By John Cebrowski and Dr. Piotr Przybylski
The Constitution of May 3, 1791 combined a monarchic republic with a clear division of executive, legislative, and judicial powers. It was Europe's first and the world's second modern written national constitution, after the United States Constitution which had come into effect in 1789. It represents an important milestone in the development of democratic ideals in the western world. In Poland, and Polonia worldwide, the Constitution is viewed as a national symbol, the culmination of all that was good and enlightened in Polish history and culture.
The Constitution was adopted by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to ensure freedom and political equality on its territory and introduce a constitutional monarchy system. It was characterized by the ideas, values, and persuasive strategies of the late Enlightenment, which gave primacy to reason, law and freedom, as well as to religious tolerance. It provided an explicit and fundamental framework for the structure of society and for the form of government, derived from the “will of the nation”.
While recognizing the leading role of the nobility, the Constitution gave political rights to towns and cities and provided political protection for the peasants, laying the groundwork for emancipation. It abolished the paralyzing “liberum veto”, a form of unanimity rule voting, that allowed any member of the Sejm (Parliament) to force an immediate end to the current session or to nullify any legislation that had already been passed; this was a major cause of the partitions. Catholicism was declared the dominant faith, but full freedom of conscience was granted to all citizens. The Sejm was the supreme legal authority, the king was the chief executive, and an independent judiciary was established.
The Constitution also reiterated the 1569 Union of Lublin between the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which had created the Commonwealth of Two Nations, safeguarding parity. For contemporaries at home and abroad, the most controversial element of the Constitution was the abolition of the fully elective monarchy, and the introduction of hereditary succession to the throne.
The Constitution was strongly rooted in the traditions of the Commonwealth: liberty being one of its key themes, and many precautions were included against the abuse of executive power. It placed a relatively new emphasis on universal natural rights, freedom being the natural human condition.
At the same time, the May 3rd Constitution was designed to redress long-standing political defects of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It sought to replace the anarchy fostered by some of the country’s magnates with a more democratic constitutional monarchy. Crucial fundamental reform could be undertaken at this time because the Russian Empire was then preoccupied with wars against the Ottoman Empire and Sweden, and was also threatened by Prussia and Great Britain. This was a window of opportunity! But the dangerous American and French ideas were a slap in the face to the Russians.
The Constitution’s adoption provoked the active hostility of the Commonwealth's neighbors, leading to the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, the Kościuszko Uprising of 1794 and the Third, and final, Partition of Poland, in 1795.
The Constitution was meant to be the dawn of a better future. Despite being in effect for only 15 months, until the Russo-Polish War of 1792, the Constitution of 1791 is considered one of the most important achievements in the history of Poland. It showed beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was not a failed state, put out of its anarchic misery by its autocratic neighbors, but a robust community of citizens that was rapidly recovering its strength after a long crisis. After May 3, 1791, there would be time for supplementary laws to be passed and institutions to get to work. On the whole, the indications were very promising, but the extraordinary optimism about the future, after decades of humiliation, was naïve given the realities of regional geo-politics at that time. Orderly liberty would be infectious. Catherine II of Russia was alarmed by the provision in the fourth article, regarding peasants, that all who immigrated to the Commonwealth would be personally free, able to choose to settle in a town and take up a trade, or else to enter into a contract with a landowner to farm land. She feared a mass exodus of serfs from the Russian Empire. Her anxieties were shared in Berlin and Vienna, too, but those two courts were especially concerned by the civil and civic rights guaranteed to burghers in the “Free Royal Towns of the Commonwealth”. Would their overtaxed burghers be content to stay in the overregulated towns of the Prussian and Austrian monarchies, when opportunities for liberty and prosperity awaited them in the Commonwealth? No, of course, they wouldn’t. And therefore, the threatened absolute monarchies of Russia, Prussia and Austria set out to dismember the Commonwealth.
To punish the Poles and make sure that Poland had no ability to engage in future experiments in ordered freedom, Russia and Prussia organized the second partition of Poland in 1793, sealed by a Russian invasion.
Some characterize the Constitution as a belated effort. The impressive resilience with which the Commonwealth had soaked up invasions and coped with profound political and economic crises from 1648 onwards had run out by the end of the Great Northern War (1700-21). The failure of the political community during the reigns of John Casimir, Michael Wiśniowiecki, John Sobieski and Augustus II the Strong to adopt fundamental constitutional reforms which would have prevented foreign powers from exploiting both interregnums and the poisonous liberum veto to keep Poland-Lithuania weak, fiscally and militarily, was decisive.
The memory of the Constitution, a very progressive document for its time, helped keep alive for generations Polish aspirations for an independent and just society. The May 3 anniversary of its adoption has been observed as one of Poland's most important national public holidays since Poland regained independence in 1918. Its importance for the Polish people can be compared to that of the 4th of July for Americans.
May 3rd was first declared a holiday in 1791, and celebrated a year later in 1792. Celebrations were banned during the partitions of Poland but the day was still observed by various pro-independence activists, more openly during the times of insurrections, such as the November Uprising. It was again made an official Polish holiday in April 1919 under the Second Polish Republic. Celebrations were banned once again during World War II by the German and Russian occupiers. May 3rd was restored as an official Polish holiday in April 1990, after the fall of communism. Today, the day is a major public holiday and is observed with flag flying, parades, cannon salvos, exhibitions, concerts, speeches, readings of the Constitution’s preamble, the singing of patriotic songs, and celebratory Masses.
God bless Poland and the Polish people for their fortitude, faith, patriotism, and leadership.
