Constitution of 3 May 1791

The Constitution of 3 May 1791 was the written constitution adopted in 1791 by the Sejm of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in the name of King Stanisław August and the confederated estates in dual number representing the Polish people. Its preamble speaks of the faults of the old government, of a moment free of foreign coercion, and of the need to secure the political existence, external independence and internal liberty of the nation, and it declares the text sacred and inviolable until the people alter it by the procedure the law prescribes. The text is arranged in eleven articles. They begin with the dominant Roman Catholic religion together with a guarantee of peace and freedom of rites to all other persons, and go on to the landed nobility, the cities and their citizens, and the peasants, who are placed under the protection of the law. The later articles organize public authority into the Sejm as the legislative authority, the King as the executive authority and a judicial authority, and then treat the Regency, the education of the royal sons and the national armed force. A Sejm act on the royal cities, adopted on 18 April 1791, was declared integral to it. Constitute Project classes the document as historical rather than in force.