"CONSTITUTIONALISM" 35but also because it had the support of the most active participants in
the palace revolution of March 11th, 1801. 1 The senatorial party
advocated the return to the traditions of Catherine II, as promised in
the Proclamation of Accession and enthusiastically welcomed by the
nobility. The senatorial group could, therefore, claim to speak with
the authority of a "public opinion" whose support the young ruler
needed and craved. Prodded by it, Alexander asked the Senate to
redefine its powers and functions and to present a plan for its
reorganization. The Senate complied readily, and several of its members
drafted proposals whose contents were eventually consolidated into
one paper, edited by Count Zavadovskii and submitted to the Emperor.
At the same time, several high dignitaries close to the Senate, in
particular the Counts Alexander and Simon Vorontsov, drafted a
charter to the Russian people which they intended to have promulgated
at the coronation of Alexander I.
In spite of some differences in detail, the members of the senatorial
party pursued the same aims. They proposed to give the dominant
role in the government to the higher nobility by re·establishing the
Senate (or in Count Panin's plan, an enlarged Council of State) as
the highest executive organ and by granting it a consultative voice
alld limited power of initiative in the legislative process. In addition,
the Charter for the Russian People guaranteed to the Emperor's
subjects, and specifically to the nobility, legal safeguards which would
protect their life and property against the arbitrary caprices of the
monarch's bureaucracy. The Senators (or Councillors of State) were
to be selected among the high dignitaries of the realm; and, in addition,
perhaps - at a later stage - a few noblemen from each province might
be appointed by the government upon recommendation of the Governor.
The most important function assigned to the Senate was the supervision
of the administration and the execution of the decrees and edicts,
seeing to it that no bureaucrat violated the basic laws and privileges
of the nation. The actual task of legislation remained, as in the past,
in the hands of the Emperor and his immediate advisers, but the
Senate would have a "droit de remontrance". In this manner, without
specifically restricting the absolute power of the monarch, the Senate
would obtain effective means for safeguarding the "fundamental laws"
of the realm; that is, the rights and privileges of the various classes
of the Russian people, most particularly of course, those of the nobility.
. 1 The personal link between the conspirators of March 1801 and the Senatorial
party was provided by Count P. Panin.