Constitution of 3 May 1791: Poland's Landmark Reform Charter

The Constitution of 3 May 1791 was a reform charter adopted by the parliament of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in Warsaw, and is widely regarded as Europe’s first modern written national constitution. Officially called the Government Act, it aimed to end decades of political paralysis and foreign interference by creating a stronger, hereditary monarchy and an efficient parliament. Russia saw it as a threat, and within little more than a year Russian armies had overturned it, opening the way to the final partitions of Poland.

Background: a commonwealth in crisis

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was one of the largest states in Europe, but its political system had grown dysfunctional. Kings were elected by the nobility, and the liberum veto allowed any single deputy to dissolve a session of the Sejm, the parliament, and void its decisions. Neighbouring powers routinely bribed deputies to block reform.

In 1772 Russia, Prussia and Austria carried out the First Partition, seizing about 30 per cent of the Commonwealth’s territory. The King, Stanisław August Poniatowski, a former favourite of Catherine II of Russia, encouraged cultural and educational reforms, but real political change was impossible while Russian influence dominated Warsaw. The wider story is told in our article on the Partitions of Poland.

An opportunity came in 1787, when Russia went to war with the Ottoman Empire and soon also faced Sweden. In October 1788 a new Sejm met in Warsaw. Reorganised as a confederated Sejm, in which decisions were taken by majority vote, it remained in session for four years and became known as the Great Sejm or Four-Year Sejm. In 1790 it concluded an alliance with Prussia, which seemed to offer protection against Russia.

How the constitution was adopted

The text was prepared in secret by a small circle around the King, including Ignacy Potocki, the priest and reformer Hugo Kołłątaj, the Italian secretary Scipione Piattoli and the Sejm’s marshal, Stanisław Małachowski. The reformers feared that open debate would allow opponents and foreign envoys to wreck the project.

They timed the vote for early May 1791, when many opposition deputies had not yet returned to Warsaw after the Easter recess. On 3 May, in the Senate chamber of the Royal Castle, surrounded by crowds and with supporters packing the galleries, the reformers presented the text. After a stormy debate it was passed by acclamation, and the King swore to uphold it.

Deputies and the public then went in procession to St John’s Collegiate Church, now a cathedral, for a service of thanksgiving. Only a minority of the Sejm’s full membership was present in the chamber that day; around 180 deputies are usually cited. Two days later the Sejm formally confirmed the vote.

What the constitution said

The Government Act was a short document of eleven articles. Its main provisions included:

• An end to the liberum veto and to noble confederations, the armed leagues often used to disrupt the state. The Sejm would decide by majority.
• A hereditary monarchy. After Stanisław August’s death the throne would pass to the Saxon house of Wettin rather than being open to election.
• Separation of powers between a legislative Sejm, an executive led by the King and a council of ministers called the Guardians of the Laws, and independent courts.
• Rights for townspeople, incorporating a law of April 1791 that gave burghers of royal towns personal security, the right to buy land and access to offices.
• Protection of the peasants by law, a modest but symbolic step, though serfdom itself was not abolished.
• Roman Catholicism as the dominant religion, with freedom of worship guaranteed for other faiths.

It was supplemented later in 1791 by the Reciprocal Guarantee of the Two Nations, which confirmed the union of Poland and Lithuania within the reformed state.

Key people

• Stanisław August Poniatowski, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, championed the reform but later yielded to Russian pressure.
• Ignacy Potocki was a leading organiser of the patriotic party in the Sejm.
• Hugo Kołłątaj, priest and political writer, was one of the main authors of the text and its social reforms.
• Stanisław Małachowski, marshal of the Great Sejm, gave the reform his authority and helped carry it through.
• Catherine II of Russia regarded the constitution as dangerous to Russian influence; her government’s earlier rise is covered in the article on Catherine the Great’s coup.

Overthrow: the war of 1792

Opponents of the reform, led by magnates such as Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki, Franciszek Ksawery Branicki and Seweryn Rzewuski, turned to St Petersburg. On 27 April 1792 they signed the Confederation of Targowica, a document drawn up in the Russian capital and proclaimed in mid-May, claiming to defend Polish liberties against the constitution.

In May 1792 Russian armies invaded. Polish forces under Prince Józef Poniatowski, the King’s nephew, and Tadeusz Kościuszko fought well at Zieleńce and Dubienka, but were heavily outnumbered, and Prussia ignored its 1790 alliance. In July 1792 the King, hoping to save what he could, joined the Targowica Confederation, and the war ended.

Russia and Prussia then carried out the Second Partition in 1793. The Sejm of Grodno, meeting under Russian pressure, ratified the losses and annulled the constitution. The Kościuszko Uprising of 1794 was crushed, and the Third Partition of 1795 erased the Commonwealth from the map.

Legacy

Although it was in force for little more than a year, the constitution became a powerful national symbol for Poles during more than a century of partition. It represented the idea that the Commonwealth had been reforming itself when its neighbours destroyed it.

The constitution also attracted attention abroad. The Irish-born statesman Edmund Burke, a fierce critic of the French Revolution, praised the Polish reform as a peaceful change achieved without violence or the overthrow of property. In St Petersburg, by contrast, Catherine II’s government portrayed the Warsaw reformers as dangerous Jacobins, imitators of the French radicals, which offered a convenient justification for intervention.

Historians debate how radical it was: it preserved the political dominance of the nobility and left serfdom in place, yet it was a serious attempt at modern constitutional government. Its claim to be Europe’s first modern codified constitution, ahead of the French constitution of September 1791, is widely accepted, with some scholars noting earlier experiments such as the Corsican constitution of 1755.

3 May was celebrated as a national holiday in the Second Polish Republic between the world wars, suppressed by the communist authorities after the Second World War and restored as Constitution Day in 1990.

Timeline

• 1772: First Partition of Poland by Russia, Prussia and Austria.
• 1788, 6 October: The Great Sejm opens in Warsaw.
• 1790, 29 March: The Commonwealth signs a defensive alliance with Prussia.
• 1791, 3 May: The Sejm adopts the Government Act in the Royal Castle, Warsaw.
• 1791, 20 October: The Reciprocal Guarantee of the Two Nations is adopted.
• 1792, 18 May: Russian troops invade the Commonwealth.
• 1792, 24 July: Stanisław August joins the Targowica Confederation.
• 1793, 23 November: The Sejm of Grodno annuls the constitution after the Second Partition.
• 1795: The Third Partition ends the Commonwealth’s existence.

Why it matters

The Constitution of 3 May 1791 was an ambitious attempt to modernise a declining state through law rather than revolution. Its swift destruction showed how little room the great powers allowed their weaker neighbours, while its memory sustained Polish national identity through the long years of partition.