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Recasting Utopia: Montesquieu, Rousseau and the Polish constitution of 3 May 1791*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Jerzy Lukowski
Jerzy Lukowski
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Abstract

Between the sixteenth and eighteengh centuries, the nobility of the Polish–Lithuanian commonwealth had developed an ideology of extreme individualism and libertarianism, within a correspondingly weak and decentralized state structure. The first partition of 1772 starkly revealed the weaknesses of the Polish polity, but any hopes of major political overhaul were frustrated by the dead hand of Russian ambassadorial policing. The war of 1787–92 with Turkey proved a temporary distraction for Russia, which the Polish parliament of 1788–92 showed itself only partly capable of exploiting. Factional conflicts and a wary conservatism hampered reforms: the ideas of Montesquieu and Rousseau, which closely complemented so many aspects of traditional Polish noble ideology, seemed to offer the most acceptable way forward, culminating in the constitution of 3 May 1791, a compromise between enlightened idealism and political pragmatism.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 65 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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Footnotes

*

This paper developed out of originally read to the 41st conference of the International Commission for the History of Representative and Praliamentary Institutions in Warsaw on 10 Sept.1991. I should like to express my appreciation of the discussions at the European History (1500–1800) Seminar of London University, to the Modern European History Seminar of Cambridge University and to the University of Birmingham's Modern History Seminar, which have all contributed to this version. I am particularly grateful for their comments to Professor D. E. D. Beales and to Professor Q. R. D. Skinner.

References

1 The preamble to the constitution makes this its principal point.

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5 Some of the most recent work is referred to in the notes below. A brave attempt to publish key source materials relating to the Four Years Sejm stalled, the editors overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task: Materiały do dziejów sejmu czteroletniego, ed. Woliński, J., Michalski, J. and Rostworowski, E. (6 vols., Wrocław, 1955–69)Google Scholar. There is no modern edition of the record of debates. The promise of a prosopographical analysis has yet to be realized. See Kowecki, J., ‘Poslowie debiutanci na sejmie czteroletnim’, in Wiek XVIII: Polska i świat, ed. Zahorski, A. (Warsaw, 1974), pp. 195–210Google Scholar. For an accessible account in English of the sejm see Lukowski, J. T., Liberty's folly: the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the eighteenth century (London, 1991), esp. pp. 239–56.Google Scholar

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17 Branicki's ‘Réflexions patriotiques sur l'état présent de la République…’, Paris, Archive du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Pologne 289, fos. 400–2. Cf. Rousseau's, Du Contract Social, ‘Les meilleurs rois veulent pouvoir être médians…’ in Oeuvres completes, III, edited by Gagnebin, B. and Raymond, M. (Paris, 1964), p. 409Google Scholar or his Économic politique, ibid. p. 253 (all references to this edition); Montesquieu, Lois, book XI, ch. iv, p. 395.

18 Konopczyński, Pisarze polityczni, p. III. Leśnodorski, B. cites the case of an unnamed envoy to the Four Years Sejm who supposedly confessed to discovering what the ‘executive’ was only after the reading of the 3 May constitution (Dzieło, p. 381).Google Scholar

19 Even Montesquieu's warnings were given out of practical considerations, not because he felt such direct rule to be wrong in itself. Lois, book XI, ch. vi, pp. 399–400. See also ibid, book IX, ch. i, pp. 369–70, and cf. Rousseau's Considérations sur le gouvernement de Pologne, pp. 960–1, 970–1, 975, 979.

20 VL II, 150–3.

21 VL v, II.

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25 Considérations, pp. 980, 984. Rousseau wrote his work in 1770–1, though it was not published until 1782. A Polish translation, by Franciszek Karp, one of the radical envoys to the Four Years Sejm, appeared in 1789. Lésnodorski, ‘La pensée politique de Rousseau…’, pp. 503–4.

26 Wielhorski actually speaks of the ‘will of the palatinate’, wola województwa, i.e. of the basic political constituency of the szlachta nation, meeting at the local sejmik, in order to transmit the will of the electorate to the sejm. O przywŕoceniu, pp. 84, 97, 116, 169, 199, 202, 260, 308. For the mechanisms whereby this was to be done, ibid. pp. 30, 38, 53–4, 59, 68, 159, 194, 222–3.

27 Michalski, , Rousseau, p. 48Google Scholar. For Wielhorski's defence of his law restoring the fully fledged veto in 1766 after the restrictions imposed on it in 1764, see O przywróceniu, pp. 80–1.

28 Considérations, pp. 979–80. Cf. Contract Social, p. 371. See also Wielhorski, , O przywréceniu, p. 98.Google Scholar

29 The king lost the right to dispose freely of most of the so-called ‘crown lands’ (królewszczyzny), covering some fifteen per cent of the Commonwealth's area; as their current holders died off, they were to be let on long-term leases to the highest bidder. Historia państwa i prawa Polski, II, ed. Bardach, J. (Warsaw, 1971 edn), 509Google Scholar. The Permanent Council put forward three candidates, of whom the king would appoint one, to each ministerial and senatorial vacancy. Otherwise, the king had to abide by the majority-vote decisions of the 36-member Council. Czaja, A., Między tronem, bulawg a dworem petersburskim: z dziejów Rady Nieustającej 1786–1789 (Warsaw, 1988), pp. 48–76. Czaja draws attention to the influence of Montesquieu's ideas on the creation of the Council, p. 68.Google Scholar

30 Ibid. pp. 107–11, 269. Leśnodorski, , Dzieło, p. 323n.Google Scholar

31 Listy Anonima i Prawo Polityczne Narodu Polskiego, 1, 273, 332–3; II, 16, 30, 51–2, 109–13; 220–1, 236–8Google Scholar. Leśnodorski stresses the influence of Rousseau's Économie politique, written for the Encyclopédic, on Kołłątaj. Leśnodorski, , ‘La pensée politique de Rousseau’, p. 502.Google Scholar

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33 Ibid. pp. 228–32: idem, ‘Marzenie’, pp. 342–54.

34 On 7 September 1789 the sejm had set up a ‘Deputacja do Formy Rządu’ – a ‘Deputation for the Form of Government’ to draft a new constitution. In practice, the Deputation entrusted most of the work to Ignacy Potocki: the Deputation's ‘Project for the Form of Government’ (Proiekt do Formy Rządu [Warsaw, 1790]Google Scholar) was submitted to the sejm on 2 August 1790. Its section on the sejmiki formed the basis of the law of 24 March 1791; otherwise, the Proiekt found little favour with the sejm and was never passed. VL IX, 107–8; Leśnodorski, , Dzieło, pp. 145–61, 241Google Scholar; Rostworowski, , ‘Marzenie’, pp. 290–2, 306–10, 318–24, 328–32, 425–6.Google Scholar

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38 This very charge was levelled against the Four Years Sejm. Zielińska, , Republikanizm, pp. 121, 141, 173–4, 180, 260–1, 280, 350–1.Google Scholar

39 Under the supplementary legislation of 28 May 1791, future sejmy would continue to be called once every two years. They were to sit for seventy full business days, with scope for an extension of fifteen further business days. In case of necessity, the sejm could be called back at four weeks' notice as a ‘reconvened’ sejm, but all of its decisions would be subject to confirmation by the next ‘ordinary’ sejm. VL IX, 250–1.

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42 VL IX, 61, 112; art. VII of the constitution; Leśnodorski, , Dzieło, pp. 309–10.Google Scholar

43 VL IX, 251. Leśnodorski, , Dzieło, pp. 25–56Google Scholar. I do not intend to imply that Potocki and Kołłątaj were specifically following Rousseau in leaving episcopal nominations in the hands of future kings. It was hardly a practical proposition to entrust the nomination of bishops to the sejmiki (as Rousseau himself pointed out), particularly under a constitution whose first article explicitly affirmed Roman Catholicism to be Poland's ruling faith. Rousseau would have left lay senatorial elections wholly at the disposal of the sejmiki or, for lesser-ranking senators, at the disposal of the sejm, with no role left for the king in their appointment (Considérations, pp. 989–91). It is worth noting that under the legislation of 1775 the king could only nominate to bishoprics from among three persons presented by the Permanent Council (Czaja, , Między tronem, p. 65)Google Scholar. In so far as the legislation on royal patronage of 1791 applied purely to Stanistaw August, it represented, strictly speaking, a confirmation of a law passed on 13 September 1790, which, following a rapprochement between the king and the sejm, restored in full his powers to appoint senators and ministers. Zienkowska, , Sławetni i Urodzeni, pp. 119–121; VL IX, 182.Google Scholar

44 Rostworowski, , ‘Marzenie’, pp. 462–3.Google Scholar

45 Montesquieu's view of England is directly juxtaposed with that of Poland. England's constitution aims at ‘la liberté politique’ whereas Poland's aims at ‘l'indépendance de chaque particulier…et ce qui en résulte, l'oppression de tous’. Lois, book XI, ch. v, p. 396.

46 Ibid, book II, ch. iv, p. 248. Sheila Mason has recently drawn attention to Montesquieu's complex views on England, ‘Montesquieu on English constitutionalism revisited’, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, CCLXXVIII (1990), 105–46.Google Scholar

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48 The excellent translation in the Annual Register of 1791, pp. 177–86, renders straż praw as ‘council of inspection’, but this weakens the force of the term. Emanuel Rostworowski points out that in the penultimate draft of the constitution the king headed article VII ‘Król, czyli władza wykonawcza’, ‘The king, that is, the executive power’. Kołłątaj subsequently dropped the ‘czyli’, thus removing the direct equation of king and executive. Rostworowski, , ‘Marzenie’, pp. 431–2. Significantly, article VI of the constitution is headed ‘Sejm, czyli wladza prawodawcza’, ‘The sejm, that is, the legislative power’.Google Scholar

49 Lois, book v, ch. vii, p. 282; earlier, Montesquieu speaks of the need for ‘un dépôt des lois’, as well as intermediary bodies, in a monarchy. Ibid, book II, ch. v, p. 249.

50 P. 454.

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52 Wielhorski uses the term struż (rather than straż) praw, but the meaning is very similar. Ibid, p. 133. Wielhorski's work is to some extent a tacit polemic against Stanisław Konarski, who, in the context of a debate on the extent of royal power, put forward the argument that kings ‘are the guardians (stróże) of laws and justice’. O skutecznym rod sposobie, III, 142.

53 Kądziela, Ł., ‘Spór szlachty kurlandzkiej z ks. Piotrem Bironem w okresie Sejmu Czteroletniego’, Społeczeństwo Polskie XVIII i XIX w., VIII (1987), 12–15.Google Scholar

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56 Leśnodorski, , Dzieło, pp. 145–50.Google Scholar

57 VL IX, 158.

58 Leśnodorski, , Dzieło, pp. 322–4.Google Scholar

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61 Considérations, pp. 991–2.

62 VL IX, 255.

63 Smoleński, W., Ostatni Rok Sejmu Wielkiego (Krakow, 1897), pp. 241–9.Google Scholar

64 Czacki, , ‘List XVIII na Monitora karty XXXV y XXXVI’, B. Cz. 1195, p. 57Google Scholar. Kołłątaj, , Listy Anonima, I, 277–8.Google Scholar

65 Czacki, ibid. pp. 53–7; Zielińska, , Republikanizm, p. 93.Google Scholar

66 Considérations, pp. 974, 1026–8; Michalski, , Rousseau, pp. 23–4, 40–1Google Scholar; idem, ‘Stanisław August obserwatorem rewolucji francuskiej’, Kwartalnik Historyczny, LXXXXVII, nos. 1–2 (1990), 52–3, 56.Google Scholar

67 O pryiwróceniu, pp. 305–7.

68 VL VIII, 113.

69 VL VIII, 401, 405.

70 Zienkowska, , Sławetni i urodzeni, esp. pp. 130–8 for some astonishing instances.Google Scholar

71 Ibid. pp. 19–21, 24–8 and passim; Maliszewski, K., Jan Kazimierz Rubinkowski: szlachcic, mieszczanin toruński, erudyta barokowy (Warsaw, 1982)Google Scholar; Zieliriska, T., Szlacheccy właściciele nieruchomości w miastach XVIIIw. (Warsaw, 1987).Google Scholar

72 Considérations, pp. 211, 279–80.

73 The term ‘townsmen’ (in preference to ‘bourgeoisie’ or even ‘burghers’, which may imply a degree of social sophistication not shared by the great majority of Poland's town inhabitants) is used throughout this article to denote the non-Jewish inhabitants of the Polish royal towns; the Jews, though a significant percentage of the inhabitants of many Polish towns, in some even a majority, formed to all intents and purposes a separate legal estate which had no direct involvement in the agitation for municipal reform. See Lukowski, , Liberty's folly, pp. 77–82Google Scholar; Zienkowska, K., ‘“The Jews have killed a tailor.” The socio-political background of a riot in Warsaw in 1790’, Polin, III (1988), 78–101.Google Scholar

74 VL IX, 35.

75 Zienkowska, , Sławetni i urodzeni, pp. 12–13, 16, 22, 43–4, 62–6, 99–107, 111–12.Google Scholar

76 Rostworowski, , ‘Marzenie’, pp. 292–9Google Scholar; Zienkowska, , Sławetni i Urodzeni, pp. 107–12.Google Scholar

77 Ibid. pp. 117–18; VL IX, 204.

78 Ibid, passim, but esp. pp. 43–4, 52–66, 69, 73, 102–17. Kołłątaj's own views on the constitutional role of townsmen can be seen most clearly in his Prawo Polityczne, II, 219–20, 273–85.

79 Zienkowska, , Sławetni i Urodzeni, esp. pp. 160–78.Google Scholar

80 Article II (Statute on Towns). These voting rights were restricted to commercial and municipal matters.

81 The ramifications are discussed at length in Zienkowska, , Sławetni i Urodzeni, esp. pp. 179–290.Google Scholar

82 Ibid. p. 175.

83 Jan Dekert to Stanisław Małachowski, 3 Oct. 1790, quoted ibid. p. 119.

84 Smoleński, W., Mieszczaństwo warszawskie w końcu wieku XVIII (Warsaw, 1976 edn), pp. 167–9.Google Scholar

85 Zienkowska, , Sławetni i Urodzeni, pp. 249–50.Google Scholar

86 Ibid. p. 122; Rostworowski, , ‘Marzenie’, p. 294.Google Scholar

87 Rostworowski, E., ‘Ilu bylo w Rzeczypospolitej obywateli szlachty’, Kwartalnik Historyczny, XCIV (1988), 37–8.Google Scholar

88 E.g. Lois, book XI, ch. iii, p. 395: ‘La liberté est le droit de faire tout ce que les lois permettent.’

89 De Madariaga, I., ‘Catherine and the Philosophes’, in Cross, A. G. (ed.), Russia and the West in the eighteenth century (Newtonville, Mass., 1983), pp. 37–8Google Scholar. Cf. Rousseau, , Considérations, p. 974.Google Scholar

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91 Schulz, F., ‘Prodróże Inflantczyka z Rygi do Warszawy’, Polska stanisławowska w oczach cudzoziemców, ed. Zawadzki, W., II (Warsaw, 1963), 655Google Scholar; Vahle, H., ‘Die polnische Verfassung vom 3. Mai 1791 im zeitgenossischen deutschen Urteil’, Jahrbücher fur Geschichte Osteuropas, N.F. XIX (1971). 357–60.Google Scholar

92 Leśnodorski, B., ‘“La Pacifica Rivoluzione” en Italieet ses reflets en Pologne au XVIIIe s.’, Italia, Venezia e Polonia tra illuminismo e romanticismo, ed. Branca, V. (Florence, 1973), pp. 195–213Google Scholar; Maestro, M., ‘Gaetano Filangieri and his Science of Legislation’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s. LXVI, no. 6 (1976), 7–71.Google Scholar

93 Rostworowski, , ‘Marzenie’, p. 380.Google Scholar

94 Économie politique, p. 250; Contract Social, pp. 384–6; Considérations, pp. 1036–7; Lois, esp. book 1, ch. iii, pp. 237–8.

95 Ibid, book V, ch. X, pp. 289–90.

96 Smoleński, , Ostatni Rok, pp. 65–71, 93–5, 110–11, 133–4.Google Scholar

97 VL IX, 259. Cf. Lois, book XIII, ch. XII, p. 319; Économie politique, pp. 264–78; Contract Social, p. 429; Considérations, pp. 1003–12.

98 Zahorski, A., Centralne instytucje policyjne w Polsce w dobie rozbiorw (Warsaw, 1959), pp. 146–55.Google Scholar

99 Zienkowska, , Sławetni i Urodzeni, pp. 219–21, 229–31.Google Scholar

100 VL IX, 428–30.

101 ‘Mowa na Sejmie dnia 28 czerwca 1791r.’, Kuźnica Kołłątajowska: wybór źródel, ed. Leśnodorski, B. (Wrocław, 1949), pp. 160–73.Google Scholar

102 Lois, book II, ch. II, p. 240; Considérations, p. 983.

103 VL IX, 241.

104 Rostworowski, , ‘Marzenie’, pp. 322–3Google Scholar; Kołłątaj, , esp. Prawo Polityczne, II, 197–337.Google Scholar

105 Lois, book XIX, ch. xvii, 567; Considérations, pp. 966–70. Cf. Économic politique, pp. 260–2.

106 Konarski, , O skutecznym rad sposobie, esp. I, 50–3, IV, 135–6Google Scholar; Jean Fabre notes Kołłątaj's embarrassing lack of acknowledgement of Konarski, , Stanislas-Auguste et l'Europe des Lumières, p. 119.Google Scholar

107 The strength of Polish republican utopianism was not, of course, a unique phenomenon in the eighteenth century. See Venturi, F., Utopia and reform in the Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar