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Veto - Liberty - Power in Polish Political Thought during the Eighteenth Century

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Grzeskowiak-Krwawicz A.

Kwartalnik Historyczny

2004

vol. 111

issue 3

141-159

The 18th century was a period when the liberum veto was not only universally applied in practice, but also obtained a complete legal and doctrinal superstructure. The principle was treated not only as an outcome of the necessity to attain universal consent while making political decisions, but as the right of individual protest against collective decisions. For the supporters of the liberum veto principle it was tantamount to an extreme expression of political liberty and a guarantee of equal participation in governance by all the gentry citizens. Both the adherents and the opponents of the veto emphasised that it signified enormous power potentially wielded by every participant of political life. Nevertheless, it remained a negative 'liberty to negate', whose intention was predominantly to protect the existing state of things against any sort of changes threatening liberty. The liberum veto was treated as a sui generis right of rights - a guarantee of all other gentry rights and privileges. Not only the opponents but also the apologists of the veto were well aware of the dangers stemming from it. This is the reason why even the most fervent praise was accompanied by complaints against its abuse. The opponents drew attention to the fact that in practice it remained a tool in the hands of magnates. It was also noted that it was not so much extreme individual liberty as the despotism of an individual breaking up a parliamentary session. Starting with 'Glos wolny' (The Free Voice) it was stressed that the veto destroys fundamental institutions ensuring liberty - the Seym and dietines, and thus leads to the downfall of the free Commonwealth. The most complete arguments against ius vetandi were presented and analysed by S. Konarski, who contrasted the liberum veto - conceived as the unlimited power of an individual - with the liberty of the whole community and the individual citizen. Successive authors tended to echo Konarski's thought rather than add new reflections. From the 1770s, no one any longer defended the liberum veto and political discussions once again turned to the problem of the threat posed by the tyranny of the majority and certain fundamental rights for the republic, whose change required the universal consent of all citizens.

The Old Polish Conception of Freedom and Its Evolution in the Political Thought of the Eighteenth Century

100%

Grzeskowiak-Krwawicz A.

Kwartalnik Historyczny

2006

vol. 113

issue 1

57-84

The liberty of the gentry has been identified with a set of estate privileges although it also comprised a wider vision of liberty to which the Polish gentry referred already since the sixteenth century. This republican conception rendered civic liberties dependent on participation in governance. Only people who decided about themselves could be certain of individual rights. In accordance with contemporary terminology only positive liberty guaranteed its negative variant - an unhampered realisation of the individual's targets and wishes. Republican thought carried certain threats - the absence of a distinct division of individual liberties and the right to take part in political life obliterated the boundaries between the freedom of the individual and the community, between public and private good. Free participation in public life was no longer interpreted as the right to decide about oneself and the protection of the free state, but exclusively as the protection of the freedom of individual citizens. Such an interpretation was suited to the idea of the liberum veto conceived as individual protest against the decisions passed by Parliament. In the second half of the eighteenth century such authors as Józef Wybicki, Antoni Poplawski and, later on, Hugo Kollataj embarked upon a polemic with this comprehension of liberty. By referring to Western conceptions they began to distinguish between two levels of political freedom: political liberty, which denoted participation in governance, and civil freedom, which allowed the citizen to enjoy his property and commit deeds not prohibited by the law. This distinction made it feasible to separate the individual liberties of the individual perceived as a man, and his political rights/liberties as a citizen, as well as to include the question of the freedom of other estates into political reflections. Considerable importance was attached also to the reception of the theory of freedom as a law of nature, in which liberty was no longer a privilege of the citizen-member of the gentry, but the natural right of every man and thus also the peasant-serf. This notion was inserted into the old vision of republican freedom which, albeit modernised and adapted to new circumstances, survived to the end of the First Republic.

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Veto - Liberty - Power in Polish Political Thought during the Eighteenth Century

The Old Polish Conception of Freedom and Its Evolution in the Political Thought of the Eighteenth Century