Poland Adopts the Constitution of 3 May

On 3 May 1791, the parliament of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth gathered at the Royal Castle in Warsaw to approve the Government Act. Known subsequently as the Constitution of 3 May, the legislation established Europe's first codified national constitution and the second written constitution in the world after that of the United States. Drafted primarily by King Stanisław August Poniatowski alongside reformist leaders Ignacy Potocki and Hugo Kołłątaj, the charter emerged from decades of mounting political crisis within a dual monarchy increasingly dominated by foreign powers.

The Commonwealth had suffered immense functional paralysis during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, driven largely by the liberum veto. This parliamentary mechanism permitted any individual deputy in the Sejm to dissolve the assembly and annul every measure enacted during the session. Magnates and neighboring empires frequently bribed deputies to exercise the veto, preventing institutional reorganization. The resulting instability facilitated the First Partition of Poland in 1772, when the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Monarchy annexed roughly one third of the Commonwealth's territory and population.