May Constitution of Poland

Painting by Jan Matejko from 1891 ''()

Government Act of May 3, 1791 (Ustawa rządowa z 3ego Maja 1791, also Constitution of third of May) was the first written constitution in Europe, second in the world history. Passed by the Polish Sejm for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on May 3, 1791.

The main points included:

• further unification of the state,
• religious tolerance with exception to apostasia,
• giving political rights to citizens of the cities,
• removing the Liberum Veto,
• limiting to free election of the King to the extinction of Saxonian dynasty.

Table of contents

1 Text of the constitution 2 See also 3 External links

Text of the constitution

Both Polish and English texts are avaialble at Wikisource. See also external links below.

See also

• War in the defence of constitution

• Orginal and translated text of constitution on Wikisource
• Polishconstitution.org - site about the 3rd May Polish constitution that contrubuted source texts to wikisource