The Lessons of Poland 319
“The nobility by itself,” said Niemcewicz, “is incapable of defending the country
against the ambitious designs of its enemies. Only by a joining of all estates can
the Republic increase its strength and its powers of resistance. No one knows to
whom Washington owes his birth, and no one knows who Franklin’s ancestors
were. Yet it is to these two famous men that America owes its liberty and indepen-
dence.” We need the burghers, declared the noble Niemcewicz, and it is in our in-
terest for them to be prosperous and productive. Let us offer liberty and property
rights, “and we shall see swarms of immigrants from foreign regions come and
settle under our government.”^16
A few days later, on April 18, 1791, the diet enacted the Statute of the Cities,
the second of its principal acts. So great, however, was the conflict in these debates,
so acute was the mounting danger from neighboring powers felt to be, and so
much time had been lost since October 1788, that the reform party despaired of
obtaining a new constitution by deliberation and agreement. Prince Radziwill, Ig-
nace Potocki, Hugo Kollontay, and others held a series of secret meetings with
King Stanislas, who produced a paper that he called “Thoughts of an Elderly Citi-
zen,” and which his patriot coworkers seized upon as a very acceptable draft con-
stitution. By prearrangement, at a meeting of the diet from which a good many of
the conservatives were absent, the King made a speech on the national emergency
and the need for instant action, and he produced his draft, which a tumultuous diet
forthwith adopted “by acclamation.” Thus arose the famous Constitution of the
Third of May. It explicitly incorporated the Statute of Cities, and the two together
may be regarded as the Polish constitution of 1791.^17
The monarchy was made hereditary in the house of Saxony. The executive was
made stronger and more independent, its weakness in the past being called the
main source of Poland’s troubles. Separate articles, in the manner of the United
States constitution of 1787, but inspired more directly by Montesquieu and the
theory of the British constitution, provided for executive, legislative, and judicial
branches of government. The Liberum Veto was declared abolished, and decision
by plurality vote was required. Roman Catholicism was announced to be the na-
tional religion, with toleration promised to others. Landed nobles were confirmed
in historic rights. Nothing was done for the peasants, except for a specious clause
assuring government protection for voluntary bilateral agreements between master
and serf. The opening phrase, that Stanislas was King by grace of God and “the
nation,” was more likely to annoy his fellow monarchs than to strengthen Poland.
It is the new relationship between burghers and nobles that is of most interest.
There was nothing like the new principle of national citizenship currently laid
down in France. Indeed, one of the concessions made by the Patriots to the con-
servatives, during the debates, was to avoid the very words “citizen” and “nation” in
16 Klotz, 357–58; Dany, 189–90.
17 The text of the Constitution of May 3 is printed in French by Klotz, and was printed in French
at the time in the Paris Moniteur of May 24, 1791. For the text of the equally important Statute of
Cities, persons not knowing Polish must apparently resort to the old K. H. L. Politz, Die europäischen
Verfassungen seit dem Jahre 1789 (Leipzig, 1832–33), III, 4–8. For the constitution see also Appendix
III, item 4, below.