Polish national holiday of the Constitution of
May 3, . The first democratic European constitution and the second in the world.
Look up (Constitution of May 3, 1791)
Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791 (Polish: Konstytucja Trzeciego Maja) was adopted as a "Government Act" (Polish: Ustawa
rzą
dowa) on that date by the Sejm (parliament) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Historian Norman Davies calls it "the first constitution of its type in Europe"
The
May 3rd Constitution was designed to redress long-standing political defects of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and its traditional system of "Golden Liberty" conveying disproportionate rights and privileges to the nobility. The Constitution introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility (szlachta) and placed the peasants under the protection of the government, thus
mitigating the worst abuses of
serfdom. The Constitution abolished pernicious parliamentary institutions such as the liberum veto, which at one time had put the sejm at the mercy of any deputy who might choose, or be bribed by an interest or foreign power, to undo legislation passed by that sejm. The Constitution sought to
supplant the existing anarchy fostered by some of the country's magnates with a more democratic constitutional monarchy.
The Constitution was created by Polish King
Stanisław August Poniatowski, Stanisław Małachowski, Hugo Kołłątaj,
Ignacy Potocki, Stanisław Staszic,
Scipione Piattoli and others.
it's
May 3, i have off!
The first democratic
constitution in the world was created in the United States of America, the second one was
the Constitution of May 3, 1791 created in Poland. It was the first democratic constitution in Europe!
