Focus on Constitution of 3 May 1791 (painting) and explore the Constitution of 3 May 1791.
The Constitution of 3 May 1791 was adopted as a "Government Act" (Polish: Ustawa rządowa) on that date by the Sejm (parliament) of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It has been called  "the first constitution of its type in Europe" and the world's second oldest constitution.It was designed to redress long-standing political defects of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.  The Commonwealth's system of "Golden Liberty", which conferred disproportionate rights on the nobility, had increasingly corrupted the Commonwealth's politics. The Constitution sought to supplant the existing anarchy fostered by some of the country's magnates with a more democratic constitutional monarchy. It 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 the legislation adopted by that Sejm.The adoption of the 3 May Constitution met with hostile political and military responses from the Commonwealth's neighbors. In the Polish–Russian War of 1792 (sometimes called the "War in Defense of the Constitution"), the Commonwealth was attacked by Catherine the Great's Imperial Russia allied with the Targowica Confederation, a coalition of Polish magnates and landless nobility who opposed reforms that might weaken their influence. The Commonwealth's ally Prussia, under Frederick William II, broke its alliance, and the Commonwealth was defeated. In the end, the Constitution of May 3 remained in force for little more than one year. Despite the Commonwealth's defeat in the Polish–Russian War and the ensuing partitions which eliminated the Commonwealth, the May 3 Constitution remained for more than 123 years a beacon in the struggle to restore Polish sovereignty. In the words of two of its co-authors, Ignacy Potocki and Hugo Kołłątaj, it was "the last will and testament of the expiring Country."
Polish–Russian War of 1792 serfdom Sejm Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth bribed magnate Constitution of 3 May 1791 peasant Hugo Kołłątaj partitions nobility liberum veto Catherine the Great Imperial Russia Golden Liberty townspeople constitutional monarchy szlachta Frederick William II Ignacy Potocki Targowica Confederation Prussia