally and practically, a protectorate of the Russian Empire.^[34] Nonetheless, several minor beneficial reforms were adopted, political rights of the religious minorities were restored, and the need for more reforms was becoming increasingly recognized.^[29][33]

In 1791 the "Great" (Four-Year) Sejm (1788–92) adopted the May 3 Constitution at Warsaw's Royal Castle

Not everyone in the Commonwealth agreed with King Stanisław August's acquiescence to the Russian intervention. On February 29, 1768, several magnates, including Józef Pułaski and his young son, Kazimierz Pułaski (Casimir Pulaski), vowing to oppose Russian influence, declared Stanisław August a lackey of Russia and Catherine and formed a confederation at the town of Bar.^[33][35][36] The Bar Confederation, despite it patriotic focus on limiting the influence of foreigners in the Commonwealth affairs, was also rather conservative, and restrictive with regards to religious tolerance.^[35] A civil war began in Poland, waged by the Confederation with the goal of overthrowing the King and fought on until 1772, when the uprising was overwhelmed by Russian intervention.^[25]

The Bar Confederation's defeat set the scene for the next act in the unfolding drama.^[35] On August 5, 1772, at St. Petersburg, Russia, the three neighboring powers – Russia, Prussia and Austria – signed the First Partition treaty. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was to be divested of about a third of its territory and population (over 200,000 km² (77,220 sq mi) and 4 million people).^[37] This was justified on grounds of "anarchy" in the Commonwealth and refusal to cooperate with its neighbors' efforts to restore order.^[38] The three powers demanded that the Sejm ratify this first partition, otherwise threatening further partitions. King Stanisław August yielded under duress and on April 19, 1773, called the Sejm into session. Only 102 deputies attended what became known as the Partition Sejm; the rest, aware of the King's decision, refused. Despite protests, notably by the deputy Tadeusz Rejtan, the First Partition of Poland was ratified.^[37]

Royal Castle Senate Chamber, where May 3 Constitution was adopted

The first of the three successive 18th-century partitions of Commonwealth territory that would eventually remove Poland from the map of Europe shocked the inhabitants of the Commonwealth, and had made it clear to progressive minds that the Commonwealth must either reform or perish.^[37] In the last three decades preceding the May 3, 1791 Constitution, there was a rising interest among progressive thinkers in constitutional reform.^[39] Even before the First Partition, a Polish noble, Michał Wielhorski, an envoy of the Bar Confederation, had been sent to ask the French philosophes Gabriel Bonnot de Mably and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to offer suggestions on a new constitution for a new Poland.^{[40][41][42][43]} Mably had submitted his recommendations (The Government and Laws of Poland) in 1770–1771; Rousseau had finished his Considerations on the Government of Poland in 1772, when the First Partition was already underway.^[44] Notable works advocating the need to reform and presenting specific solutions were published in the Commonwealth itself by Polish-Lithuanian thinkers such as Stanisław Konarski (On an Effective Way of Councils or on the Conduct of Ordinary Sejms, 1761–1763), founder of the Collegium Nobilium; Józef Wybicki (Political Thoughts on Civil Liberties, 1775, Patriotic Letters, 1778-1778), composer of the Polish National Anthem; Hugo Kołłątaj (Anonymous Letters to Stanisław Małachowski, 1788–1789, The Political Law of the Polish Nation, 1790), head of the Kołłątaj's Forge party; and Stanisław Staszic (Remarks on the Life of Jan Zamoyski, 1787).^[43][45] Also seen as crucial to giving the Constitution moral and political support were Ignacy Krasicki's satires of the Great Sejm era.^[46]

Supported by more progressive magnates, such as the Czartoryski family, and King Stanisław August, a new wave of reforms were introduced at the Partition Sejm.^[30][47][48] The most important included the establishment, in 1773, of a Komisja Edukacji Narodowej ("Commission of National Education") – the first ministry of education in the world.^{[37][48][49][50]} Subsequently new schools were opened in the cities and in the countryside, uniform textbooks were printed, teachers received better education, and poor students were provided scholarships.^[37][48] The Commonwealth's military was being modernized, and a larger standing army was to be provided for.^[51] Economic and commercial reforms, including some intended to cover the increased military budget, previously shunned as unimportant by the szlachta, were introduced.^[47][48][51] Finally, a new executive body was created, the 36-strong Permanent Council, comprising five ministries with limited legislative powers, giving the Commonwealth a new governing body, in constant session between the Sejms and therefore immune to their liberum veto disruptions.^{[30][37][47][48]}

In 1776 the Sejm commissioned former chancellor Andrzej Zamoyski to draft a new legal code.^[39] By 1780 the Zamoyski Code (Zbiór praw sądowych) had been produced by him and his collaborators. It would have strengthened royal power, made all officials answerable to the Sejm, placed the clergy and their finances under state supervision, and deprived landless szlachta of many of their legal immunities. The Code would also have improved the situation of non-nobles — townspeople and peasants.^[52] Zamoyski's progressive legal code, containing elements of constitutional reform, met with opposition from native conservative szlachta and foreign powers and failed of adoption by the 1780 Sejm.^[39][52][53]

Adoption and fall

The Great Sejm

Małachowski

Kołłątaj

Potocki

Staszic

Piattoli

A major opportunity for reform seemed to present itself during the "Four-Year" or "Great Sejm" of 1788–92, which opened on October 6, 1788 with 181 deputies, and from 1790 – in the words of the May 3 Constitution's preamble – met "in dual number", the 171 newly elected Sejm deputies having joined the earlier-established Sejm.^[30][45][54] On its second day the Sejm transformed itself into a confederated sejm to make it immune to the threat of the liberum veto.^[45][55][56]

Events in the world appeared to play into the reformers' hands.^[30] Poland's neighbors were too occupied with wars to intervene forcibly in Poland, with Russia and Austria engaged in hostilities with the Ottoman Empire (the Russo-Turkish War, 1787-1792 and the Austro-Turkish War (1787–1791)); the Russians also found themselves fighting Sweden (the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790)).^{[30][57][58][59][60]} A new alliance between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Prussia seeming to provide security against Russian intervention, King Stanisław August drew closer to leaders of the reform-minded Patriotic Party.^{[30][59][61][62]}

The Sejm's first two years saw the passage of few major reforms; it was the subsequent two years that brought major changes.^[56] The Sejm first adopted several lesser reforms, notably the 1791 Free Royal Cities Act addressing the cities, burgher rights, and voting rights, which was incorporated as a formal constituent of the final constitution.^[63][64] While the Sejm comprised representatives only of the nobility and clergy, the reformers were supported by the burghers (townspeople), who in the fall of 1789 organized a "Black Procession" demanding the full political enfranchisement of the bourgeoisie.^[62] On April 18, 1791, the Sejm — fearing that the burghers' protests, if ignored, could turn violent as they had in France not long before — adopted the Free Royal Cities Act.^[65]

The new Constitution had been drafted by the King, with contributions from Ignacy Potocki, Hugo Kołłątaj and others.^[30][46] The King is credited with authoring the general provisions, and Kołłątaj with giving the document its final shape.^[46][56] Stanisław August aimed for a constitutional monarchy similar to that of Great Britain, with a strong central government based on a strong monarch.^[56] Potocki wanted the parliament (Sejm) to be the strongest government branch. Kołłątaj wanted a "gentle" revolution enfranchising other social classes in addition to the nobility, carried out without violence.^[56]

The proposed reforms were opposed by conservatives, including the Hetmans' Party.^[45][66] The draft Constitution's advocates, threatened with violence from their opponents, managed to move debate on the Government Act forward by two days from the original May 5, while many opposed deputies were still away on Easter recess.^[67] The ensuing debate and adoption of the Government Act was executed as a quasi-coup d'ėtat: recall notices were not sent to known opponents of reform, while many pro-reform deputies returned early in secret.^[67] The royal guard under Prince Józef Poniatowski, the King's nephew, were positioned about the Royal Castle, where the Sejm was gathered, to prevent opposition adherents from disrupting the proceedings.^[67] On May 3, the Sejm met with only 182 members present, about half its "dual" number.^[64][67] The bill was read and adopted overwhelmingly, to the enthusiasm of the crowds outside.^[68]

Soon after, the Friends of the Constitution, which included many Great Sejm participants, was organized to defend the reforms already enacted and to promote further ones; it is now regarded as the first modern-style political party in Poland's history.^[46][69] The response to the new Constitution was less enthusiastic in the provinces, where the Hetmans' Party enjoyed considerable influence.^[68]

War in Defense of the Constitution

The Constitution remained in effect for only a year before being overthrown, by Russian armies allied with the Targowica Confederation, in the Polish–Russian War of 1792, also known as the War in Defense of the Constitution.^[68]

Wars between Turkey and Russia and Sweden and Russia having by now ended, Empress Catherine was furious over the adoption of the May 3 Constitution, which threatened Russian influence in Poland.^[58][60][70] Russia had viewed Poland as a de facto protectorate.^[71] One of Russian chief foreign policy authors, Alexander Bezborodko, upon learning of the Constitution, commented that "the worst possible news have arrived from Warsaw: the Polish king has became almost sovereign."^[72] The contacts of Polish reformers with the Revolutionary French National Assembly were seen by Poland's neighbors as evidence of a revolutionary conspiracy and a threat to the absolute monarchies.^[73][74] The Prussian statesman Ewald von Hertzberg expressed the fears of European conservatives: "The Poles have given the coup de grâce to the Prussian monarchy by voting a constitution", elaborating that strong Commonwealth would likely demand the return of the lands Prussia acquired in the First Partition.^[72][75]

A number of magnates who had opposed the Constitution from the start, such as Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, Szymon and Józef Kossakowski, Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki and Seweryn Rzewuski asked Tsarina Catherine to intervene and restore their privileges (the cardinal laws) abolished under the Constitution.^[68] To that end these magnates formed the Targowica Confederation.^[68] The Confederation's proclamation, prepared in St. Petersburg in January 1792, criticized the Constitution for contributing to, in their own words, "contagion of democratic ideas" following "the fatal examples set in Paris".^[76][77] It asserted that "The parliament... has broken all fundamental laws, swept away all liberties of the gentry and on the third of May 1791 turned into a revolution and a conspiracy."^[78] The confederates declared to overcame this revolution, they "can do nothing but turn trustingly to Tsarina Catherine, a distinguished and fair empress our neighboring friend and ally", who "respects the nation's need for well-being and always offers it a helping hand."^[78]

Shortly thereafter, the Targowica Confederation was formed by Polish nobility to overthrow the Constitution.^[79] The confederates aligned with Russia's Catherine the Great, and the Russian army entered Poland, starting the Polish-Russian War of 1792, also known as the War in Defense of the Constitution.^[68] The Sejm voted to increase the Polish Army to 100,000 men, but due to insufficient time and funds this number was never achieved.^[68] The Polish King and the reformers could field only a 37,000-man army, many of them untested recruits.^[80] This army, under the command of King's nephew Józef Poniatowski and Tadeusz Kościuszko, did defeat or fought to the draw the Russians on several occasions, but in the end, a defeat loomed inevitable.^[68] Despite Polish requests, Prussia refused to honor its alliance obligations.^[81] Poniatowski attempts at negotiations with Russia proved futile.^[82] Eventually, when in July 1792 Warsaw was threatened with siege by the Russians, the King came to believe that victory was impossible against the Russian numerical superiority, and that surrender was the only alternative to total defeat.^[82] Having received assurances from the Russian ambassador Yakov Bulgakov that no territorial changes will occur, the cabinet of ministers called the Guard of Laws (or Guardians of Law, Polish: Straż Praw) voted 8:4 to surrender.^[82] On July 24, 1792, King Stanisław August Poniatowski joined the Targowica Confederation.^[68] The Polish Army disintegrated. Many reform leaders, believing their cause lost, went into self-exile, although they hoped that Poniatowski would be able to negotiate an acceptable compromise with the Russians, as he did in the past.^[82] Poniatowski had not saved the Commonwealth, however. To the surprise of the Targowica Confederates, the Second Partition of Poland ensued.^[68][77] With the new deputies bribed or intimidated by the Russian troops, the infamous Grodno Sejm took place.^[68][83] On 23 November 1793 it annulled all acts of the Great Sejm, including the Constitution.^[84] Russia took 250,000 square kilometres (97,000 sq mi), and Prussia took 58,000 square kilometres (22,000 sq mi).^[83] The Commonwealth now comprised no more than 215,000 square kilometres (83,000 sq mi).^[85] What was left of the Commonwealth was merely a small buffer state with a puppet king, and Russian garrisons keeping an eye on the reduced Polish army.^{[85][86][87][88]}

For a year and a half, Polish patriots bided their time, while planning an insurrection.^[83] On March 24, 1794, in Kraków, Tadeusz Kościuszko declared what has come to be known as the Kościuszko Uprising.^[83] On May 7 he issued the "Proclamation of Połaniec" (Uniwersał Połaniecki), granting freedom to the peasants and ownership of land to all who fought in the insurrection. Revolutionary Tribunals meted summary justice to those deemed traitors to the Commonwealth.^[83]

After some initial victories – the Battle of Racławice (April 4) and the capture of Warsaw (April 18) and Wilno (April 22) – the Uprising was dealt a crippling blow: the forces of Russia, Austria and Prussia joined in a military intervention.^[89] Historians consider the Uprising's defeat to have been a foregone conclusion in face of the gigantic numerical superiority of the three invading powers. The defeat of Kościuszko's forces led in 1795 to the third and final partition of the Commonwealth.^[89]

Features

Original manuscript of the Constitution

The Polish constitution was one of several of its time reflecting similar Enlightenment influences, including Montesquieu's advocacy of a separation and balance of powers among the three branches of government – so that, in the words of the May 3 Constitution (article V), "the integrity of the states, civil liberty, and social order remain always in equilibrium" – as well as Montesquieu's advocacy of a bicameral legislature.^[30][90][91] According to Jacek Jędruch, the constitution, in its liberality of provisions, "fell somewhere below the French, above the Canadian, and left the Prussian far behind", but was "no match for the American Constitution".^[64] King Stanisław August Poniatowski described the May 3 Constitution, according to a contemporary account, as "founded principally on those of England and the United States of America, but avoiding the faults and errors of both, and adapted as much as possible to the local and particular circumstances of the country."^[92] George Sanford notes that the May Constitution gave Poland "a constitutional monarchy close to the English model of the time."^[30]

The Constitution comprised 11 articles, following a preamble.^[30] It introduced the principle of popular sovereignty (applied to the nobility and townspeople) and a separation of powers into legislative (a bicameral Sejm), executive ("the King in his council") and judicial branches.^[90]

The Constitution advanced the democratization of the polity by limiting the excessive legal immunities and political prerogatives of landless nobility, while granting to the townspeople – in the earlier Miasta Nasze Królewskie Wolne w Państwach Rzeczypospolitej (Free Royal Cities Act) of April 18 (or 21), 1791, stipulated in Article III to be integral to the Constitution – personal security (neminem captivabimus), the right to acquire landed property, and eligibility for military officers' commissions, public offices, including reserved seats in the Sejm itself and in the executive commissions of the Treasury, the Police and the Judiciary, and membership in the nobility (szlachta).^{[65][93][94][95]}

Prawo o sejmikach, the act on regional sejms (sejmiki), passed earlier on March 24, 1791 (article VI), was similarly recognized.^[64][96] This law introduced major changes to the electoral ordinance, as it reduced the enfranchisement of the noble class; previously, all nobles had been eligible to vote in the sejmiks (local parliaments), which de facto meant that many of the poorest, landless nobles (known as "clients" or "clientele") voted as local magnates bade them.^{[30][63][67][97][98]} The voting right was tied to a property qualification (one had to own or lease the land and pay taxes, or be closely related to such a person, to be eligible to vote).^[64][99] Active voting rights were also taken from nobles who held property granted them by magnates or the king, to remove the temptation to vote so as to please their benefactors.^[63] Some 300,000 of 700,000 otherwise eligible nobles were thus disfranchised, much to their displeasure.^[63] Voting rights were also restored to landowners who were in military service (rights that they had lost in 1775).^[63] Less controversially for its time, the voting was limited to males of 18 years of age.^[94] The eligible voters would elect deputies to the local (county, Polish: powiat) sejmiks, which elected deputies to the general Sejm.^[94]

1791 printed edition

With half the nobility disfranchised, and some half million burghers in the Commonwealth now substantially enfranchised, the Great Sejm's early acts did much to increase equality in the distribution of political power (though the situation of less politically conscious and active classes, notably the Jews and peasants, still waited to be addressed).^[57][95][c] While the Government Act also placed the Commonwealth's peasantry "under the protection of the national law and government" – a first step toward ending serfdom and enfranchising the country's largest and most oppressed social class – the peasant question was far from resolved, as serfdom remained in force; it would take the Second Partition and Tadeusz Kościuszko's Proclamation of Połaniec to move the matter forward.^{[30][57][94][95][c]}

Legislative power, as specified by the Article VI, rested with the bicameral parliament (elective Sejm and appointive Senate) and the king.^[94][100] The May 3 Constitution provided for a Sejm, "ordinarily" meeting every two years and "extraordinarily" whenever required by a national emergency (as the Sejm was to be ready to be called into session at any time of need).^[94][100] Its lower chamber – the Chamber of Deputies (Izba Poselska) – comprised 204 deputies(2 from each powiat, 68 each from the provinces of Greater Poland, Lesser Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania) and 21 plenipotentiaries of royal cities (7 from each province).^[30][94] The royal chancellery should inform the sejmiks of the legislation in intended to propose in advance, so that the deputies would have time to prepare for the discussions in Sejm.^[100] Not only the king, but also all deputies had legislative initiative, and most matters (peace, commercial treaties, budget, war taxes, currency issues, education, police and treasury organization, request of regional administration) required simple majority.^[94] Two-thirds majority was required for treaties of alliance, declaration of war, army complement, increases in national debt, and a three-fourth majority vote was needed for change to permanent taxation.^[94] Sejm'supper chamber – the Chamber of Senators (Izba Senacka) – comprised 130^[94]–132^[30] (sources vary) senators (voivodes, castellans, bishops and – without the right to vote – government ministers).^[30][94] The Senate was presided over by the king, who had one vote in it that could be used to break the ties.^[94] The senate had a suspensive veto over the laws that the Sejm passed, applicabe till the next election.^[94]

Executive power, according to Article VIII, was in the hands of a royal council, a cabinet of ministers called the Guard of Laws (or Guardians of Law, Polish: Straż Praw).^{[30][94][101]} The ministries could not create or interpret the laws, and all acts of the foreign ministry were provisional, subject to Sejm's approval.^[101] This council was presided over by the King and comprised the Roman Catholic Primate of Poland (who was also president of the Education Commission) and five ministers appointed by the King: a minister of police, minister of the seal (i.e. of internal affairs – the seal was a traditional attribute of the earlier Chancellor), minister of the seal of foreign affairs, minister belli (of war), and minister of treasury.^[94] In addition to the ministers, council members included – without a vote – the Crown Prince, the Marshal of the Sejm, and two secretaries.^[101] This royal council was a descendant of the similar council that had functioned over the previous two centuries since King Henry's Articles (1573). Acts of the King required the countersignature of the respective minister.^[102] The stipulation that the King, "doing nothing of himself, [...] shall be answerable for nothing to the nation," parallels the British constitutional principle that "The King can do no wrong." (In both countries, the respective minister was responsible for the king's acts.)^[102][103] The ministers, however, were responsible to the Sejm, which could dismiss them by a two-third vote of no confidence by the members of both houses.^[30][64][94] Ministers could be also held accountable by the Sejm court, and the Sejm could demand an impeachement trial of a minister with a simple majority vote.^[30][102] The king was the nation's commander-in-chief, commanding its armies; the institution of the hetman was not mentioned in the Constiution.^[102] The decisions of the royal council were carried out by commissions, including the previously created Commission of National Education, and the new commissions for Police, the Military and the Tresury, whose members were elected by the Sejm.^[102]

Article X stressed the importance of the education of the royal children, and tasked the Commission of National Education with this responsibility.^[104]

Manuscript of the 1791 Lithuanian translation

To enhance Commonwealth integration and security, the Constitution moved towards abolishing the erstwhile union of Poland and Lithuania in favor of a unitary state.^[46][105] The full establishment, supported by Poniatowski and Kołlątaj, was opposed by many Lithuanian deputies, and as a compromise, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania received numerous privileges guaranteeing its continued existence.^[105] Related acts included the "Deklaracja Stanów Zgromadzonych (Declaration of the Assembled Estates) of May 5, 1791, confirming the Government Act adopted two days earlier, and the Zaręczenie Wzajemne Obojga Narodów (Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations, i.e., of the Crown of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) of October 22, 1791, affirming the unity and indivisibility of Poland and the Grand Duchy within a single state, and their equal representation in state-governing bodies.^[92][106] The Mutual Declaration strengthened the Polish-Lithuanian union, while keeping many federal aspects of the state intact.^[105][107] The document was translated into Lithuanian.^[108]

Constitutions of Poland
Nihil novi (1505) Henrician Articles (1573) May 3rd (1791) Duchy of Warsaw (1807) Kingdom of Poland (1815) Organic Statute (1832) Small (1919) March (1921) August Novelization (1926) April (1935) Small (1947) People's Republic (1952) April Novelization (1989) Small (1992) Current (1997)
v t e

The Constitution abolished several institutional sources of government weakness and national anarchy, including the liberum veto (replaced by a simple majority vote), confederations and confederated sejms (paradoxically, the Great Sejm was itself a confederated sejm), and the excessive sway of sejmiks (regional sejms) stemming from the binding nature of their instructions to their Sejm deputies.^[30][64] The confederations were declared "contrary to the spirit of this Constitution, subversive of government and destructive of society".^[101] Thus it strengthened the powers of the parliament (Sejm) proper, moving the country closer towards a constitutional monarchy.^[30][64] The constitution also changed the government from an elective (in its unique Polish variant) to hereditary monarchy.^{[30][64][109]} The latter provision was meant to reduce the destructive vying influences of foreign powers at each royal election.^[110][d] The royal dynasty itself, was, however, elective, and if it was to die out, a new one would be chosen by "the Nation".^[101] In the period when regency was needed, the royal council would take that responsibility (as covered by Article IX).^[104] The king held the throne "by the grace of God and the will of the Nation," and noted that "all authority derives from the will of the Nation."^[30][94] The institution of pacta conventa was preserved.^[102] On Stanisław August's death the Polish throne would become hereditary and pass to Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, of the house of Wettin, which had provided two of Poland's recent elective kings (his daughter, Maria Augusta Nepomucena, was called the infanta of Poland).^[64][102] This provision was contingent upon Frederic Augustus agreement, and he in fact declined the offer presented to him by Adam Czartoryski.^[64] He would change his mind ten years later, when Napoleon convinced him to become the king of the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw.^[46]

Judiciary, discussed in Article VIII, was separated from the two other branches of the government.^[94][102] Justice was to be served by elective judges.^[94] Court of first instance existed in each voivodeship, and were in constant session.^[94] Appellate tribunals were established for the provinces, based on the reformed Crown Tribunal and Lithuanian Tribunal.^[94] The Sejm also elected from its deputies the judges for the Sejm court (a precursor for the modern State Tribunal of Poland).^[94][102] Referendary courts of each province were to hear the cases of peasantry.^[102] Municipal courts, describied in the law on the towns, complemented this system.^[102]

The Constitution's Article I acknowledged the Roman Catholic faith as the "dominant religion", but guaranteed tolerance of, and freedom to, all religions.^[30][60] Article II confirmed many old privileges of the nobility, stressing that all nobles are equal, enjoy personal security and the right to property.^[95] The Army was to be built up to 100,000 men.^[111] The constitution also provided additional levies on the nobility and clergy.^[112]

The May 3 Constitution remained to the last a work in progress. The provisions of the Government Act were fleshed out in a number of laws passed in May–June 1791 and sejm courts (two acts of May 13), the Guardians of the Laws (June 1), the national police commission (that is, ministry; June 17) and municipal administration (June 24). The constitution included provisions for its own revision, to be handled by an extraordinary Sejm held every 25 years.^[64][100] Co-author Hugo Kołłątaj announced that work was underway on "an economic constitution…guaranteeing all rights of property [and] securing protection and honor to all manner of labor…". Yet a third basic law was touched on by Kołłątaj: a "moral constitution," most likely a Polish analog to the American Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.^[113] A new civil and criminal code (tentatively called the Stanisław August Code) was in the works.^[104][114] Poniatowski also planned a reform improving the situation of the Polish Jews.^[114]

Legacy

Importance

Unfinished Temple of Divine Providence, in Warsaw's Botanical Gardens, at Ujazdów Avenue. Cornerstone was laid on May 3, 1792, to commemorate the Constitution of May 3, 1791, by King Stanisław August Poniatowski and his brother, Primate Michał Jerzy Poniatowski.

As all important documents, since its very inception, the Constitution has been idealized by some, and criticized by others for either not going far enough, or for being too radical.^[91] In either case, the May 3 Constitution had limited practical effect, remaining in force for only a year.^[89] More important than its practical effects has been its role as a sign of moral regeneration, in mobilizing the country's citizens to strive for the political well-being of their country.^[89] The memory of the May 3 Constitution – recognized by political scientists as a very progressive document for its time – for generations helped keep alive Polish aspirations for an independent and just society, and continued to inform the efforts of its authors' descendants.^[30] In Poland it is viewed as a national symbol, and the culmination of all that was good and enlightened in Polish history and culture.^[30] In the words of two of its co-authors, Ignacy Potocki and Hugo Kołłątaj, it was "the last will and testament of the expiring Country."^[b][115] The May 3 anniversary of its adoption has been observed as Poland's most important civil holiday since Poland regained independence in 1918.^[116]

The constitution was also a milestone in Poland's – and the world's – legal history, as well as in the history of democracy.^[4][117] It was the first constitution to follow the 1788 ratification of the United States Constitution.^[117][118] Poland and the United States, though distant geographically, showed some notable similarities in their approaches to the design of political systems.^[117] Edmund Burke described it as "the noblest benefit received by any nation at any time... Stanislas II has earned a place among the greatest kings and statesmen in history."^[90][110] It has been called the second constitution in world history,^[3][56] Albert Blaustein refers to it as the "world's second national constitution",^[1] and Bill Moyers wrote that it was "Europe's first codified national constitution (and the second oldest in the world)."^[2] Norman Davies calls it "the first constitution of its type in Europe".^[4][a]

The Constitution's very name played a role in the Polish language. Its official name was Ustawa Rządowa ("Government Act"), where the government meant the political system.^[56] Prior to the May 3 Constitution, in Poland the term "constitution" (Polish: konstytucja) had denoted all the legislation, of whatever character, that had been passed at a Sejm.^[119] Only with the adoption of the May 3 Constitution did konstytucja assume its modern sense of a fundamental document of governance.^[120]

Holiday

Medal commemorating the Constitution of May 3, 1791, issued that year

May 3 was first declared a holiday (May-3rd-Constitution Day – Święto Konstytucji 3 Maja) on May 5, 1791.^[121] Banned during the partitions of Poland, it was again made an official Polish holiday in April 1919 under the Second Polish Republic – the first holiday officially introduced in the Second Polish Republic.^{[116][121][122]} The May 3 holiday was banned once more during World War II by the Nazi and Soviet occupiers. It was celebrated in the Polish cities in May 1945, although in a mostly spontaneous manner.^[116] The anti-communist demonstrations that took place around that day a year later and the competition the date created with the communist-endorsed May 1 Labor Day celebrations led in the Polish People's Republic to its rebranding (to Democratic Party Day) and removal from the list of national holidays by 1951.^[116][121] Until 1989, May 3 was a common day for anti-government and anti-communist protests.^[116] May 3 was restored as an official Polish holiday in April 1990, after the fall of communism.^[121] In 2007, May 3 was also declared a Lithuanian national holiday.^[123]

Polish Constitution Day has been a focal point of ethnic celebrations of Polish-American pride in the Chicago area, going back to 1892.^[124] Poles in Chicago have continued this tradition to the present day, marking it with festivities and the annual Polish Constitution Day Parade.^[124][125]

See also

• Statute of Kalisz
• Warsaw Confederation
• List of Poles

Notes

a ^{^} The claims of "first" and "second constitution" have been disputed, particularly as different scholars define the word constitution differently. Both the U.S. and Polish constitutions were preceded by earlier ones, including some also termed constitutions, for example, the Corsican Constitution of 1755.^[126] See history of the constitution.

b ^{^} Machnikowski uses the word Fatherland.^[115] The English translation of the Constitution of May 3, 1791, by Christopher Kasparek, reproduced in Wikisource, renders "ojczyzna" as "country" (the usual English-language equivalent), e.g., at the end of section II, "The Landed Nobility". The English cognate of the Polish "ojczyzna" is "fatherland" – both words are calques of the Latin "patria," itself derived from "pater" ("father").

c ^{^} The contemporaneous United States Constitution sanctioned the continuation of slavery. Thus neither of the two constitutions enfranchised all its adult male population: the U.S. Constitution excluded America's slaves; the Polish Constitution – Poland's peasants.

d ^{^} King Stanisław August himself had been elected in 1764 with the support of his ex-mistress, Russian Tsarina Catherine the Great – including bribes and a Russian army deployed only a few miles from the election sejm, meeting at Wola outside Warsaw.

References

Further reading

• Jerzy Kowecki, ed., Konstytucja 3 maja 1791 (The Constitution of May 3, 1791), przedmową opatrzył (with foreword by) Bogusław Leśnodorski, Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1981, ISBN 83-01-01915-8.
• Polska Akademia Nauk – Biblioteka Kórnicka (Polish Academy of Sciences, Kórnik Library), Ustawodawstwo Sejmu Wielkiego z 1791 r. (Legislation of the Great Sejm of 1791), Kórnik, 1985. Compilation of facsimile reprints of 1791 legislation pertinent to the Constitution of May 3, 1791.
• Hillar, Marian (1992). "The Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791: Myth and Reality". The Polish Review XXXVII (2): 185–207. 
• Adam Zamoyski, The Polish Way: a Thousand-Year History of the Poles and Their Culture, New York, Hippocrene Books, 1994.
• Jacek Jędruch, Constitutions, Elections and Legislatures of Poland, 1493–1993, Summit, NJ, EJJ Books, 1998, ISBN 0-7818-0637-2.
• Norman Davies, God's Playground, 2 vols., ISBN 0-231-05353-3 and ISBN 0-231-05351-7.
• Paweł Jasienica, Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów (The Commonwealth of the Two Nations), ISBN 83-06-01093-0.
• Emanuel Rostworowski, Maj 1791 – maj 1792: rok monarchii konstytucyjnej (May 1791 – May 1792: the Year of Constitutional Monarchy), Warsaw, Zamek Królewski (Royal Castle), 1985.
• Hugo Kołłątaj and Ignacy Potocki, On the Adoption and Fall of the Polish May 3 Constitution, Leipzig, 1793.

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Constitution of May 3, 1791

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Constitution of May 3, 1791

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Constitution of the May 3, 1791

• Polishconstitution.org: Site about the May 3 Constitution that includes a partial English translation by Christopher Kasparek.
• History of Polish law until 1795.
• The Constitution of May 3, 1791, by Hon. Carl L. Bucki.
• Constitutions, Elections and Legislatures of Poland, 1493–1993. Jacek Jędruch. Chapter Two – Monarchy becomes the First Republic: Kings Elected for Life
• Commonwealth of Diverse Cultures: Poland's Heritage