Poland's Constitution of 1791

From Poland: The First Thousand Years, by Patrice M. Dabrowski (Cornell University Press, 2014), Kindle pp. 390-391:

The Constitution of 3 May 1791 was a portentous achievement. The shock of the partition of 1772 had led various inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Both Nations to conclude that reform was imperative. Long leery of change, the nation nonetheless had to change its priorities. As the reformer Stanisław Staszic observed and the Constitution’s preamble gently echoed, the fate of the nation had to take precedence over the Golden Freedoms; its continued existence should trump any considerations of individual comfort.

With Russia—and the Russian army—preoccupied elsewhere in 1788, the Commonwealth was able to avail itself of an unprecedented window of opportunity. The Great Seym not only provided stimulating years of dogged discussion of the country’s fate. It also enabled reform-minded national activists to flesh out a new framework—the framework that was pushed through that fateful May day in 1791.

The May 3 Constitution as Enlightenment, Polish Style

Presented as an emergency measure, Europe’s first constitution was craftily constructed. The tone of urgency that sounded in the Seym on May 3 was echoed in the preamble of the document, which declared that the new constitution was the only way to provide “for the general welfare, for the establishment [ugruntowania] of liberty, [and] for the salvation of our Fatherland and its borders.” Comprised of eleven articles, the Constitution first enumerated the country’s social framework, before elucidating the new shape of the government. In the process, centuries of native tradition were laced with innovations redolent of the Enlightenment, with elements based on the French, English, and American examples.

The innovations were seen above all in the altered nature of the government. While the will of the people was declared to provide all authority, there was no talk of a classical republic, as there had been in the sixteenth century. Rather, the focus was on the modern three powers of government: the legislative, judicial, and executive. (In this it was not unlike the U.S. Constitution, promulgated only several years earlier.) Set to meet every other year, the traditional bicameral Seym remained the locus of legislative authority. However, it would rely upon majority vote: the liberum veto and confederations were outlawed.

No less radical from the Sarmatian perspective were changes concerning the “supreme executive authority,” that of the king. There would be no more royal elections viritim. The monarchy was to become hereditary, not in the (non-existent) family of Stanisław August Poniatowski but in the Saxon Wettin dynasty. Furthermore, the king would have a small royal council (the so-called guardians of the laws)—essentially a cabinet of ministers—to aid with the execution of the laws as well as countersign the king’s actions. The competency of individual members of the royal council would extend to education, the police (here understood more as a ministry of the interior), war (defense), and the treasury; and each of these realms would have its own commission in the Seym. The new form of government was, in essence, a modern constitutional monarchy.