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THE SPIRIT 
 
 of 
 
 POLISH HISTORY 
 
Antoni Choloniewski 
 
 The Spirit 
 of Polisk History 
 
 Translated by 
 Mme. JANE ARCTOWSKA 
 
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 9 • 
 
 New York 
 THE POLISH BOOK IMPORTING CO., Inc. 
 
 1918. 
 

 Copyright 1918 
 
 By 
 The Polish Book Importing Co., Inc. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page: 
 
 One Thousand Years of History 7 
 
 The Character of Social Life in Poland lo 
 
 The People and the King 14 
 
 The Polish Nobility 17 
 
 The Unions 20 
 
 Liberties as a Prerogative of One Large Class of People 27 
 
 Religious Toleration 34 
 
 Jurisdiction 39 
 
 The Polish Wars 44 
 
 Poland the Liberator 49 
 
 Poland in Advance of Continental Europe 55 
 
 The Downfall of the Polish State 60 
 
 The Significance of Polish History at the Present Time 63 
 
 ^Ubb i 
 
I. 
 
 ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF HISTORY 
 
 THE ANTIQUITY OF POLAND — TERRITORY — ROLE OF POLAND IN EUROPE — 
 INTELLECTUAL CULTURE — FALL OF THE STATE — LIFE OF THE COUNTRY 
 
 AFTER THE PARTITIONS 
 
 Poland, that today is being reborn to an independent life, is a 
 country of ancient and noble traditions. Powerful and independent 
 as early as the tenth century, Poland (at that time situated between 
 the Vistula, the Oder and the Warthe Rivers) developed into a 
 mighty State under the dynast}^ of the Jagellons, surpassing the 
 other European states in area. From then on Poland extended from 
 the Carpathian mountains to the Dwina River and from the Blark 
 sea to the Baltic. Under the successive reign of forty Kings, through 
 the space of more than a thousand years, Poland developed her 
 strength, placing it many times at the service of other countries and 
 earning again and again titles of eternal glory. 
 
 Poland, situated on what was then the border of Eastern 
 Europe — separating two different worlds — was the rampart that 
 for hundreds of years safeguarded Europe and Christianity from the 
 invasions of the Turks and the Mongols. 
 
 The long struggle against these barbarians, who menaced 
 Europe, was begun in 1241 by King Henry the Pious at the battle 
 of Lignica. Jan Sobieski, in 1683, struck the decisive blow to 
 Turkish power under the walls of Vienna. 
 
 Europe could never have developed as it did, had not the bar- 
 barian invaders who had overrun Eastern Europe for five hundred 
 years been checked by the victorious resistance of the Poles. In the 
 middle ages the Lithuanians, the last pagan people of Europe, were 
 converted to Christianity by the Poles who introduced the Bible 
 and western civilization into their country. 
 
 The Polish people at that time had reached a high state of 
 intellectual development. 
 
In 1364, the first Polish University had already been founded 
 at Cracow. It was the eminent forerunner of the Universities of 
 Wilno, Warsaw, Lwow and Zamosc. The immortal Copernicus went 
 forth from this ancient school. The XVI. century, that was the 
 golden age of Polish culture, gave birth to illustrious poets, among 
 whom Sarbiewski was crowned by the Pope, to eminent savants 
 and to profoimd political writers. There was an efflorescence of 
 great works brought forth from the new ideas of religious toleration, 
 of the fraternity of peoples and respect for individual rights. 
 
 There was a new institution created at Warsaw, toward the 
 middle of the eighteenth century, called the "Commission of Educa- 
 tion." This was the first ministry of public education in Europe. 
 
 The reforms that this Commission introduced were based on 
 principles far in advance of many of the ideas prevalent at that time. 
 
 A complicated political organization was created in Poland 
 during that long period of progress. It was based upon lofty and 
 daring historical conceptions and had peculiar characteristics. This 
 organization more than all else has left a stamp of individuality on 
 the past of Poland. 
 
 "^^ It is hardly a century since the Polish people, once so brilliant 
 and powerful, were conquered in an unequal struggle. 
 
 Conquered yes, but not subdued. 
 
 Each generation in its turn, since the fall of the State, drawing 
 the sword of its ancestors — the sword of the Kosciuszko's and the 
 Poniatowski's — has striven to break the detested bonds. 
 
 In the life and death struggle for liberty, through these one 
 hundred and twenty years, an uninterrupted series of revolutions 
 have drenched Poland in blood. In its soul this people has always 
 remained free, it has never accepted the outrages committed against 
 it nor has it relinquished the rights that were torn from it. 
 
 Before the Chateau of Rapperswil, that shelters the Polish 
 National Museum — the exiled Museum — there stands a memorial 
 pillar, bearing the dates of each of the Polish insurrections, that 
 proclaims to the world that the Polish soul can never be crushed 
 and will protest forever agtinst this yoke. 
 
 Since the Confederation of Bar, since the first legions of Dom- 
 browski mustered under the Eagles of Napoleon, this protest has 
 been the watchword, the call transmitted from generation to gener- 
 ation up to the present day, when the world war has again brought 
 forth the Legions of Poland. 
 
 8 
 
V 
 
 Although deprived of independence for one hundred and 
 twenty years Poland is still a homogenous people of twenty-five 
 million souls, having a real historical individuality. This people 
 that has withstood every misfortune, every defeat, is filled with a 
 passionate desire to live. Notwithstanding the unthinkable oppres- 
 sion from which even the homes were not spared; notwithstanding 
 the necessity of straining every force to protect the very founda- 
 tions of existence ; notwithstanding the terrible state of her bondage, 
 Poland has given proofs of her capacity to develope, of her vital 
 power in all domains of public life. She has competed with the 
 world in her intellectual productivity; in the poetic inspiration of 
 the genius of Mickiewicz ; in the splendid prose of Sienkiewicz ; in 
 the magic of Chopin's work, that reveals the sorrow of this land; 
 in the magnificence of the plastic art of Matejko and in the work 
 of her savants who by their labors and by their researches have all 
 contributed to lift the level of daily life. 
 
 A people having such a great and noble past, with such vital 
 power, that has always collaborated in work for the good of civiliza- 
 tion should be known to enlightened Europe, at least, well enough 
 not to feel the need of an elementary course on this subject. How- 
 ever, this need is felt, 
 
 Poland, this living and real member of the European family 
 that occupies, by the number of its population, the fifth place among 
 the peoples of Europe, is only a very vague impression to the for- 
 eigner, with a value all but mystic The reaction brought about by 
 such a conception is sometimes a vague sentiment of sympathy 
 (remnant of the time of the "heyday of peoples") but more often 
 it is the reflection of prejudices, quite as vague, created by false 
 ideas about Poland, ideas spread by those who have the historic 
 tragedy of this country on their conscience. 
 
 It is from this more than suspicious source, that all along, such 
 tonents of slander have flowed, tending to sully, in the eyes of the 
 world, the noble and resplendent soul of the martyr — Poland. 
 
 The historians, especially the official Russian historians, who 
 felt called upon to justify and sanction with servility the deeds that 
 were done, heaped an avalanche of slander on the past of Poland, 
 that little by little found its way through Europe and, because of the 
 total ignorance of facts, the aim of this continual hawking of lies 
 was finally accomplished. The historical truth of a series of com- 
 mon facts were completely distorted. It was thus that the belie i 
 
in "Polish anarchy" was spread abroad, as well as that despicable 
 story about different "oppressions" practiced in Poland. 
 
 What were the facts? 
 
 Let us leave aside the far off history of the middle ages and 
 examine more closely the principal characteristics of the structure 
 built up in modem times and that was called the "Polish Republic." 
 
 II. 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF SOCIAL LIFE IN POLAND 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ABSOLUTISM IN EUROPE AND THE EVOLUTION OF 
 FREEDOM IN POLAND— SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIBERTIES — THE PEOPLE AS 
 A SOURCE OF TOWER — THE ORGANIZATION OF THE STATE — THE PRIN- 
 CIPLES — THE POLISH DIET AND ITS COMPETENCY — INTENSITY OF PUBLIC 
 
 LIFE — THE REPUBLIC 
 
 At the close of the XVIth century Europe entered the period of 
 modem absolutism. The idea of class autonomy, fruit of the pre- 
 ceding centuries, died out little by little, all over the continent. 
 
 The former State Diets, although their field of action had been 
 greatly restricted, still represented the social element in power. 
 Finally defeated after a long period of desperate struggle, they dis- 
 appeared and made room for a new order of things. Those that 
 remained here and there, simply as a matter of form, had no im- 
 portance whatever. They passed away without having produced a 
 higher form of organization. 
 
 Already in the XVIth century the Kings of France had been 
 called "reges serv^orum," kings of serfs, instead of "reges fran- 
 corum," and the political writers who sought for the difference be- 
 tween the "monarch" and the "tyrant" thought they had found it 
 from the fact that the "tyrant shuns all contact with his subjects 
 and fears the Diets (of whatever kind they may be) as a bat fears 
 the light." 
 
 The new course of history tended more and more to group all 
 the elements of government around the purple monarchy, so that in 
 one hand, in the hand of the King-man, all the reins of power might 
 be united, so that this man might be able to say, with pride : "I'Etat 
 c'est moi !" In the XVIII. century, everywhere, with the exception 
 of England and the republics of Holland and Venice, absolutism 
 stretched out victoriously. 
 
 10 
 
One will, having no responsibility, obeying no law, controlled 
 peoples and States, as if they were private property. Before this 
 blind force entire nations bowed down. Victorious autocracy re- 
 duced to nothing the part that the people had taken in public affairs 
 and killed all interest in questions of public order. 
 
 In Poland things took an entirely different turn. 
 
 The organizations of Europe and of the Polish Republic evolved 
 as differently as two streams running in opposite directions. There, 
 around the throne, that mounted higher and higher, was formed the 
 humble type of "narrow minded subject." Here, although the 
 power passed more and more into the hands of the people, a type of 
 free citizen was developed, who described his relations to the State 
 by this proud maxim : "nil de nobis sine nobis." 
 
 From the XVth century the Poles developed their political and 
 civic liberties with remarkable rapidity. 
 
 By the "Czerwinsk privilege" (1422) the nobility acquired the 
 inviolability of property. From that time the King could not con- 
 fiscate private property without legal proceedings. 
 
 In 1430 came the memorable law of the inviolability of the 
 individual : "neminem captivabimus, nisi jure victum." This law 
 guaranteed that no nobleman could be arrested without a legal war- 
 rant, except he be taken in the very act. 
 
 This Polish "habeas corpus act" preceded by several centuries 
 the judicial conceptions of the European continent. This act, that 
 was never violated, was later extended to the middle classes. 
 
 The "privilege of 1588" conferred the inviolability of the home. 
 This act stipulated that a nobleman's house could not be subjected 
 to a perquisition even though an outlaw were harbored in it. 
 
 Without special authorization a citizen of the Republic had the 
 right to found societies and express his opinions either in words or 
 writing. Under no circumstances could he be molested for having ex- 
 pressed an opinion on a political question. 
 
 The principles that are today called constitutional ; inviolability 
 of the individual, respect for private property and the home, liberty 
 of association and religious toleration, — principles for which, in the 
 XIX. century, such torrents of blood were shed in more than one 
 country — were realized in Poland, in the XVth and XVIth cen- 
 turies, and continued to be as long as the Republic existed, while in 
 Europe injustice and iniquity ruled and the people were exposed to 
 the despotic will of their masters. 
 
 II 
 
Parallel with the individual rights, political rights developed. 
 The starting point of the latter was the "Statute" of King* Casimir 
 Jagellon (statute of Nieszawa, 1454), according to which, the King 
 agreed never to declare war, without the consent of the nobles 
 united in provincial Diets (dietines). From that time on the nobles 
 obtained access to legislative power. The principle, that the people 
 must be consulted on the obligations that they were expected to ful- 
 fill, grew more and more apparent, became the corner stone of the 
 Polish state organization and the germ of the future parliamentary- 
 system. 
 
 Towards the end of the XVth century the periodic meetings of 
 the nobles and Crown Counsellors were gradually transformed into 
 "general Diets" that, henceforth, became an important and enduring 
 factor in public life. The Diet was definitely organized in 1493. 
 
 In 1505 the Diet of Radom secured a legal basis for the organiza- 
 tion and a new article was added to the fundamental statute : "nihil 
 novi constitui debeat per nos, sine communi consensu conciliarorum 
 et nuntiorum terrestium" (no decision shall be taken without the 
 consent of the Council and the rural Deputies). This statute 
 strengthened and developed the principle that all power must come 
 from the people and that the people must obey the laws made by 
 themselves through their representatives. 
 
 The general Diet constituted the legislative power of Poland and 
 represented the entire nation. Like the English parliament it was 
 composed of two chambers : the Senate and the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties. The King was also a member, because of his legal status that 
 conferred upon him the rank of "Estate". 
 
 Such a fusion of Royal power and national representation 
 existed only in England, until recent times. 
 
 To enact a law the three factors or "executive Estates" (King, 
 Senate and Nobility), were indispensable. Yet from the point of 
 view of public law, neither the Senate nor the Chamber of Deputies 
 alone, represented exclusively one of the estates because both 
 churchmen and laymen sat in the Senate, while the Chamber of 
 Deputies was made up (up to a certain time, at least) of members 
 of the nobility and middle class. 
 
 The nobility was represented by deputies elected at electoral 
 assemblies of "Dietines" while the urban deputies or "nonces" were 
 elected by the middle classes. 
 
 The Diet decided upon the political life of the State: elaborated 
 and proclaimed the laws and fixed the taxes, had jurisdiction, 
 
 12 
 
both penal and civil, over exceptionally important affairs, had control 
 of the King and Government, had supervision of the administration 
 and finances, had the direction of foreign policies, the right to make 
 treaties and alliances and, it was the Diet that decided on peace 
 and war. The Polish Kings could not declare war for personal 
 or dynastic reasons. This supreme right belonged only to the people, 
 and the people reserved the right to decide whether war or peace 
 responded to their interests. 
 
 Few European parliaments have enjoyed such extraordinary 
 privileges. 
 
 The meetings of the Dietes were always public. When the 
 deliberations were finished the deputies were obliged to render ac- 
 counts of the proceedings (to their constituents, at special assemblies 
 called "statement dietines." 
 
 Under such conditions political life developed with extraor- 
 dinary intensity. The townspeople (middle class) however, soon 
 left active politics using their franchise only to declare their nominal 
 rights, while the landowners (nobility) took an ever increasing part 
 in the political life of the country. 
 
 This political culture, that continued to develop without inter- 
 ruption for a considerable lapse of time, left its stamp on the Polish 
 nobility. They were completely absorbed by the conduct of public 
 affairs, that formed, as in the ancient Hellenic Republics, a favorite 
 and honorable occupation and as in ancient Greece, had the power 
 to impassion the minds of men. Everywhere, at the ordinary diets 
 held every two years, at the special assemblies, at the innumerable 
 provincial dietines, the elective tribunals, etc., etc., the nobles were 
 occupied, either with local questions or affairs concerning the State. 
 
 This political development reached its maximum at the end 
 of the XVIth century and remained as it was through the two fol- 
 lowing centuries, while almost the whole of continental Europe was 
 under the yoke of despotism. 
 
 Since all of the nobility, composed of very numerous and very 
 different elements, took part in the intensive political life, and since 
 the throne had long ceased to be hereditary, Poland finally took on 
 the characteristics of an aristocratic organization — aristocratic from 
 the condition of her subjects actively interested in politics — but 
 democratic and republican in practice. 
 
 -o- 
 
 13 
 
III. 
 
 THE PEOPLE AND THE KING. 
 
 THE FREE ELECTION OF THE KING AND THE RIGHT OF ANY CITIZEN TO THE 
 CROWN — RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CITIZEN AND MONARCH — THE "ARTI- 
 CLES OF HENRY OF VALOIS" — THE KING-PRESIDENT — RIGHT TO REFUSE 
 OBEDIENCE — THE KING FOR THE PEOPLE AND NOT THE PEOPLE FOR THE KING 
 
 • From the close of the middle ages, right up to the fall of the 
 Republic, Poland recognized the principle that free men could not 
 submit to authority that did not come from themselves. So, the 
 King was not imposed on Poland by the blind chance of birth; he 
 was freely chosen by an assembly in which every citizen, enjoying 
 full right, could participate. 
 
 Besides the Senators and Deputies all the nobility of Poland, 
 from the greatest magnate to the least important country squire, 
 had the right to go to the "Diets of Convocation" and there, vote 
 in person for the King. These elections were based on the principle 
 of universal suffrage. 
 
 It is true that the nobility alone took part in the elections, but, 
 being numerous, they really represented the will of the people. 
 
 The eligibility of the King, being the capital principle of Civic 
 liberty, was watched over by this class with jealous care for cen- 
 turies. But, threatened by the neighboring autocratic powers, the 
 Poles were finally forced to adopt hereditary monarchy. And yet, 
 of their own free will, the Polish people, during the long period of 
 elective kings, chose seven successively from the Jagellon dynasty 
 and later on three were chosen from the Wasa family and two from 
 the Wettins. This fact simply proves that the people could and 
 would conciliate their own political interests with those of the State. 
 
 The relationship existing between the people and their King 
 showed clearly the character of the public institutions in Poland. 
 The Polish gentleman justly appreciated the dignity of the King as 
 a man and a citizen. "He respected the King," says the historian 
 Kalinka, "as a moral authority, as a chief of the federation of nobles 
 to v/hich he himself belonged. But he had no fear of the King, 
 for he never anticipated that his Sovereign would harm him in any 
 way. It pleased him to be in the good graces of his King, but he could 
 easily do without it, if necessary. What he was he did not owe to 
 the King but to himself." In Poland there was not the shadow of 
 
 14 
 
that byzantism and servility in intercourse with the monarch that 
 characterized similar relations in Europe at the same time or even 
 later. 
 
 The Pole was proud in the knowledge that he was not only an 
 "elector" of Kings but that he had the right to the throne himself, 
 and, in fact, the road to the throne was open to any member of the 
 great community of nobles, if through his talents and merits he 
 should be deemed worthy. 
 
 Four Kings were thus chosen in Poland and two of them, 
 Sobieski and Leszczynski, are counted among her most excellent 
 sovereigns. 
 
 Relationship with the King was in reality fixed by the consti- 
 tution of the Republic. This constitution, to guard against the 
 tyranny of one will, placed all power in the Diet and gave to each 
 citizen the right to participate indirectly in the Government, and to 
 the people, the responsibility of public affairs. 
 
 Royal power, as we have seen, was limited by the great author- 
 ity of the Diet. From 1573 the Constitutional Statutes (called the 
 "Articles of Henry") were presented to the King by the Elective 
 Diet, upon his accession to the throne and also the "pacta conventa" 
 that defined his royal power and drew the line so clearly between 
 the rights of the King and those of the people. It was only after 
 he had sworn allegiance to the Constitution, acknowledged the su- 
 preme power of the Diet and confirmed the national liberties that 
 the Khvg could take up his duties as first citizen of the State, a 
 citizen who, notwithstanding the Royal title with which he was in- 
 vested, was nothing more than the President of the Republic. 
 
 The manner in which the people guaranteed themselves against 
 any autocratic attempt of the King was both simple and honorable. 
 "If the King attacks the rights, the liberties, the articles and the 
 pacts or if he does not hold to his engagements," stipulates the fun- 
 damental statute, "the citizens will be freed from their oaths of 
 fidelity and obedience to the King." 
 
 This naturally, did not mean "errors due to human imperfec- 
 tions but to bad will and premeditated attacks against the liberty 
 of the people" specified the Diet of 1576, "to the end that neither 
 the King nor the citizens shall be in doubt on the will of the Repub- 
 lic." The law of 1609 "de non praestanda oboedientia" prescribed 
 the exact preliminary procedure to be followed before being able 
 to "definitely refuse obedience" to the King. For an act of such 
 importance could not be carried out unadvisedly. If the King pub- 
 
 15 
 
licly and in an undeniable manner attacked the laws to which he had 
 sworn allegiance, he was to be given notice three different times by 
 the Senate, then exhorted by the Archbishop. If he still persisted 
 in his intent to harm the State, the Diet could use its right and an- 
 nul the agreement. Thus, the loyalty of the people to their mon- 
 arch was not unconditional. But as a remedy, to avoid abuse, the 
 Polish law prescribed very severe punishments for anyone who 
 created trouble under pretext that the King "premeditated the de- 
 struction of the Republic". 
 
 The article "de non prgestanda oboedientia" shows to what an 
 extent the law was venerated in Poland. It was set even above the 
 King himself. It is to be remarked however, that these peculiar 
 conditions did not hinder a King, with the strong moral cast of 
 character of a Stephen Batory, to govern the people with an iron 
 hand and inflict the death penalty on the most powerful magnates 
 who were guilty of violating the law. The people seeing that he 
 did not permit anyone to transgress the laws that he himself observed 
 so scrupulously, upheld the King in such cases. 
 
 Such a bearing between King and citizens (not subjects) is 
 hardly known in history. The Polish people settled their accounts 
 with their King clearly and honestly, as free men. In all just de- 
 mands the Government was answerable to the people and they, 
 strong in this right, could call upon the Government to respect the 
 law. The article "de non praestanda oboedientia" thus summed up 
 the procedure for the annulment of the agreement between the King 
 and the people. 
 
 "If thou wouldst grow old among us" declared the people to 
 their sovereign, "respect our laws." Otherwise he would be obliged 
 to return to his former condition but always surrounded by the re- 
 spect due to his dignity and without drawing upon himself any kind 
 of danger. The mask of the hired assassin never rose up before 
 him in the dark shadow of night ; poinard nor poison never threatened 
 him. During the eight centuries of the existence of the Polish State, 
 there was never a regicide. From the time of the very beginning of 
 the power of the Diet, the nobles never ceased to oppose! the intro- 
 duction of the "dominum absolutum," that they saw spreading over 
 Europe, and they always tried to prevent royalty from infringing 
 upon their rights to the detriment of civic liberty. But never did 
 the people drag one of their kings to the scaffold, nor never did one 
 of their kings fall by the hand of an assassin. The Polish King 
 never had to surround himself with guards but mixed fearlessly 
 
 i6 
 
and freely with the people. Upon one occasion the heroic defender 
 of Vienna, the popular Sobieski, did not hesitate to join in the 
 wedding festivities of a humble blacksmith. 
 
 The sincere and knightly attitude that was characteristic of the 
 Polish people in regard to their sovereigns grew out of the principle 
 adopted in Poland, that "the King belonged to the people and not the 
 people to the King". At this same epoch, the other peoples of Europe 
 were becoming more and more subjected, more and more the property 
 of their masters. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE POLISH NOBILITY. 
 
 THE NUMBER — DIFFERENT RANKS : THE MAGNATES, THE "rEDS /' THE 
 
 "mass" — PECULIAR CHARACTERISTICS — EQUALITY OF THE NOBLES AMONG 
 
 THEMSELVES — ENNOBLEMENT 
 
 To appreciate the historic past of Poland at its just value, one 
 must remember that the nobility of this country was not formed of a 
 very small proportion of the population as in other countries but, on 
 the contrary, was made up of a very considerable part of it, more 
 than in any other of the European countries. This high proportion of 
 nobles was the specific characteristic of the organization of the Polish 
 State. 
 
 While France, at the end of the eighteenth century, had only 
 140,000 nobles in a population of twenty million inhabitants (not 
 even 1.5%), the Polish Republic at the same time could count one 
 million (some historians say a million and a half) for every ten mil- 
 lion inhabitants, that is to say 13% of the entire population. This 
 high figure will not astonish us if we look for a moment at the struc- 
 ture of the Polish nobility. 
 
 Greatly differentiated, the categories of this nobility correspond, 
 in a way, to a complete social organization. This "body", uniform in 
 appearance, included three groups that were entirely different one 
 from the other. 
 
 At the top were the great lordly families, the magnates, power- 
 ful proprietors, whose vast estates were larger than many of the 
 small principalities of western Europe. 
 
 17 
 
The rich landowners followed, a kind of English gentry, that 
 was divided into two categories : one was composed of noblemen of 
 old families called the "Crimsons" (Karmazyni) or "Purple Bearers", 
 the other of families with smaller fortunes and of more recent 
 nobility. 
 
 Toward the bottom of the ladder were the "small nobility", poor 
 and very thickly settled, called "provincials" or "greys" (szara- 
 czkowi). They owned, at most, a few acres of land and, not owning 
 serfs, they were obliged to cultivate the land themselves. Econom- 
 ically these nobles differed little from the peasants and were even 
 inferior to some of them — the peasants on the Royal domains, for 
 example, who were not subject to forced labor. 
 
 At a still lower round of the ladder there were a multitude of 
 gentlemen without any property whatever, who were simply called 
 "Komomicy". These "Komornicy" worked in different capac- 
 ities for the great landlords, attached themselves to the rich mag- 
 nates or sometimes slipped into the cities, there to follow a trade or 
 enter commerce. 
 
 The majority of the Polish nobility was made up of these work- 
 ing nobles, either with or without land. The creation of this nobility 
 was due to different causes. Sometimes it happened that the entire 
 dependent population of a village was ennobled, but more often they 
 were the descendants of old and rich families who had become im- 
 poverished by the successive divisions of the land, through the right 
 of descendants. There were also in this class, nobles who had been 
 ruined by war or other calamities. As early as the XVI. century 
 there were to be found in different parts of the Republic, in Masovia, 
 in Lithuania, in Pomerania and in Podlasie, etc. etc., a numerous 
 class officially called nobiles pauperes, the poor nobility, who little by 
 little became assimilated with the peasants and who in the end, lost 
 even their civil rights; villages and even entire districts were occu- 
 pied by these pauperes nobiles. Even while tilling their bit of soil, 
 these poor devils of noblemen, never left off the sword that was the 
 sign of their high birth and proudly repeated to themselves the pro- 
 verb, that so well characterized them : "with bare feet but with sword 
 at side". 
 
 The fact that the Polish nobility was not a uniform class, but 
 divided into many differnt groups, clearly differentiated it from west- 
 ern nobility. Also, the fact that this nobility formed such an im- 
 mense part of the population was, as well, a phenomenon without 
 analogy. So it was really not without some reasons, that the nobles, 
 
 i8 
 
conscious of their privileged position and of their number, consid- 
 ered themselves not only a noble "class" but also a "people" of nobles. 
 
 All these different ranks of nobility — where the difference in 
 fortune created such gulfs — were in reality equals. This "equality 
 of all nobles" so proudly acknowledged, was one of the most 
 remarkable traits of public life in Poland. From Radziwill, who 
 could make Lithuania tremble, — down to the poorest wretch of 
 the "grey nobility", all felt themselves to be equal, all being nobles. 
 The most powerful Lord, who considered himseslf the equal of the 
 King, would not think of addressing the most humble nobleman, 
 without calling him "brother". The people have aptly expressed 
 this in a favorite proverb, "the nobleman within his gates is the 
 equal of the voivode". 
 
 In fact, before the law, save for a few insignificant exceptions, 
 no difference existed between the several ranks of nobility. Their 
 legal status toward the State was identical. The way into public 
 affairs, honors and to the most exalted positions, not even excepting 
 royalty, were open to every noble. The Poniatowski family is a 
 striking example of this. The grandfather was a modest country 
 squire ; the son an eminent senator of the Republic ; the grandson a 
 King of Poland. 
 
 Any attempt to obtain titles of Baron, Count or Prince was abso- 
 lutely prohibited by the nobility who thus safeguarded their equality. 
 Each generation was reminded of this interdiction by many new laws 
 and edicts enacted by the Diet that were inspired by the principle that 
 there could be no greater honor than to be a citizen of the Republic. 
 
 The Polish King had no right to bestow titles on the nobility of 
 the country but could only grant them to foreigners. The law of 
 1673 considered "defamed for life" any Pole who would accept a 
 title from a foreign monarch and thus infringe the principle of 
 equality. 
 
 The spirit of this "people of nobles" was republican and demo- 
 cratic in every sense of the word. Proud of their liberties that were 
 not equaled on the continent, although sometimes allowing them- 
 selves to be carried away, this people was not exclusive and, except 
 in the XVIL century when society became depraved by the Jesuits, 
 they made no objections to the encroachments of new elements com- 
 ing from other ranks of the population. It is a well known fact that 
 whole villages were ennobled as the reward for military worth. Even 
 the thirty thousand Tartars settled in Lithuania were given the lib- 
 
 19 
 
cities of nobility and admitted to military service while allowed to 
 keep their Mohammedan religion. 
 
 After the victory of "Wielkie Luki" the Hetman Zamoyski be- 
 stowed his coat of arms upon the greater part of his soldiers. This 
 example was followed by many other noblemen. 
 
 At the time of Sigismund August it was obligatory to ennoble a 
 certain number of the middle class. The professors of the University 
 of Cracow and the municipal officials of the principal cities, who 
 were of plebeian origin, automatically obtained hereditary coats of 
 arms. It was characteristic of the XVIII. century, that even the 
 ennobling of Jews was allowed, baptized Frankists, an element that 
 was scorned and despised at that time, to the greatest degree. 
 
 It has been clearly shown that public life was not carried on by 
 a handful of despotic nobles, in possession of great liberties and 
 exercising a decisive influence on the affairs of State, but by a great 
 part of the people, a mass numbering millions. Two hundred thou- 
 sand nobles presented themselves at the electorial urn. The signifi- 
 cance of this figure is brought out by the fact that just before 1848 
 in post-revolutionary France, the rate of citizens who were author- 
 ized to elect their representatives was less than it had been three 
 centuries before in Poand. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE UNIONS. 
 
 INTERNAL LIBERTIES, THE SOURCE OF THE POWER OF THE STATE— THE 
 FORCE OF ATTRACTION— "the FREE WITH THE FREE AND EQUALS WITH 
 equals"— THE UNIONS WITH PRUSSIA, LIVONIA AND LITHUANIA— THE 
 FOUNDATIONS OF THE UNION WITH LITHUANIA — THE PRINCIPLE OF POLISH 
 AUTONOMY — STATE PATRIOTISM — THE LASTING CHARACTER OF THE UNIONS 
 
 The internal organization, based on largely developed liberties, 
 that so amply guaranteed the rights and the independence of her citi- 
 zens, was bound to exert an influence on the surrounding peoples, and 
 logically, bring about a greater development of the Polish State. 
 
 By following a course fundamentally Polish, not to be found 
 elsewhere, by means of Unions with the neighboring States, Poland 
 that was a comparatively small State at the time of the Piast kings, 
 grew larger and larger. The neighboring peoples, subject to the 
 severity of autocracy or arbitrary oligarchy, were attracted by the 
 
 20 
 
regime of right and liberty that the Polish people had instituted in 
 their country, and manifested the desire to unite with Poland. 
 
 Through two centuries, from the beginning of the XV. to the 
 end of the XVI. century, there was a long line of these unprecedented 
 adhesions, until at last Poland became the largest State in Europe. 
 
 This is one of the most remarkable phenomena in history. It 
 was not to brute force nor to the sword that Poland owed these 
 glorious conquests. It was to her moral force and to the prestige of 
 her laws. It was her liberties that drew to Poland these foreign terri- 
 tories and cemented these unions into an inseparable whole, that 
 later gave proof of a cohesion rarely seen in the history of peoples. 
 Poland in concluding the act of Union with Lithuania laid down the 
 principle, immortal in its simplicity : "uniting the free with the free 
 and equals with equals". The application of this principle brought 
 about remarkable results. Kutrzeba, the Polish historian, points 
 out with justice, that the Poland of the XVI. and XVII. centuries, 
 running counter to the prevailing theories — according to which abso- 
 lutism played the role of "cement" in State organizations — had been 
 better able to unify the State, through the excessive development of 
 democracy and its preponderance over royal power, than either 
 Italy or Germany, for example, with their despotic governments. 
 
 In the XVIII. century Germany was composed of 250 small 
 principalities. Territorially, Poland formed one uniform State. 
 Brute force here had been replaced by a power far more effective : 
 the power of love, — so literal was this that the first union with Lith- 
 uania was followed by at least a hundred marriages between the no- 
 bility of the two countries! A Union of love, — a kind of mystic 
 marriage between two peoples — it was thus that they called the ulti- 
 mate union between Poland and Lithuania. The act ratifying the 
 union of Horodlo, 1413, began with this characteristic declaration: 
 
 "He shall receive no grace of salvation whom love does not 
 
 sustain It is love that creates laws, rules nations, builds cities 
 
 and leads the republic to her best destinies, perfects all virtues of the 
 
 virtuous Therefore, we prelates, knights and nobility of the 
 
 Polish crown by this document do unite our homes and future gen- 
 erations with the knighthood and nobility of Lithuania." 
 
 "It is a union without parallel," said Julian Klaczko, the illus- 
 trious Polish historian, "this union between two States so long hos- 
 tile one to the other, and who, although different in race, in customs, 
 in language and in religion, finally became united in the name of 
 Christianity, of liberty, and of love that alone creates States". It is 
 
 21 
 
the first time in history that a great power was founded without the 
 loss of a drop of blood. 
 
 "The Diet of Horodlo," declared the German historian Caro, 
 "confirmed a union of peoples without precedent in the history of 
 Europe." 
 
 In the annals of Poland there are many such achievements re- 
 corded. To all these peoples, to all these States, Poland left their 
 oganizations, their language and their religion. 
 
 In 1454 the Prussian States, — where the cities were almost 
 wholly German and the nobility was for the most part German or 
 Germanized, — declared they would no more submit to the arbitrary 
 government of the Teutonic Knights and demanded to be admitted 
 into Poland. Twelve years later the union of Prussia with Poland 
 took place. From 1466, Prussian Pomerania and the r^on of Dan- 
 zig formed an integral part of the Republic but at the same time 
 retained their own internal organizations. 
 
 The new province possessed its own jurisdiction called "Prus- 
 sian corrections", also a Diet and treasury with a Prussian treasurer. 
 Up to the very end of the Republic the Prussian deputies when af- 
 fixing their signatures to the election decrees of the Kings never 
 failed to add this clause : "Salvis per omnia juribus terrarum Prus- 
 sIcb". In Warmia, a district situated in Prussia where the Bishop was 
 also Prince, there was still greater legal independence. On that an- 
 nexed ground, German not only continued to be the official language 
 of the municipalities but it was also used by the Royal Chancellor in 
 his relations with the Prussian cities This rule was still observed 
 two hundred years later by King Jan Sobieski who was, however, 
 an ardent patriot. 
 
 In 1525, after the extinction of the Piast dynasty, the Duchy of 
 Mazovia gave up its independence of it own free will and joined 
 Poland. Here again the institutions and common law, known as the 
 "Mazovian exceptions" were retained by the Mazovians for many 
 years. 
 
 In 1560 Livonia sought to unite with Poland. Threatened by 
 the growing power of Moscovy, Livonia that was governed by the 
 "Knights of the Sword" could have had assistance from Sweden or 
 Denmark, countries to which it was connected by race and religion. 
 But this small, ecclesiastical State, although German and partly 
 protestant, preferred to join Poland knowing full well that it was 
 from there that the most complete autonomy would be obtained. 
 And in fact, Livonia, incorporated into Poland, not only enjoyed full 
 
 22 
 
religious freedom but was also allowed to retain her own institutions 
 and tribunals and, for a certain time, her Diet. 
 
 Gradually, without any pressure on the part of the Poles, a close 
 union was formed with the Polish State and the German language 
 that had been in use among the higher classes of Livonia was partly 
 replaced by Polish. 
 
 In like manner to these three unions (Prussia, Mazovia and 
 Livonia) the famous act of the Union of Lithuania and Poland was 
 a work of the greatest importance not only because of the extent of 
 the territory involved (Lithuania being almost as large as France), 
 but also because of the historical value of such an act. 
 
 This work was accomplished by a series of conventions, extend- 
 ing over two centuries. Each of them drew the people closer and 
 closer together. Thus this union was the result of a long evolution. 
 There are three principal halting places that draw our attention in 
 this long line of successive unions. The first of these occurred in 
 1386; it was a personal union through the accession of the Lithu- 
 anian Grand Duke Jagellon to the Polish throne and his marriage 
 with the Polish Queen Jadwiga. In 1413 the union of Horodlo was 
 concluded when the two peoples promised that the succession of the 
 throne should always be settled by mutual accord. The nobility of 
 the Grand Duchy of Lithuania then obtained liberties and political 
 rights that had long been enjoyed by the Polish nobility. 
 
 After a lapse of 156 years (during that time the two peoples 
 had the same dynasty) the third, last and real union was concluded 
 at the Constituant Convention at Lublin, in 1569. The citizens of 
 the two countries from that time on enjoyed equal rights and privi- 
 leges. Lithuania was elevated to the same level as Poland and ruled 
 by the same democratic principles. 
 
 The fundamental principle of the Federation, a common Par- 
 liament and King for the two countries, was definitely adopted. But 
 
 each State retained its army, cabinet, treasury, local government, 
 Civil and Criminal law. 
 
 Justice was rendered in the Lithuanian courts by a special code 
 called the "Lithuanian Statute." It was stipulated in the act of the 
 
 Lublin Federation that the native White Ruthenian should be the 
 official language. How strictly and conscientiously the articles of 
 Federation were observed is shown by the fact that the White 
 Ruthenian language continued to be obligatory in official acts long 
 after the nobility of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, under the in- 
 fluence of Polish culture, had ceased to employ it. Thus the official 
 
 23 
 
life of the White Ruthenian language outlived its social life more 
 than a century. From the time of the last union (1569) the rank of 
 the two States was the same, but the bonds between them were so 
 close that the inhabitants of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as well 
 as of Poland considered themselves above all citizens of the Republic. 
 
 The Federated Poland also gave autonomy to certain ethno- 
 graphical groups not having a given territory. Thus, for example, 
 the Armenians, who were scattered through the cities of southern 
 Poland, had their own courts and laws, "the Armenian Statute." 
 This statute, ratified by the Polish Parliament, settled all legal mat- 
 ters connected with the affairs of this commercial people. 
 
 For centuries the Jews had a perfectly independent social organ- 
 ization in Poland. The Jewish conventions met twice a year both in 
 Lithuania and Poland. These conventions were composed of repre- 
 sentatives of religious communities, and in their quality of "supreme 
 court" decided different questions relative to Jewish autonomy. They 
 were authorized to distribute the taxes, that the State levied in bloc, 
 among the Jewish population. The Jews also had their own courts. 
 A Jew would never accuse one of his co-religionists except before 
 a court composed of Rabbies. It was only when a Jew accused a 
 Christian or vice-versa that the affair was pleaded before the general 
 court. 
 
 Thus, even the rights of those who lived here and there, scat- 
 tered about in different cities and who did not own a foot of land 
 were still recognized by the Republic. 
 
 One of the fundamental traits of the political regime of Poland 
 was the spirit of toleration in the Constitution toward its many ethni- 
 cal elements who differed in culture, language and race. Each well 
 established ethnographical group enjoyed to the full the right to live 
 and develop without hindrance. 
 
 On this ground, so favorable for liberalism, a kind of State 
 patriotism developed in Poland, that was quite modem in type and 
 in no way resembled the patriotism of other countries. The citizen 
 was powerfully attached to the State by his political freedom and 
 bound to appreciate this "serene Republic" that was his guarantee 
 of freedom. 
 
 It was with truth indeed, that the eminent preacher of the XVII, 
 century, Peter Skarga, could say: "Your country is not a step- 
 mother to you, but a real mother ; she folds you in her arms and al- 
 lows no harm to come to you, while other States oppress and tyran- 
 nize their subjects." 
 
 24 
 
The Polish nobleman, co-guardian of his country, proud of his 
 freedom before the law, pitied his western neighbors, who scorned 
 the peoples of the east, while they themselves were subject to auto- 
 cratic governments. It was a consciousness of this remarkable situ- 
 ation, so different from that of the adjacent peoples that awakened 
 in the hearts of all the population of this vast Republic a perception 
 of their solidity and of their union, in spite of the differences in 
 race, language or religion. From the Baltic to the Black Sea, in the 
 midst of all these complicated ethnic elements, so heterogeneous 
 (some elements approached Latin civilization and others Byzantine 
 culture) one patriotic sentiment stood out clearly: love for the coun- 
 try belonging to them all ; love for that country whose strength lay 
 in the fact that the active political class, made up of all these hetero- 
 geneous elements, enjoyed entire civic freedom. 
 
 Through many successive generations history does not record 
 any attempt to break up this splendid union of States and Peoples 
 brought about by the genius of the Polish people. 
 
 The Federation of Poland and Lithuania, considering its po- 
 litical stability notwithstanding the diversity of its different elements, 
 stands alone in the history of peoples. The union of Colmar (1397) 
 — enacted between the Scandinavian States — lasted hardly a cen- 
 tury. According to Dahlman, the Danish historian, the termination 
 came because the union, based exclusively on principles of a mate- 
 rial order, was the achievement of the sovereigns and not of the peo- 
 ples. The Polish union has proved the imperishable nature of its 
 deep foundation. How firmly Poland was able to unite the peoples 
 she confederated and how permanent this union was is shown by the 
 following fact : at the time when Poland officially ceased to exist the 
 legal bonds that united her several peoples were broken, but they, 
 nevertheless, continued to hold with her as before. 
 
 The Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the largest of these countries, 
 has for more than one hundred and twenty years been a part of the 
 Russian Empire, yet by the people who have played a political role, 
 she considers herself joined to Poland, Every effort of Russia (she 
 has not been sparing of them) to kill this sentiment has been fruit- 
 less. No pressure has been able to make the class that took part 
 in the political life of Poland forget the past. For one hundred and 
 twenty years Poland has been seconded by the Grand Duchy of 
 Lithuania in her struggles for independence. At the time of the 
 partitions and at the time of Kosciuszko's insurrection, Wilno took 
 up arms. In 1831 blood flowed for the common cause in Lithuania 
 
 25 
 
as well as in Poland. In 1836 and in 1838 when Warsaw was be- 
 numbed into inaction by exhaustion, Lithuania arose again, and this 
 time alone, against the detested Russian yoke. Thousands of Lithu- 
 anian revolutionists with their leaders, Konarski, Zawisza, Wol- 
 lowicz, died martyrs for the restoration of the Republic. 
 
 A year before the insurrection of 1863 the two peoples met at 
 Horodlo and in an immense procession, without parallel in the annals 
 of nations, renewed in this memorable spot, the pledges of their 
 eternal union. It is, indeed, impossible to separate all these elements 
 that men or circumstances have long ago blended into an indivisible 
 whole. It was Reytan, a son of Lithuania, who protested in the 
 Parliament of Warsaw with such tragic despair against the parti- 
 tions of Poland. 
 
 The man whose name has become the symbol of all Poland's 
 highest aspirations, he who took the oath in the market place of 
 Cracow to drive out the invaders, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, was a 
 Lithuanian Pole. Adam Mickiewicz, the most forceful expression, 
 the most eloquent exponent of the sorrows and desires of the Polish 
 soul, poet of genius whose ashes repose in the Royal tomb on the 
 Wawel, was also a Lithuanian Pole. 
 
 The descendants of those who in the long ago took the oath of 
 allegiance to the one common Republic, the historic families of Rad- 
 ziwill, Sapieha, Czartoryski, and dozens, hundreds, thousands of 
 other patriots are still faithful to the oath, conscious that they could 
 never be other than one body and soul with Poland. 
 
 This is the most surprising phenomenon! The spiritual sur- 
 vival of a union, the Polish-Lithuanian, after the fall of the states 
 that formed it. The spirit that prompted the acts of 141 3 and 1569 
 lives on in the souls of the two peoples, although the acts are hidden 
 away in some museum or library, although they are worthless and 
 their executive power gone. 
 
 Such has been the resisting power of the judicious achievement 
 of a Republic that united "the free with the free and equals with 
 equals." 
 
 26 
 
VI. 
 
 LIBERTIES AS A PREROGATIVE OF ONE LARGE CLASS 
 
 OF PEOPLE. 
 
 A TRUE VALUATION OF THE LIBERTIES. — THE MIDDLE CLASS. — POLITICAL 
 RIGHTS. — THE MUNICIPAL AUTONOMY IN POLAND. — THE SITUATION OF 
 THE PEASANTS IN POLAND AND IN EUROPE, LEGAL AND DE FACTO. — REFORMS 
 OF THE XVIII. CENTURY. — THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE PEOPLE. — CONSTITU- 
 TION OF THE UNITED STATES AND SLAVERY. 
 
 The organization created by the Polish nobility was a model 
 free State. But the official historians, contaminated by doctrinism, 
 or even openly working for more or less suspicious interests, have 
 affirmed over and over again that all this was of no value whatsoever, 
 that Poland was a paradise for the governing class only, while the 
 rest of the population lived under wretched conditions; that the 
 peasants were oppressed and the middle class deprived of rights. 
 To hear these crushing accusations denouncing this unequal divi- 
 sion of rights, one might have thought that in Europe what were 
 known as the lower classes, slept on beds of roses while in Poland 
 they were oppressed by a regime of misery and servitude. 
 
 No! Every elementary book on history we take up will show 
 that at that epoch the peasant was everywliere oppressed; that 
 the middle classes were everywh-ere deprived of rights. During 
 the last half of the XVI. century the agricultural population of 
 Europe became more and more enslaved and the oppression grew 
 to such an extent that the question was raised of which had the most 
 enviable fate "the game that was carefully looked after and hunted 
 but a short time or the subject who was never looked after and hunted 
 all the time ?"* 
 
 The middle class was also on the decline. They not only lost 
 their civil rights but even the perquisites of their economic develop- 
 ment In the XVI. century, the nobleman in Germany — just as in 
 Poland — in importing or exporting his agricultural products did 
 not pay duty. The nobility, misusing this privilege, caused great 
 harm to the industrial and commercial interests of the country by 
 laying all the burden of the taxes on one class. Now, this phenome- 
 non is generally admitted everywhere to have been an inevitable 
 consequence of the conditions of historical development 
 
 * Jansen, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes : "Was es besser habe. das lang 
 gehegte und kurz gehetzte Wild, oder der stets gehetzte und nie gepflegte 
 Unterthan." 
 
 27 
 
No one would ever think of judging this phenomenon according 
 to contemporary criterions. But for Poland there has been a singu- 
 lar exception made. The situation of the lower classes in the Poland 
 of long ago is not judged by the ideas of that time but by the stand- 
 ards of the XIX. and XX. centuries. It then becomes very easy to 
 anathematize the extraordinary exclusiveness of the nobility who 
 so jealously safeguarded political rights from the other classes. 
 With such sophistry we might be induced to regard Newton or 
 Copernicus as dunces because they did not understand the phe- 
 nomena that are evident to every school boy today. 
 
 Although the proper criterion of the political organization of 
 Poland would be to compare it with thoughts and ideas prevalent 
 at the time under consideration, still let us see if according to our 
 present day notions the condition of the peasants, the middle classes 
 and even the nobility in Poland was not better than in the neighbor- 
 ing States. 
 
 Although their social position had deteriorated, because of the 
 privileges granted to the nobles and notwithstanding the fact that 
 they had lost the greater part of the liberties acquired during the 
 middle ages, still the middle class was not wholly deprived of rights, 
 even political. 
 
 In the XVI. century the middle class of the Royal cities not 
 only exercised judicial functions but had access to high dignities as 
 well, and noblemen did not hesitate to call them "brothers".* We 
 find in no place in the Polish Constitution a ruling that forbids the 
 middle class from taking part in the Diet. In 1573 the "general 
 Confederation" of Warsaw said: "We, the ecclesiastical and lay 
 councillors of the Crown, all the nobility and other estates of the 
 
 Republic one and indivisible" The expression "other estates" 
 
 has reference to the cities. 
 
 The principal cities, through their nonces, took part in all general 
 assemblies or "Confederations", in all the Elective and Convocation 
 Diets after 1573. Such cities as: Cracow, Vilna, Lemberg, Posen, 
 Warsaw, Lublin, Kamieniec, Dantzig, Thoren and Elbing had the 
 right to take an active part in the important act of electing the king : 
 this right was exercised until the end. City representatives attended 
 the Diet of 1668 to sign the abdication of John Casimir. In 1733 
 they ratified the "pacta conventa". These two acts took place 
 during the time of the greatest development of absolutism among the 
 
 * Lozinski : "The patricians and the bourgeoisie of Lemberg in the XVI. 
 and the XVII. centuries". 
 
 28 
 
nobility and is a proof, as Grabiec, one of our historical writers, has 
 observed, that it was above all, the indifference and inadaptability of 
 the middle class that kept them from availing themselves of their 
 civic rights. 
 
 Moreover, the spirit of caste that showed itself in the common 
 law of Poland may be considered as a trait of degeneration. 
 
 During the XVII. and XVIII. centuries, that is at the period 
 of the overlordship of the nobility, the number of cities doubled 
 whose municipalities acquired the title of "nobiles" instead of the 
 older "spectabiles et famati". The municipalities thus ennobled, on 
 the ground of public organisms, became from that time on "legal 
 persons" with rights equal to those of the nobility. 
 
 While in other countries the middle classes were unable to 
 acquire land (until 1807 in Prussia), in Poland the inhabitants of all 
 the large cities — Cracow, Lemberg, etc., — had always enjoyed this 
 right. As, on the other hand, it was comparatively easy to acquire 
 the rights of townsmen, the right to own land had practically never 
 been forbidden. 
 
 The difference that existed, is still more clearly shown in another 
 field fully as important, that of city autonomy. 
 
 In the XVII. and XVIII. centuries the old city autonomies in 
 many countries were either greatly limited or else rendered illusory 
 as all the councillors and municipal employees were appointed by 
 the monarch. 
 
 In Poland on the contrary, the municipal councillors were placed 
 under the supervision of the royal "starosta" (Elder), but the 
 internal organization of the councils was left intact. And, while else- 
 where the legal and police service was more or less completely under 
 royal control, these offices were always autonomous in Poland. 
 
 Finally, full autonomy, based on new principles was granted to 
 the cities by the Constitution of May 3rd, 1791. It is thus that two 
 totally dfferent systems of government: that of centralization level- 
 ing in an autocratic sense almost the whole of Europe, and the 
 Polish self government, so full of liberalism and exuberance, cast 
 here their shadows and reflections. 
 
 Let us now examine the peasant class, the class that forms the 
 greater part of the population. 
 
 At the time of the greatest extension of the political rights of 
 the nobles, the Polish peasant — who during centuries had been free, 
 subject only to the legal authority of the village mayor — fell into 
 
 29 
 
servitude under the patrimonial power of the overlord. A power 
 that in time became unlimited. 
 
 Western Europe was on the same road and traveled so fast in 
 that direction that she soon outstripped us. In Europe the sway of 
 the nobility over the people began earlier than with us and the bur- 
 den was far heavier because the oppression finally took on the nature 
 of imbounded cruelty. 
 
 Notwithstanding the unhappy condition of the serfs, therehowever 
 never were Princes in Poland who wore belts made of peasant skins ; 
 there never was known misery that caused the peasants to fly 
 enmasse over the boundaries; the Polish Lord did not sell his 
 people after the manner of the Lords of other countries — a thing 
 that still happened in the XVIIL century in the middle of Europe; 
 bloody revolts of the serfs, peasant wars followed by terrible sup- 
 pressions, likewise the indescribable outbursts of despair among the 
 rural class that fill the annals of Europe to overflowing,— all these 
 were unknown in our country, on the contrary our annals expressly 
 show that the peasants of all the neighboring countries, in order to 
 make their lives easier, came and settled in Poland. At the time of 
 the first partition of Poland, the Russians made mention of the so- 
 called damage Poland had inflicted on her by giving refuge to 500,000 
 Russian peasants from the border districts.^ 
 
 The peasants of Pomerania, Silesia and Moravia came in droves 
 to Poland. In the XVIIL century when the Austrian government 
 passed treaties for the interchange of fugitives. Poland alone dis- 
 claimed the right of reciprocity, because her peasants never emi- 
 grated.^ During the time of the greatest subjection, the treatment 
 received by the Polish peasants never reached the stage of cruelty, 
 as it did in other countries. There is nothing to show that a Polish 
 Lord, using his overlordship right, ever put his subjects to death. 
 Moreover, serfdom did not last so long in Poland as it did in other 
 countries of Europe; only during the XVII. and XVIIL centuries, 
 for in the XVI. century the golden age of the peasants was still 
 reflected from the two previous centuries. "The degree of subjec- 
 tion in Poland, and all its consequences, never reached the limits 
 established here and there in Western Europe," said Oswald Balzer 
 
 ^ Thaddeus Lubomirski : The agricultural population of Poland. 
 
 'Grunberg: Die Bauerbefreiung in Boehmen. Maehren u. Schlesien. 
 "Die Reciprocitat scheint auch von diesen Landern, mit Ausnahme Polens, 
 gewahrt worden zu sein, was sich leicht dadurch erklart, dass wohl schles- 
 ische Unterthanen in grossen Massen nach Polen fliichteten, nicht aber 
 umgekehrt'Y 
 
 30 
 
who had a competent knowledge of the PoHsh organization. The 
 peasant knew that, if on the one hand he had duties to perform, on 
 the other he had rights; he knew he was under the protection of 
 his overlord and that in case of misfortune (bad harvest, hail, etc.) 
 he could count on a reduction in his rent, help through gifts of cattle, 
 etc. Add to this, that the village institutions gave the peasant a certain 
 degree of autonomy by allowing him to take part in the administra- 
 tion of current affairs. These decisions sometimes even acquired 
 the force of a law.' 
 
 Neither must it be forgotten that a lai^e part of the rural class, 
 the peasants on the royal estates and in part those on the ecclesias- 
 tical domains, enjoyed certain civic rights and were under the pro- 
 tection of the State. Also there was a greater private initiative to 
 improve the condition of the people in Poland than anywhere else. 
 In this respect Poland had fine old traditions, for when the Repub- 
 lic was at the height of its development, in the XVI. century, the 
 remarkable political writer, Andrew Frycz-Modrzewski, openly 
 called for the abolition of serfdom and for equal rights for all classes. 
 
 At the beginning of the XVIII. century the King, Stanislas 
 Leszczynski in his "Treatise on the Freedom of Speech" prepared the 
 way for this idea of the necessity to emancipate the peasants from 
 the legal, economic and cultural point of view. This idea was taken 
 up by the whole of society, made rapid progress and gave remark- 
 able results. Attempts to remodel the condition of peasant life on 
 a modern basis were undertaken about 1740 on their great estates by 
 many of the magnates : the Jablonowski, Brzoztowski, Zamoyski, 
 Lubomirski, Potocki, Poniatowski, Czartoryski, Chreptowicz, etc. 
 This movement became even more general in the latter part of that 
 century. Serfdom was abolished; forced labor was replaced by 
 tenure ; the peasants were given personal liberties, autonomy, etc. 
 
 The result of these spontaneous reforms is to be seen in a 
 tangible way from the fact that on the estate of Prince Stanislas 
 Poniatowski alone, there were living some 400,000 peasants who 
 were for the most part free and established as "landowners". 
 "Without exaggeration," says A. Rembowski,'' "one can affirm that 
 in no other country of Europe was private initiative to renounce the 
 rights of the privileged class carried so far as in Poland or so much 
 good done for the peasants". 
 
 * Ulanowski : The jurisdiction of the Polish village during the XVI. and 
 XVII. centuries. 
 
 * A. Rembowski : Comparison of State Constitutions. 
 
 31 
 
The great reforms of May 3rd, 1791, improved the legal status 
 of the peasants. Notwithstanding its imperfections it was so liberal 
 in comparison with those which generally existed abroad, that the 
 Russian Chancellor Bezborodko expressed fear that the "Polish epi- 
 demic" would spread and Leopold, Emperor of Austria, ordered the 
 Governor of Galicia to work out a memorial on "what might be done 
 for the peasants and middle classes after the reforms adopted in 
 Poland". 
 
 Three years later, in 1794, the military leader Kosciuszko, in 
 reality the popular dictator, made a great step in advance, when in 
 his manifesto of Polaniec he proclaimed new decrees in favor of 
 the peasants. This last political act of independent Poland, that regu- 
 lated the status of the peasant class, gave them, among other things 
 the protection of the government, the right of permanent abode, and 
 other individual rights, victories that for that epoch were of great 
 import. 
 
 Aside from these historical events the annals of Poland furnish 
 us with psychological facts of equally great importance that charac- 
 terize the relationship existing between the nobility and the people. 
 
 The old popular tradition attaches to the name of the last king 
 of the Piast dynasty, the wise and good Gasimir, the surname of "King 
 of the Peasants", (a title accorded no other king in history) in 
 memory of his solicitude in their behalf. This was the only King, 
 among all the kings who through eight centuries occupied the throne 
 of Poland, to whom the infallible instinct of the people attributed the 
 title "Great" ! In a coimtry where the only "Great" king was at 
 the same time the "King of the Peasants" the condition of the peas- 
 ants must have been supportable even in the worst epochs. 
 
 A second psychological document still more profoundly ex- 
 pressive of the relationship existing between the nobility and the 
 people was the devotion of the nobility to Kosciuszko. We have 
 drawn attention to the fact that Kosciuszko inaugurated progressive 
 reforms, that were, for the epoch, almost revolutionary. The leader 
 of agonizing Poland in all his public efforts tried to give social jus- 
 tice to what is called the "lower classes". The companion in arms 
 of Washington, after having taken part in the struggle for inde- 
 pendence in America, after having been glorified by him as the 
 "truest son of freedom", came back to Poland and took up arms 
 against the invaders of the fatherland ; he called the peasants to his 
 standards; he continually manifested his democratic ideas and de- 
 clared "that he was not fighting for the nobility alone but for the 
 
 32 
 
whole people". After the glorious battle of Raclawice, during which 
 the peasants of Cracow, armed only with their scythes, took the 
 Russian cannon by assault, Kosciuszko ostentatiously dressed him- 
 self in the "sukmana" * of the peasant, he the Dictator of the Repub- 
 lic where the nobles were masters. And, as all that did not dampen 
 the enthusiasm of which Kosciuszko was the object, we may be sure 
 that the gulf dug by history between the noblity and the people in 
 Poland was not a very deep one. 
 
 Lastly, the innate gentleness of character that belongs to the 
 Pole "dulcis sanquis polonarum", gentleness that had been remarked 
 by foreigners in the XVI. century and because of which the Poles 
 had always remained humane, even to their enemies, was the reason 
 why there never was such oppression practised in Poland as by the 
 nobility of other countries. 
 
 An example, the first one to mind ; the supreme National 
 Council that directed the last struggle against the invaders in 1794 
 declared to the people that "revenge on the enemy did not mean to 
 direct their vengeance against a defenseless people, against prisoners, 
 against any to whom they should guarantee security, but that ven- 
 geance worthy a Pole consisted solely in giving proof of courage". 
 
 In 1 83 1, Warsaw, for the moment liberated, gave a striking ex- 
 ample to humanity : the people gave relief to the prisoners of war, 
 the wounded Poles gave up their places in the ambulances to wounded 
 Russians and the National government supplied the necessary funds 
 from the budget to provide a school for the Russian children remain- 
 ing in Poland. 
 
 A nation that showed such humanity to an enemy could not have 
 been cruel to their own people and so the hard laws that governed the 
 life of the Polish peasants of long ago, were surely more tempered 
 than exaggerated. 
 
 It is true that the freedom that was so greatly developed in 
 Poland was restricted to the nobility alone. But still that fact cannot 
 be used against the value of Polish freedom in general. 
 
 The fact of giving vast privileges to one class only of the popula- 
 tion was a custom of the ancient Republics, that, even in our time, 
 are everywhere considered as models of democracy and liberty. The 
 same thing has happened in the United States of America, in quite 
 recent times, where the Federal Constitution, one of the most liberal 
 in the world, while conferring political rights on the white population 
 did not abolish slavery among the negroes. "All men of color and 
 
 A coat of homespun woolen cloth worn by the peasants. 
 
 33 
 
their posterity, present and future, shall remain slaves forever and 
 be subject to sale or gift equaling household goods and conforming 
 to their nature," declares American law, the law of the country that 
 had, however, already given birth to the immortal "Declarations of 
 Jefferson. And these laws were not abolished until 1866 and only 
 after 1. rrible civil war. But no one because of this would be so 
 absurd as to doubt the greatness of the political and social principles 
 that proclaimed to the world the birth of free America, and that 
 made it possible for America to outstrip the old Europe by nearly 
 a century. 
 
 It is the same with Polish institutions. At the time when all 
 classes in other countries were without political or civil rights while, 
 on the contrary, at least one class in Poland, and that a very numerous 
 class had rights; at the time when in all the countries of Western 
 Europe the fate of the State depended on the will of one person, 
 while in Poland a million inhabitants had the right to take part in the 
 government, how illogical one must be and what ill-will one must 
 show to deny without and against all evidence the high value of 
 Polish liberties by alleging sophistically that these liberties were not 
 enjoyed by the whole people. 
 
 -o- 
 
 VII 
 RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 
 
 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY RESULTING FROM POLITICAL FREEDOM. — THE JEWS. — ^THE 
 
 REFORMATION.— THE TOLERATION LAW ( I573) .—EQUAL RIGHTS GRANTED 
 
 TO ALL RELIGIONS. — POLAND THE REFUGE OF THE PERSECUTED. — WHAT WAS 
 
 THE ASPECT OF THE REACTION IN POLAND? — THE UNION OF BREST. 
 
 The cult of liberty — the source to which the Polish organization 
 owed all its characteristic traits that favored the development of the 
 different autonomies that were based either on historical or ethnical 
 peculiarities — created religious toleration, carried it to a degree 
 unknown in Europe and gave to it, at the time of it greatest vitality, 
 a truly modern stamp. 
 
 We already know of the great freedom accorded to the Jews in 
 Poland in the management of their private affairs. This same 
 freedom was extended still farther into the more intimate domain 
 
 34 
 
of religious faith. In fact the Jewish religion always enjoyed the 
 most complete liberty in Poland. Religious persecution, so ruthless 
 elsewhere, was not known even by name in Poland, although through 
 many distressing circumstances for the country' the Jewish element, 
 so different from the Armenian and Tartar element, gave evidence 
 only of a very questionable loyalty to this most hospitable State. 
 
 Violence, of any nature whatsoever, was repugnant to the Polish 
 character. Never were there "pogroms" in Poland. At the time of 
 the most intense Catholic reaction the anti- Jewish disturbances in 
 Poland were but trifles compared with the frightful scenes of cruelty 
 witnessed in Western Europe. Jewish blood was not shed in Poland. 
 At no time were the Jews plundered and stripped of their property. 
 Never were they driven out of the Polish cities. Even less were 
 they obliged to submit to religious persecutions. The most flourishing 
 centers of the Jewish cult were to be found in Poland. 
 
 "The Jews," states a Jewish paper* enjoyed a most magnani- 
 mous religious toleration and the greatest freedom during the entire 
 existence of Independent Poland". 
 
 Thus religious fanaticism was ignored in Poland and every one 
 was left free to worship God after his own fashion. These liberal 
 ideas reached their height during the Reformation. The reform 
 movement appeared very early in Poland and the Republic, attached 
 by so many ties to the West and drawing so abundantly from the 
 intellectual sources of Europe, made little opposition to the promul- 
 gation of new ideas. 
 
 Classic culture that was widely diflf used among the upper classes 
 had prepared the ground for religious reforms. A great many 
 members of Poland's first families, the Radziwill, Leszcynski, Gorka, 
 Olesnicki, Ostrorog, Firlej, Stadnicki, Zborowski, Laski, Tomicki 
 and a great many others renounced Catholicism. The Archbishop 
 Uchanski even had the design of founding a national church. Nicho- 
 las Rey, one of the great national writers, was drawn into this new 
 current. Numberless non-conformist institutions : schools, printing 
 houses, churches, etc., spread over the Republic; Calvinism and 
 Lutheranism branched out more and more. Adepts of different 
 sects and religions made their appearance in Poland; the "Bohemian 
 Brothers", "Polish Arianism" and many others. Jan Laski, a Pole, 
 undertook a proselyting journey and traveled as far as England, 
 Friesland and Denmark. 
 
 * Moriah, December, 1916. 
 
 35 
 
This great evolution of thought was accompanied by a spirit of 
 toleration that not only existed nowhere else in Europe but that 
 Europe many times found difficult to understand. Western Europe 
 burned "heretics" at the stake; blood flowed in streams "ad majorem 
 Dei Gloriam"; thousands perished on the scaffold; others, hunted 
 like wild beasts, fled from one country to another. 
 
 Poland knew little of the tortures of the inquisition. The 
 Republic did no violence to the conscience nor did she stir up reli- 
 gious wars. The bloody persecutions of the dissenters was unknown 
 in this Catholic country. 
 
 The people who created the creed of individual freedom in their 
 political life could not be false to that principle in the spiritual do- 
 main of religion. Civic freedom, logically, gave birth to liberty of 
 conscience and therefore to liberty of religion. 
 
 The Polish authorities immediately took a most liberal attitude 
 toward the Reformation. In reality, religious freedom was estab- 
 lished at the very beginning of the movement although it was not 
 at first sanctioned by a constitutional clause. 
 
 During the XV. and XVI. centuries, although the Polish Kings, 
 in their special decrees, always severely reproved the non-conform- 
 ists for their "religious innovations", they left them in practice en- 
 tirely free. We find Protestants among the highest dignitaries of the 
 country. There were Protestants who presided over the Diet of the 
 Republic. The fact of belonging to a religion other than Catholic- 
 ism did not hinder in any way the fulfilment of public office. More- 
 over, even before the Reformation our attention is drawn to a signifi- 
 cent fact : the wife of Alexander Jagello, Queen Helen, observed the 
 Greek religion and had in the Chateau of Wilno her own private 
 chapel. 
 
 At the time when diflferent European Princes were steeped in 
 the blood of their subjects who belonged to a different religion 
 from their own; at the time when the principle "cuius regio, eius 
 religio" put to shame this social condition, the great founder of the 
 Union of Lublin, Sigismund August, the last of the Jagellon Kings, 
 addressed to his people these memorable words : "I am not king of 
 your consciences". 
 
 It was not long before the non-Conformists in Poland received 
 a legal guarantee ensuring the free worship of their faith, and thus 
 the liberty that they had already enjoyed was sanctioned. It was 
 after this event that the Crown Chancellor, Jan Zamoyski, pro- 
 nounced the words that show so well the state of mind of the 
 
 36 
 
Polish people: "If it would lead you back to Catholicism I would 
 gladly give up half of my life and with the other half I should live 
 rejoicing in this union. But if anyone should try to compel you, 
 then I would give up all my life, rather than be obliged to witness 
 this compulsion". 
 
 The law relative to the liberty of conscience, decreed at the 
 memorable Diet of Convocation in 1573, proves the large and gener- 
 out spirit of the Republic and brilliantly shows the maturity and high 
 development of the culture attained in Poland. At the time when 
 fanaticism raged in the West, the Polish law "de pace inter dissi- 
 dentes", enacted on January 28th, 1573, recognized the legal exist- 
 ence of all the professions of faith observed in the country and de- 
 clared that none should be persecuted because of their religious 
 convictions. 
 
 Thus, religious toleration was sanctioned by the constitution of 
 the Republic and became one of the fundamental laws of the country. 
 From then on every King upon his accession was obliged to swear 
 allegiance to this new constitutional law, as well as to all the other 
 laws that had been enacted before. This right was accorded to the 
 peasants as well as to the nobility and middle classes. "That a peas- 
 ant was forced to go to church or punished because he observed 
 another religion that that of his overlord, that was never seen," 
 declared a Polish writer of the XVII. century. * 
 
 Poland produced the effect of an absolute phenomenon at the 
 time when the religious wars were drenching Europe with blood. 
 The eyes of all those who suffered were turned to Poland, to the 
 customs inspired by humane principles and the rights and liberties 
 that this people enjoyed. Immediately after the Saint Bartholomew 
 night the French Huguenots demanded of their King to "follow the 
 example of Poland". 
 
 At the time of the great efflorescence of the Reformaton Poland 
 became the asylum of the persecuted. Many foreign reformers: 
 Ochino, Statorius, Stankar, Lismaninus, Socinius, Lelio and Faust 
 driven from their own countries, came and continued their activity 
 in Poland. Entire sects found protection and often new fields of 
 endeavor. One part of the "Hussite" sect, the "Bohemian Brothers" 
 driven from Bohemia in 1548, took refuge in great numbers in 
 Poland. Again in the XVII. century, upon the decline of the spirit 
 of toleration, great numbers of Germans, persecuted in their country, 
 
 * Rembowski : "The Confederation and the Revolt. 
 
 Z7 
 
settled in the western part of the Republic along the Brandenburg 
 and Silesian borders. 
 
 This state of things continued for two centuries. During the 
 XVII. century, however, Catholicism gaining the upper hand, the 
 liberties of the Protestants were restricted. But what was it in com- 
 parison with that which was happening in the rest of Europe ? There 
 were manifestations in certain cities, produced by strong religious 
 tension, but without bloodshed. 
 
 These manifestations against which, moreover, special laws 
 were enacted (Constitution on Troubles) never degenerated into 
 civil war as in other countries. 
 
 That which is called the Catholic reaction in Poland was simply 
 the return of many non-Conformists to the old faith. As for the 
 fanaticism that was manifested during the last half of the XVII. 
 and the first half of the XVIII. centuries, it consisted simply in the 
 refusal to allow the building of new Protestant churches in the towns 
 where the majority of the population was Catholic and restrictions of 
 certain forms of the Protestant faith that were too demonstrative, 
 and, lastly, the expulsion of the Arians, who were universally detested 
 and suspected of carrying on traitorous relations with the enem>, 
 that is with the Swedes. It is to be remarked, however, that the 
 members of this abhorred sect were given two years in which to 
 liquidate their private affairs. 
 
 The execution of the nobleman Lyszczynski, accused of atheism, 
 religious murder ordered by the Diet of 1669, remained an isolated 
 case. But, finally, the non-Conformists began to be eliminated from 
 different offices and dignities, except in the cities, where up to the 
 end they were still allowed to hold different positions. 
 
 But it is well to note the length of time it took for this reaction 
 to develop; this slowness seems to prove without the shadow of 
 doubt that it was not in harmony with the natural inclination of 
 the nation. 
 
 During the whole of the XVII. century although the Catholic 
 fanaticism made violent progress (because of the remarkable activ- 
 ity of the Jesuits) the political rights of the non-Conformists re- 
 mained intact; until 1718 we see them as "nonces" in the Diet; until 
 1733 they sat on the bench as elective judges and filled other public 
 positions. 
 
 Thus we see that the non-Conformists kept all their rights until 
 the middle of the XVIII. century and hardly had they lost them 
 (only for a very short space of time) when the new idealistic current 
 
 38 
 
made its way into Poland, the new "light" that brought in the reforms 
 of the Great Diet (i 788-1 791). 
 
 The relatively short duration of the Catholic reaction in Poland 
 and its slow advance is proof that the principle of religious toleration 
 was profoundly inherent in the Polish character. 
 
 So it was in Poland, and only in Poland, that the difficult task of 
 reconciling the two churches was brought to a happy conclusion : the 
 Oriental and Roman Catholic churches. Work that was so often un- 
 dertaken elsewhere without definite results. 
 
 Hardly thirty years after the union of Lithuania with Poland, 
 in 1569, time of the beginning of the political unions, Poland suc- 
 ceeded also in bringing about the union of these two great factions of 
 Christianity. 
 
 The union of the Greek and Roman churches was sealed at the 
 Synod of Brest (Brzesc Litewski) in 1595. By this memorable act 
 the Greek church while keeping its organization and peculiar rites, 
 recognized the supremacy of the Pope. While the union of Florence 
 (1439) had only an ephemeral existence and terminated in a new 
 separation of the churches the union of Brest was so strong that when 
 Russia tried to introduce the orthodox religion into the countries torn 
 from Poland, when she tried to convert the "Uniates", she was 
 obliged to have recourse to armed force ( 1874). 
 
 But still notwithstanding all the persecutions, these Uniates, 
 of whom there are several million, continue to recognize the Pope as 
 the head of their church. 
 
 -o- 
 
 VIII. 
 JURISDICTION. 
 
 THE DREAD OF COERCION. — THE MORAL TIES OF SOCIAL LIFE. — THE SENTI- 
 MENT OF RIGHT. — JURISDICTION. — PUBLICITY OF DEBATE AND DEFENSE. — 
 PROPERTY. — PUBLIC SECURITIES. — FOREIGN OPINIONS. 
 
 The evolution of the creative genius of political life in Poland, 
 the organization of the country based on the principle : "No decision 
 without our sanction", the freedom of elections, supported by the 
 article concerning the refusal to obey the King, the unions, the 
 autonomies founded on the principle of religious toleration. — all 
 bring out the inherent characteristics of the Polish nature : the dread 
 of coercion. 
 
 39 
 
All of the great manifestations of the Polish people have been 
 due to motives which were freely recognized and profoundly felt. 
 
 The bonds of the collective life to be conceded, had to have 
 the moral sanction of all those belonging to the community. Valerian 
 Kalinka, the great Polish historian, has thus characterized the 
 Polish nobleman and his life : "Either as an official or officer he never 
 considered himself an inferior but always as a voluntary fellow- 
 worker; in private life as well, he was bound by tradition, faith, 
 customs and hierarchy but as he recognized and admitted all these 
 things of his own free will, he did not know or endure coercion". 
 
 Contrary to current theories according to which the State was 
 looked upon as a compulsory organization, Poland was able to live 
 through long centuries faithful to the ideas we have just stated. 
 
 In the XVI and XVII. centuries, Poland, "the powerful," also 
 knew how to be aggressive : she entered Moscow two hundred years 
 before Napoleon ; she saved Christianity under the walls of Vienna 
 and ended the power of the Turk. "And still," says Kalinka, "the 
 whole organization of the Republic rested on the will of the citizen". 
 
 In reorganizing public administration, when the great reforms 
 of May 3rd, 1791, were introduced, the Polish State created "civil 
 and military commissions", that were the first manifestations of 
 modem bureaucracy. But this bureaucracy had the same national 
 characterictics that had dominated the previous epoch : every official 
 considered it an honor to fulfill his civil duty as a citizen to the 
 country and respect for the laws took the place of the discipline nec- 
 essary in modem times. 
 
 This is what the distinguished historian, T. Korzon, says con- 
 cerning this administration : "A study of registers, protocols and of 
 divers dicisions, leads us to the conclusion that the working of the 
 civil and military commission was entirely satisfactory to the au- 
 thorities and population and that their decisions were accepted by all 
 the community without compulsion.* 
 
 In the flourishing time of the Republic, during the XVI. and 
 first half of the XVII. centuries, the mechanism of the Polish State 
 moved smoothly notwithstanding the absence of all force. But dur- 
 ing the following century the will of the citizen became insufficient 
 to hold the State structure together under the same conditions. 
 
 This was the most unfortunate epoch for the Republic, the time 
 of the Polish anarchy that was intentionally descried and blackened 
 by the partisans of "salutary brute force". 
 
 * T. Korzon : History of Poland during the time of Stanislas August. 
 
 40 
 
However, even in those trying times, that moral force, the senti- 
 ment of right, that had been manifested through the whole history of 
 Poland, although enfeebled and sometimes degenerated, was still 
 upheld by the people as a whole. 
 
 Moreover, this phenomenon is perfectly comprehensible. A 
 people that had never had laws imposed by others, a people that had 
 always been their own legislators, must, by the very nature of things, 
 have succeeded in developing the sentiment of right to a higher 
 degree than people whose every disposition to collaborate in the 
 formation of the legal precepts, that govern social life, had been 
 annihilated by the arbitrary will of the one to whom they were 
 subjected. 
 
 One of the characteristic traits of Polish history is the complete 
 absence of the period called "the law of might", the "Faustrecht" 
 ("the mailed fist"). This "Faustrecht," the fruit of anarchy in the 
 fullest sense of the word, that authorized everyone to resort to 
 violence in any disagreement, was considered at certain times and 
 places as the legal regime, there where tribunals and governments 
 were unknown and the arbitrary exercise of justice was the privilege 
 of all those who had at their command the supreme argument of 
 force. Germany, notably, put the "Faustrecht", that had formerly 
 served through several centuries, into force again during the thirty 
 years' war. 
 
 Law was never so distorted in Poland. Anarchy was manifested 
 in the Republic only by a few acts of violence organized by certain 
 noblemen whose aims were to proceed with private executions of 
 judgments rendered by the tribunals. On the other hand these 
 "assaults" (Zajazd) that were very infrequent were always con- 
 sidered as "reprehensible violations of public law." 
 
 When anarchy was at its height, towards the middle of the 
 XVIII. century, it was not rare to see the law severely applied : it 
 was thus that the powerful Lithuanian magnate, Wollowicz, was 
 condemned to death for his criminal adventures. 
 
 In all the judicial activity of Poland the pith and marrow of 
 the two fundamental principles that served as a basis for the struc- 
 ture of the State, stand out : the cult of liberty and respect for the 
 individual. This, more than all else, hastened the maturity of the 
 political, legislative and judicial organization of Poland. 
 
 While in all European monarchies, except England, to make 
 inquiry into a trial, they resorted to "inquisitorial proceedings, writ- 
 ten and secret", to " confusing questions" and to torture, in Poland 
 
 41 
 
the procedure remained true to the principles of publicity and the 
 spoken word for the debates of the accusation as well as for the de- 
 fense. These principles were not introduced into Europe until 
 the XIX. century under the influence of the great French Revolu- 
 tion, and before this revolution were applied only in England 
 and in Poland, Favored by these principles the sentiment of right 
 developed quite differently than with people subject to absolutism. 
 It is sufficient to state one characteristic trait: the condemned man, 
 of his own free will, went to prison to serve his sentence. In the 
 case of his not giving himself up, he became an "exile" in the eyes 
 of the world, a man outside of the law, who could be killed by any 
 one with impunity. 
 
 How deeply the respect for the law was imbedded in the minds 
 of the people may be seen from the fact that many times the Polish 
 Courts of the XVIII. century, in handing down their decisions, 
 even took their stand on clauses of the statute (Statute of Wis- 
 lica) drawn in the XIV. century. The famous "mania for law- 
 suits" of the time of the decline, that was so fatal to the people, 
 still shows, however, to what a degree the authority of the law was 
 recognized. The "law" was always one of the favorite professions. 
 It was a national passion like agriculture and the army. In fact, 
 during the time of the great outbursts of passion, notwithstanding 
 the mental abberations and regardless of the political troubles, the 
 Poles perserved a profound cult for the idea of Law. "On this sub- 
 ject they are capable of becoming fanatics," remarked, in 1767, 
 Repnine, the Russian ambassador who cordially hated the Poles. 
 This respect for law was also manifested by the fact that the State 
 Chancellor could refuse to affix the seal to an illegal or unconstitu- 
 tional act, although ordered to do so by the King. 
 
 The respect for property was not only impressed on the minds 
 of the nobility but on that of all the people. A popular saying alleged 
 that it was "easier to lose one's life in Poland than his goods". 
 
 As to public safety, the touchstone of order in a political organ- 
 ization, we have the precious testimony of a foreign writer, Rulhiere,* 
 who certifies that "Poland seems to be happy and quiet in the 
 midst of the surrounding anarchy," that "safety prevails in the cities," 
 that "travelers can go through the most lonesome forests or along the 
 most frequented highways with all security," that "crimes are unheard 
 of" and that "nothing can better confirm the theory of those philoso- 
 phers who claim that man is by nature good". 
 
 * Rulhiere: History of Anarchy in Poland and the dismemberment of 
 this Republic, (in French). Paris, 1807. 
 
 42 
 
/ , 
 
 In 1779 a professor from Cambridge University, Cox, travel- 
 ing with Lord Herbert, notes the fact that during all their journey 
 through Poland nothing had been stolen from them, although their 
 traveling carriage had alway been left in the street without a guard, 
 while in Russia, never a night passed that something was not pil- 
 fered although a servant slept in the carriage." 
 
 Another traveler, the German Biesler,' asserts that in Poland 
 "One can move about with the greatest security even though having 
 
 in one's possession thousands of ducats". 
 
 Schulz,' a Livonian, hostile to Poland, who lived in that country 
 from 1788 to 1793, maintains that one must not believe what one 
 hears about the insecurity of the highways in Poland. "I have 
 crossed Poland three times ; many of rny friends have done likewise 
 and never have we seen the least suspicious thing". 
 
 Add to these assertioi|s the evidence of Thaddeus Korzon * who 
 writes : "Each quarter, from the provinces of Posen, Cracow, Kamie- 
 niec, chests containing the fiscal circonscriptions amounting some- 
 times to a million florins were sent to Warsaw under the escort of 
 one or perhaps two horsemen. That these treasure chests arrived so 
 regularly at their destination is really a remarkable fact. After 
 having examined all the acts concerning the activity of the Treasury 
 Commission we are satisfied that during thirty years no transport was 
 lost and that only once a chest was stolen by a band of Cossacks at 
 Latyszow near the Turkish border','. 
 
 "Since," remarks the same author judicially, "public safety is 
 one of the aims of every penal system, and since this aim has always 
 been attained in a manner worthy of admiration in Poland, it must 
 be recognized that the Polish system had superior qualities before 
 which many defects are obliterated." 
 
 ^ Cox : Travels into Poland. Russia and Denmark. 
 ^Xavier Liske: Foreigners in Poland. 1791. 
 ^ Schulz : Reise eines Lieflanders. 
 
 * Thaddeus Korzon: History of Poland during the reign of Stanislas 
 August. 
 
 43 
 
IX. 
 
 THE POLISH WARS. 
 
 AVERSION TO WARS OF CONQUEST. — THE KING PIAST's SYMBOL. — THE LOVE 
 OF PEACE. — CUSTOMS. — MILITARY SERVICE, THE GENERAL LEVY. — THE PUR- 
 PORT OF THE POLISH WARS. — THE RAMPART OF EUROPE. — THE COMPETENCY 
 OF THE DIET ON WAR QUESTIONS.— THE EQUITABILITY OF WAR PROBLEMS, 
 
 Poland gave up the barbarous creed of war very early. As soon 
 as she passed out of the youthful period of her history she ceased the 
 pursuit of martial conquests. During the last five centuries of her 
 independent existence her growth was entirely due to her moral 
 force. The invasion of a foreign country, after the manner of 
 robbers, even under the cover of "State interests", was commonly 
 considered in Poland as cowardly. Arms were taken up only in 
 legitimate defense and this explains the characteristic name of 
 "necessity" ("potrzeba") that in olden times was given to war. 
 
 Stephen Buszczynski, speaking of the historical role of the 
 Polish people, dwells upon the fact that while other States almost 
 always owe their origin to the power of a conqueror or to the plun- 
 derings of a brigand chief, popular legend places near the cradle of 
 Poland a peasant king, — the legendary Piast, — symbol of labor, the 
 creator of peace. It is also to be noted that the title of "great" be- 
 stowed but once by the Polish people was not conferred upon one 
 of the many warrior kings, but upon a sovereign who made himself 
 memorable by his codification (the Statute of Wislica) ; who founded 
 the first university in Poland; who erected public monuments; who 
 built cities and who passed on to posterity with the praise of having 
 found "a wooden Poland and left one built of stone". It was this 
 architect-King, this King friend of labor and peace who alone re- 
 ceived the title of "great" : Piast and Casimir the Great, symbolized 
 all of Polish history. 
 
 The imperialistic desire to extend dominion "over all the earth", 
 that was the cause of such misery and so much bloodshed, was never 
 felt by the Polish people although this people was famous for its 
 legendary bravery. This tendency of domination was never mani- 
 fest in Poland not even when she was at the height of her power and 
 constituted one of the largest monarchies in Europe. 
 
 "In the midst of general robbery," says Julian Klaczko, "Poland 
 exempt from covetousness never monopolized the lands of others 
 even though she had every opportunity to 'rectify' boundaries or 
 undertake the role of providence." 
 
 44 
 
The reply of the illustrious King, Sigismund "the Old", to those 
 who offered him the crown of Hungary and Bohemia, "why wish to 
 reign over several peoples when it is so difficult to contribute to the 
 happiness of one", were memorable words that have many times 
 proven true. 
 
 The Poles never sought to distinguish themselves in the warlike 
 adventures that were of such common occurrence in the olden 
 times. Choisnin, a delegate to Poland in 1573, wrote with the great- 
 est admiration "this nation hates the spilling of blood except it be 
 in open fight against declared enemies". 
 
 The Poles were aware of these peculiar traits of character and 
 of the high moral level of their principles. It pleased them to cite 
 the opinions that foreigners had of them: "dulcis est sanguis polo- 
 norum" and they added proudly : "abhorrent lectissimi et dulcissimi 
 mores nostri abomni crudelitate, natura ipsa nostra ad omnem 
 humanitatem facia, refugit ferocitaten".^ 
 
 The army, from the remotest up to very recent times, was 
 formed from a "general call to arms", the "pospolite ruszenie". 
 
 Defense was the only employment to which this army could be 
 put and in consequence it could not be used outside national territory. 
 Every citizen-noble was obliged to join this army and take part in 
 the defensive wars, that alone were equitable in the eyes of the people. 
 The middle classes were responsible for the defense of the cities. 
 
 A sharp lookout was kept on the accomplishment of this duty. 
 In olden times the defaulters from military service were condemned 
 to death and their property was confiscated, but the law of 1676 pro- 
 scribed the latter punishment and in pursuance of this law the inher- 
 itance of all defaulters was added to the Treasury. It was only for 
 very serious reasons that exemption from military service could be 
 secured, and then only on the authorization of the Diet The mercen- 
 aries, called "foreign troops", played a secondary role to the "general 
 call to arms". 
 
 When, in the XVII. century, the whole of Europe was going 
 through a military reorganization, forming large standing armies, ex- 
 citedly reviving the art of strategy and of tactics and scientifically 
 improving weapons the better to be able to destroy life,Poland did not 
 allow herself to be drawn along in that current but contented herself 
 with establishing the indispensable garrisons necessary to protect her 
 frontiers and persisted in not maintaining a standing army in times 
 of peace. 
 
 ^ Our cultivated and gentle manners loath cruelty, our very nature leans 
 towards humanity, shrinks from ferocity. (Sobieski: "Les Huguenots"). 
 
 45 
 
The nobility fought with vehemence against the estabUshment of 
 a standing army. They justly saw, that as they had not the spirit of 
 martial conquest, such an army could only lead to a form of absolute 
 power. N 
 
 In 1788, however, because of the aggressive attitude of the 
 neighboring powers, a decision was finally reached by the Diet, to 
 raise and keep under arms a standing army of 100,000 men. Kos- 
 ciuszko, the greatest strategist of contemporary Poland, in a memoire 
 presented to the Diet, advised the organization of "militia", similar 
 to the organization of the American militia, as it was in many ways 
 similar to the Polish "general call to arms". He categorically opposed 
 the formation of a standing army, saying that it would "put the citi- 
 
 zens in irons". 
 
 Notwithstanding the aversion of the Poles to war and not- 
 withstanding the imperfections and gaps in the system of the 
 "general call", the history of the Polish army is full of glorious 
 achievements. It was the Polish Knights who in the XV century, 
 after a long series of terrible struggles, finally broke the greatest 
 military power of contemporary Europe: the Teutonic Order, that 
 under the sign of the Cross, gave themselves up to plunder and ex- 
 tortion. These Knights who had been called by Conrad, Prince of 
 Mazovia, to convert the still pagan Prussians, established themselves 
 on lands given them by this Prince, formed themselves little by 
 little into a band of brigands and began a system of conquests even 
 against their ancient benefactors, the Poles. 
 
 Hardly had the brilliant victory of Grunwald put an end to this 
 pre-eminently defensive war against the Teutonic Order, when the 
 Poles were obliged to turn to the East, where the Turks were men- 
 acing Europe. 
 
 Situated on the Eastern border of Europe, Poland, conscious of 
 fulfilling her historic mission, threw herself into this new struggle, 
 that was to continue for more than two centuries, for the defense of 
 Christianity and Western civilization. 
 
 The young King Ladislas fell in the battle of Varna in 1444. 
 From then on, especially after the fall of Hungary, the Polish 
 Knights became imbued with the idea that they were really the living 
 rampart chosen "to defend the Cross" against the "fanatical power of 
 the Osmans". The task was brilliantly accomplished but only after 
 the most terrible struggles. The exploits of the "winged Hussars", 
 the flower of the Polish Army, were everywhere celebrated. From 
 the steppes of Bessarabia and Hungary, even as far as the Balkans, 
 
 46 
 
the ground was covered with the graves of the Polish knights. For 
 generations the greatest leaders of the Polish army began over and 
 over again this traditional struggle and not only did they take part 
 in the campaigns but they gave their lives as well on the battlefields. 
 The great Hetman Stephen Zolkiewski, the "Knight without fear and 
 without reproach", perished at Cecora in 1605. It was his great grand- 
 son, Jan Sobieski, who finally accomplished the destructon of the 
 military power of the Turks. 
 
 So, even with their aversion to war and notwithstanding their 
 "dulcis sanguis", the Poles were equal to the military problems of 
 the day. Powerful and victorious, Poland used her strength to help 
 her neighbors, not to overrun and pillage them. 
 
 She was, indeed, the rampart, the dike that protected Europe. 
 The Poles always took up arms for ideals of which they were con- 
 scious and which they represented proudly. 
 
 Customs and ceremonies, both characteristic and beautiful, grew 
 out of the high ideals the Poles had of the mission of their armies. He 
 who sacrificed his blood and his life for his faith and his country 
 was rewarded by a scarlet coffin. In the will made before his last ex- 
 pedition against the Turks, Hetman Zolkiewski charged: 'Tf I fall on 
 the field of honor cover not my coffin with black velvet, the sign of 
 mournng, but cover it with red, the sign of joy". 
 
 In pursuance of an old Polish custom, during the reading of 
 the Scriptures in church, every Knight, present, rose and drew his 
 sword in sign that he stood ready to defend his faith whenever 
 threatened. Faith was the Poles greatest boon at that time, and it 
 was such lofty, spiritual motives alone that had power to arouse 
 them to war. 
 
 Long ago in Poland, war depended on the will of the people, 
 who expressed their judgment for or against it through their legally 
 chosen representatives. The Diet alone could order a "general call 
 to arms". 
 
 "The question so much discussed today," says Professor Stan- 
 islas Kutrzeba, "of whether the people as a whole (through their 
 representatives) should be allowed to decide on war or peace, was 
 settled long ago by the Poles in the affirmative sense". 
 
 "The principle according to which a people should have the right 
 to order its own destiny was applied in Poland during a long period, 
 even at the time when the absolute European monarchies were or- 
 ganizing armies that were forced to go to war by a single sign from 
 their sovereign." 
 
 47 
 
In 1496 the "general call to arms", that had up to that time 
 depended on the King became an attribute of the Diet. After 1 573 — 
 the time of the elaboraton of the first articles and pacts that were 
 submitted to Henri de Valois — (before his election to the Polish 
 throne) each monarch took oath not to declare war or order a general 
 call without the authorization of the Diet. Thus it was the Diet 
 alone that had the right to declare war, even though the war was to 
 be fought by a mercenary army paid by the King. Such was the 
 principle adopted by Polish law and that was maintained without 
 fundamental change up to the very end of the existence of the 
 Republic. 
 
 The peoples decision acted as a restraint and often prevented 
 conflicts. This check was all the more powerful because of the 
 people's repugnance for the slaughter of war. Poland guided by 
 her strict moral principles held back, more than any other State, from 
 useless bloodshed. 
 
 Before every declaration of war a commission was named in 
 the Diet to examine into the more or less unavoidable character of 
 the conflict, of the possibility of a peaceful settlement or the necessity 
 to fight, and finally to decide on the legality of the Polish claims. 
 
 This idea of right and justice, that in international affairs seem 
 like an anomaly, like a conception of another world, had a real 
 value in the political life of the Polish State. Considering this as 
 "one of the most important factors of life" the pedagogues instilled 
 it into the minds of their scholars, with the first rudiments of 
 the education that was to form their character. The Statute of the 
 National Commission of Education, of 1773, charged the professors 
 of history "never to call heroism or politics (the science of govern- 
 ment) that which was only cunning, treason, baseness, violence, 
 invasion and robbery" ! 
 
 It is in vain that we look for another such official educational 
 recommendation, not only in those times but even today. That 
 declaration was the result of the very high level at which, for cen- 
 turies, the notions of social life had been held in Poland. 
 
 Unfortunately in the presence of the general militarism of Eu- 
 rope and the rapacious instincts of other States, this high moral 
 level of Poland brought about most deplorable consequences for her. 
 That Poland was right^ — the Poland that had shrunk shuddering be- 
 fore the growing spectre of militarism, — that her principles responded 
 to the needs of civilization and not to those that permitted the tri- 
 
 48 
 
umph of the enemies of the Repubhc, has been superabundantly 
 proven by the fearful conflict of today into which "the wise and 
 far-seeing Europe" allowed herself to be drawn. 
 
 -o- 
 
 X. 
 
 POLAND THE LIBERATOR. 
 
 THE SPREADING ABROAD OF LIBERTY. — THE LITHUANIAN NOBILITY BEFORE 
 AND AFTER THE UNION WITH POLAND. — LADISLAS IV. AND THE CONSTITU- 
 TION OF MOSCOVY. — EMIGRATION OF THE BOYARDS INTO POLAND. — THE ROLE 
 OF THE POLES AFTER THE FALL OF STATE. — "FOR YOUR AND OUR LIBERTY." — 
 ROLE OF POLAND IN THE WARS FOR FREEDOM. — THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE 
 
 POLISH QUESTION. 
 
 Whenever Poland, during her long historic existence, entered 
 into touch with other peoples, especially those that were weaker or 
 little developed, she went not to shakle but to deliver them, not to 
 subdue but to free them. 
 
 When, in 1611 after a long siege, the Polish armies entered 
 Smolensk, a fortress that had been disputed by both Poles and 
 Russians for a long time, a medal was struck at Warsaw having the 
 following elequent inscription: "Dum vincor, libror". In truth, 
 
 Smolensk retaken by the Poles was able to benefit once more by the 
 great Polish liberties. Wherever Poland got a footing it was always 
 the same, freedom was spread abroad and her liberties were felt 
 by all. The justce of this affirmation is seen from the conditions 
 under which all the unions between Poland and the neighboring coun- 
 tries were carried through, from those made by the youthful State 
 of the Piasts to those effected by the powerful monarchy of the 
 Jagellons. 
 
 The "liberating" character of the Polish expansion was effec- 
 tively shown when the nobility of the Prussian cities, oppressed by 
 the Teutonic Order, placed themselves under the protection of 
 Poland. Another proof is furnished by Livonia, which of her own 
 free will joined the Polish Republic. 
 
 But by far the most remarkable testimony of the attraction of 
 Polish freedom comes from Lithuania and Ruthenia. These two 
 countries, at the moment of their union with Poland, were subject 
 to the most cruel despotism under which all classes of the population 
 
 49 
 
were weighed down. The Grand Duke, landowner of his State, had 
 unHmited power. The Lithuanian and Ruthenian boyards ("bojary") 
 could no more than a simple peasant dispose of their property or 
 their family, nor could they even marry without the consent of their 
 Prince. 
 
 The act of Union signed at Horodlo, in 1413, sets forth in a very 
 clear and concise manner that : "the bonds of slavery that bind you 
 shall be broken and the fetters shall be taken from you". From the 
 first connections liberty was extended by Poland. Under the in- 
 fluences of the first unions absolute power was greatly restricted ; the 
 boyards were elevated to the rank of the Polish knights, individual 
 rights were acquired, the right also to dispose of property, the land — 
 whose use had depended on the good or ill-will of the Prince — be- 
 came their own property. Marriage could take place without the 
 authorization of the Prince and, finally, the boyard had the guarantee 
 that he would not be condemned without having been judged ac- 
 cording to law. Even the Oriental slavery endured by the Lithuanian 
 peasant was changed into the moderated Western subjection then 
 recognized in Poland. 
 
 The infiltration of Polish freedom into Lithuania continued for 
 two hundred years. It was paralleled by the development of in- 
 tellectual culture of which the principle home was the University of 
 Cracow. Before the connections of the two States had become firm 
 enough to allow of the real union of 1569, a phenomenon of assimila- 
 tion and political kindredship had taken place between the internal 
 organizations of the two countries. 
 
 Much before the time of the memorable "Diet of Lublin", the 
 Lithuanian nobility had expressed their desire for this definite union, 
 so that they might be free from the oligarchy of the magnates and 
 come into full possession of all the liberties enjoyed by the Polish 
 nobility. And these liberties that flowed so abundantly into the 
 country, formerly subjected to despotism, continued there up to the 
 very end of the political independence of the Republic, 
 
 Poland, after having broken the bonds of absolutism in Lith- 
 uania, extended her liberating mission farther to the East — into 
 Moscovy. The influence of Poland on Moscovy began toward the 
 end of the XVL century, at the time when the Poles, going more 
 and more frequently into the empire of the Czars, took with them 
 their notions of the rights of the citizens and of constitutional gov- 
 ernment. "This contact with the Poles," writes Prince Peter 
 Dolgorouky, "showed the boyards of Moscow to what a humiliat- 
 
 50 
 
ing degree of slavery they were lowered, and made them see that 
 in allowing themselves to become the plaything of their monarchs, 
 they not only had to submit to tyranny but to bodily punishment as 
 well".* 
 
 The first result of these Polish-Moscovite relations was an 
 effort, made in 1605 to introduce into Moscow the same institutions 
 that existed in Poland and to limit the absolute power of the Czar, 
 Vladimir Shuisky (1605-1610). This Czar was required to swear 
 solemnly never to arbitrarily confiscate property or condemn anyone 
 to death without judgment. The election of Ladislas, the son of 
 Sigismund III., to the throne of Moscovy, after the extinction of the 
 Rurik dynasty, shows tangibly the desire of the Russians to enjoy 
 the same liberties as then existed in Poland. 
 
 But it was only after 1610 that the ascendancy of the Republic 
 over Moscovy reached its culminating point. Under the influence of 
 the Polish political ideas and systems, Moscovy formed a representa- 
 tive organization composed of two chambers (the Duma of the Boy- 
 ards and the Duma of the Rurals) without the sanction of which 
 their sovereigns, just as in Poland, could not make any laws, increase 
 the taxes, sign treaties or alliances, nor declare war. Moreover the 
 Czar lost the right of suppression by capital punishment, of confisca- 
 tion of property without lawful judgment, and an elective legislative 
 corps was organized. A convention like the "pacta conventa" was 
 passed between the Czar and the boyards. 
 
 When the shortsighted and insincere policies of Sigismund III. 
 kept his son from ascending the Moscovite throne the boyards put 
 the sceptre into the hands of Michel I. Romanoff. Then profiting by 
 his youth the boyards forced him to recognize the constitutional 
 government. This regime, however, lasted only six years because, 
 in 1618, the Metropolite Filaret, the father of the new sovereign, 
 released from captivity in Poland, became regent, took the power 
 from the hands of the young Michel and put himself at the head of 
 a reactionar}' government. Thus the Constitution that had hardly 
 seen the light of day came to an end. However, up to the reign of 
 Peter the Great, the "ukases" still bore the heading: "By order of 
 the Czar with the consent of the boyards". But finally when Peter 
 the Great came to the throne the last vestige of Russian Constitu- 
 tionalism imported from Poland was wiped out. 
 
 The attraction of the Polish liberties was such that at the end 
 of the XVI. century, one year after the "Union of Lublin", the in- 
 
 * Prince Peter Dolgarouky : Truth about Russia. Paris, i860. 
 
 51 
 
habitants of Novgorod decided to separate from Moscovy and de- 
 manded of the Republc to be united to Lithuania. But this design 
 was foiled by Ivan the Terrible and drowned in waves of blood. 
 Ivan could not, however, stop the emigration of the boyards who, one 
 after the other, crossed the frontier into Poland never to return. 
 "Like birds in the autumn," says Professor Waclaw Sobieski, 
 "the boyards fleeing from the cold north sought a refuge in the 
 country of freedom".* Like that Prince Kurbski, who, upon his 
 arrival in Cracow, wrote the famous letter to the Czar in which 
 he cursed the tyrant and threatened him with the Divine Wrath. 
 Fifty years later when the first Romanofifs ascended the throne 
 and the reform party disappeared under the oppression of the 
 reactionaries, many more boyards, even abandoning their fortunes, 
 sought refuge in Poland. At that time one branch of the family of 
 Prince Soltykow emigrated into Poland and later gave to the country 
 eminent patriots. 
 
 Up to the XVIII. century, every attempt, no matter how modest, 
 to check absolutism was inspired by Polish institutions alone. Later 
 they were inspired by the great French revolution. The conception 
 of liberty, principal factor of political evolution, continued to spread 
 among foreign peoples even after the downfall of the Republic. 
 During the whole of the XIX century the Poles struggled on, at one 
 time stirring up revolutionary currents and at another time offer- 
 ing their services to those who rose up against absolutism. But it 
 was chiefly at home, among themselves, that they rose up against the 
 detested despotism, at home that they incited a series of bloody in- 
 surrections to overthrow the tyrants who were oppressing them. 
 
 Notwithstanding their profound scorn for their persecutors they 
 still felt some pity for them as well, because they considered them 
 slaves blindly obedient to the conquering folly of their governments. 
 In 1 83 1 the Polish soldiers inscribed on their standards the watch- 
 word "for your and our liberty", watchword that reflected all the 
 greaness of soul of historic Poland — that saw before all else, in 
 each enemy, a miserable and degraded brother, and had only one 
 desire : to lift him again to human dignity. 
 
 The Poles always joined the problem of their liberty with the 
 liberty of the world ; struggling against the oppression in their own 
 country they felt themselves to be struggling at the same time for the 
 happiness of other peoples and in fighting against despotism in any 
 
 * Waclaw Sobieski : The King and the Czar. 
 
 52 
 
part of the world they felt they were struggling indirectly for the 
 freeing of their own beloved Poland. 
 
 Every generation, since the partition of Poland, held to this tra- 
 dition that started at the end of the XVIII. cenury. This inspired 
 the two national heroes, Kosciuszko and Pulaski, when they offered 
 their services to the starred flag of America. Pulaski fell on the 
 battle field in America, Kosciuszko, after having rendered great 
 services to the young American Republic, openly espoused, with 
 Jefferson and Franklin the cause of the freedom of the slaves, to 
 which Washington was opposed. Many Poles enrolled under the 
 standards of Napoleon, proudly choosing the motto: "Gli Uomini 
 Liberi son Fratelli" (all free men are brothers). 
 
 The Polish political emigrants of 1831 stimulated in their turn 
 the activity of "young Europe". The years 1831 and 1848 saw Polish 
 emigrants at every barricade and on every battle-field where inde- 
 pendence was being fought for. These "Condottieri" of liberty, as 
 the reactionaries disdainfully called them, went — soldiers, officers or ^ 
 
 generals — to fight in Italy, Hungary, in Germany and in Austria. 
 It was the Polish General Miroslawski who put himself at the head 
 of the insurrection in Baden and in Sicily ; it was the Polish General 
 Chrzanowski who commanded the army of Sardinia in Italy ; it was 
 the great poet, Adam Mickiewicz, who went to Milan with the 
 Legion that he himself had formed to keep up the struggle to free all 
 peoples. His watchword was only the extension of Christian prin- 
 ciples from individual life to the life of nations. Among the Gari- 
 baldians there were also many Poles. At the head of the Vienna 
 revolution was the Polish General Bem. Polish statesmen, Smolka 
 and Goluchowski, soon opened the Constitutional Era. There were 
 thousands of Poles enlisted in the revolutionary army of Hungary ; 
 General Dembinski was twice named "General-in-Chief" of these 
 armies ; another General, Wysocki, commanded a Polish legion and 
 both he and General Bem covered themselves with glory in Transyl- 
 vania. The Poles continued to fight although the Hungarians had 
 lost all hope of victory. 
 
 In Ukraina the Polish insurrectionists, in 1863— noblemen 
 mostly — proclaimed the "golden act" by freeing the Ruthenian 
 peasants, although it was against the interests of the Polish agri- 
 culturists of the country. The same thing took place in Lithuania. 
 Thus it was that the defenders of Europe against Eastern barbarism 
 became after the downfall of their State, the champions of World- 
 liberty. It was often at the price of Polish blood that the rights 
 
 53 
 
enjoyed today by free people, endowed with constitutional govern- 
 ments, were bought. 
 
 The political ideal, that emanated from subjected Poland and 
 from her sons dispersed in foreign lands, explains why the Polish 
 question, toward the middle of the XIX. century, took on its "char- 
 acter of universality". At that time young Europe began to see in the 
 solution of this question the conditions of a general victory for 
 liberty. The genius of the French people vividly felt the importance 
 of this question and, after, 1831, for thirty years never left off by 
 writings, by parliamentary discussions and by public manifestations, 
 to push the war for Poland's freedom. 
 
 This popular, universal, political current in favor of the "Polish 
 Cause", identified at the same time with all peoples, led the popu- 
 lation of Berlin, in 1848, amid the greatest enthusiasm to carry the 
 Polish patriots in triumph to the Royal Palace. The people of Europe, 
 at that moment when their moral level was exalted to unknown 
 heights, bowed before the spiritual force of this disowned and per- 
 secuted Poland. 
 
 Under the Empire the indescribable sufferings inflicted on 
 Poland, and on the Polish soul, found a new force of resistance: it 
 was the "ideal-force of the mystic conception that made of Poland 
 the Christ of peoples, suffering as He suffered, for the salvation of 
 humanity". This state of mind marked all the work of Poland's 
 greatest romantic poets, Mickiewicz, Slowacki and Krasinski, mag- 
 nificent work, with an extraordinary power of inspiration, born 
 from the sufferings of their native country during the epoch of 
 emigration. 
 
 This mission of liberators, that the Poles espoused, had its roots 
 far back in the past. It was the logical consequence of the spiritual 
 evolution of the old Republic, the result of the same spirit that in 
 the olden time united "equals with equals and free with free". 
 Guided by this motto, until then unknown, the Poles went into Lith- 
 uania and Ruthenia and thus realized in Eastern Europe, with extra- 
 ordinary ease, their national ideal of social organization. 
 
 -o- 
 
 54 
 
XL 
 
 POLAND IN ADVANCE OF CONTINENTAL EUROPE. 
 
 THE TREND OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT IN POLAND. — ABSOLUTISM IN EU- 
 ROPE AND CIVIL RIGHTS IN POLAND. — "rEGNA SED NON IMPERA". — RESTRIC- 
 TION OF THE PRIVILEGES OF THE NOBILITY, ACCOMPLISHED BY THE NOBLES 
 THEMSELVES. — REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION. — THE FEDERAL STATE. — 
 ACCOMPLISHMENT OF REFORMS WITHOUT REVOLUTION. — MORAL MATURITY. 
 
 In its development Poland was in advance of continental Europe 
 in many ways and by many years — centuries even. That which 
 other peoples did not demand of their governments until the XIX. 
 century, the Republic had centuries before instituted and guaranteed 
 by laws. 
 
 It was especially in the development of political rights that Po- 
 land was in advance of the other continental European States. Be- 
 tween the State as it was constituted in the middle ages and the 
 modern constitutional State, the annals of Poland did not have to 
 record the existence of that somber link called "enlightened 
 absolutism". 
 
 The transition from the medieval organization into the modem 
 parliamentary State was brought about with astonishing rapidity in 
 Poland. A few decades sufficed, while the rest of Europe took sev- 
 eral centuries to attain the same end. Professor Stanislas Kutrzeba 
 states that, in this respect, the progress of Polish development was 
 far more logical than that of the West. The evolution of the 
 Polish Republic was in fact always characterized by a preponderance 
 — that became more and more marked — of popular elements, which 
 from the middle ages on sought power, and not without success ; 
 while, in the meantime, in Western Europe these popular elements 
 were crushed by their respective monarchistic powers. As a result, 
 there is a deviation in the curve of the political development in 
 a contrary direction to that which it seemed to have taken at the 
 beginning ; while in Poland, on the contrary, evolution continued to 
 follow the straight line — the line first laid down. Thus, Poland was 
 able to keep ahead of all the contemporary European States by her 
 organic structure — based on the union of monarchistic power and 
 the Diet — union that remains today one of the most essential and 
 valuable traits of the modern State. 
 
 When Europe had definitely entered into the period of absolut- 
 ism, when the people had become the humble slaves of one master, 
 
 55 
 
Poland was creating for herself institutions that guaranteed civic 
 liberty, was developing a parliamentary system and improving her 
 Diet that would soon be able to take over the greatest part of the 
 power. 
 
 Toward the XVIII. century, when a serious need of reforms 
 began to be felt, a Polish citizen, Wielhorski, applied to J. J. Rous- 
 seau asking his advice on reforms for the Republic. Rousseau 
 answered the question by a long treatise * in which he demonstrated 
 that the Polish organization was, on principle, excellent, and "worth 
 more than that of Great Britain". i 
 
 This is what von Rotteck, a German historian of Freiburg, says 
 in his "General History" about "enlightened absolutism" : "At that 
 epoch science was the servant of despotism. With the exception of 
 a few Republics, the pople were everywhere treated like flocks of 
 sheep, and, in fact, it amounted to that in those countries where the 
 will of the monarch was supreme and the sole aim was to satisfy the 
 unlimited cupidity of princely families. At that time the greatest 
 virtue was obedience". How much more advanced was the situation 
 of Poland in the same epoch ! 
 
 The security of individual liberty was protected by law. In 
 this respect Poland was even ahead of the country classic for its 
 individual freedom — England; for the Polish law "Neminem cap- 
 tivabimus" prescribing that no arrest could be made without proof 
 of the guilt of the accused was enacted in 1430, that is to say, two 
 and a half centuries before the famous "Habeas Corpus Act of 1679. 
 As has been stated before, the principle of the publicity of debates — 
 for the accusation as well as for the defense — was also known in 
 Polish jurisdiction, a principle that existed nowhere else, except in 
 England at that period. The people, through their representatives, 
 decided the most important affairs of State, not excepting those rela- 
 tive to peace and war. The essentially republican form of government 
 even placed the people in a position to elect the head of the State and 
 gave to each citizen the possibility of one day becoming himself the 
 King-President of the Republic. 
 
 The fundamental constitutional principles of the Republic, such 
 as the law "nihil novi", the "pacta conventa" and the articles "non 
 praestanda oboedientia", were inspired by the really modem concep- 
 tion that the King lived for the nation and not the nation for the 
 King. The famous principle expressed by Thiers in 1831 : "the King 
 reigns but does not govern", for which the political science of 
 
 *J. J. Rousseau: Considerations on the Polish Government. 
 
 56 
 
today prides itself, had already been laid down by the Polish poli- 
 ticians in 1607, two centuries before Thiers, in the same identical 
 terms: "regna sed non impera". 
 
 With such institutions and such ideas there is nothing astonish- 
 ing in the fact that Poland was able to leave the European States of 
 her time far behind her, the epoch of which Rotteck says : "the peo- 
 ple were considered as herds of cattle, and the King's word was all. 
 It is true that by these liberties, created in the XVI. century and 
 continued through the XVII. and XVIII. centuries, only one class 
 benefited, but that class numbered a million souls. On the other 
 hand, toward the end of the XVIII. century, Poland, again in 
 advance of the greater part of Europe, undertook and brought to 
 a successful end a great political reform and, although based on the 
 already existing State organization, it ended the exclusive privileges 
 of the nobility by extending the civic rights to other classes of the 
 population, and adopted, at the same time, liberal institutions, fulfill- 
 ing the ideas and requirements of the time. 
 
 This reform was the memorable Constitution of the 3rd of 
 May, 1 79 1. 
 
 Adhering to the spirit of Polish traditions, the law of May 3rd 
 was based on the principle that "in human society all power springs 
 from the will of the people". The application of this political con- 
 conception resulted in the creation of a Ministry responsible to the 
 Diet. From then on, when laws were broken, the Diet could accuse 
 the Ministry and when the representatives and the government dis- 
 agreed, the Diet could demand the dismission of the Ministry pro- 
 viding that the majority of the opposition amounted to two-thirds 
 of the representative body. Thus Poland, at that time, applied the 
 principle that is still today unrecognized in some constitutional 
 States : that the government cannot exercise its power unless it is 
 upheld by the parliamentary majority of the representative body. 
 
 From the social and political point of view, the Polish constitu- 
 tion of 1 79 1 took from the nobility the greater part of their privileges ; 
 at the samel time itenlarged this class by admitting into it newelements 
 of society. The right of ennoblement was, one may say, automatic- 
 ally acquired by all those who paid a certain minimum of land tax, 
 and to officers and certain categories of officials. Besides, each Diet 
 was obliged to ennoble a certain number of the middle class who had 
 distinguished themselves in different domains, especially commerce 
 and industry. The old conception of nobility was quite abolished and 
 every citizen having a certain social standing was eligible to nobility. 
 
 57 
 
The nobility was thus transformed into a republican middle class in 
 the largest sense of the word, and the remarkable perspective opened 
 of the gradual ennoblement of all the people. 
 
 The middle classes of the cities, as a whole, were what might be 
 called half ennobled : they were given the right of "neminem capti- 
 vabimus", access to all civil and military honors, a large autonomy, 
 the right to become landowners — a concession made only in 1807, or 
 sixteen years later in Prussia — and lastly, greater access to the Diet. 
 From then on all work, no matter whether carried on in the cities or 
 in the fields, had the right to the same respect. In sign of fraternity 
 the greatest dignitaries allowed their names to be inscribed in the 
 municipal registers. 
 
 Lastly, the peasant class, named in one of the articles of the 
 new code as "the most valiant force of the country" were taken under 
 the protection of the law. Although the situation of the middle 
 classes and the peasants was far from perfect, the reformers did not 
 go farther, convinced with reason that to become lasting, reforms 
 should progress slowly. It should be noted that this constitution, 
 all to the disadvantage of the nobles, was framed by a Diet made 
 up exclusively of the nobility and without any compulsion from 
 the other less favored classes. 
 
 The remarkable characteristic of this Constitution was that the 
 new reforms were intended for the present generation only. Al- 
 though they were greatly in advance of their times, these laws had 
 not been elaborated to become enduring but were only to serve 
 as steps to the future development of the country. Recognizing the 
 necessity to revise this Constitution, "after having judged its 
 effects upon public prosperity", it was decided that a special Diet 
 should meet every twenty-five years and proceed with the revision of 
 the laws. The deep wisdom of the authors of those reforms of 
 May 3rd was manifested in a striking manner by the additional law 
 that ordered the following generation to adapt the organization of the 
 State to the new ideas and new exigencies. The application of this 
 law would have been a powerful help to the Polish people toward 
 reaching their ideal of liberty. And that liberty would eventually 
 have been extended to all classes, if the partitions had not put a brutal 
 end of this evolution. 
 
 By this Constitution of May 3rd, 1791, as by all her previous 
 evolution, Poland, as we have seen, was in advance of a number 
 of the great European peoples that were subject to autocratic gov- 
 ernments. Even more, because of this wise legislation that pre- 
 
 58 
 
scribed periodic revisions of the Constitution, the Polish Republic 
 was in advance of many States of even the present day. 
 
 In a second domain, we see yet again the superiority of the 
 Polish political genius in comparison to that of other continental 
 European States. It was their skill in organizing the life of the 
 different peoples making up the Republic. Several centuries before 
 the creation of the American union — a model of political organiza- 
 tion uniting, for the common good, elements of different origin and 
 culture — Poland created a great Federation of peoples in Europe. 
 
 The unions with Lithuania, Ruthenia, the Prussia of Dantzig 
 and Livonia transformed the small State of the Piasts into a great 
 Federal Power, Although each of these peoples were possessed of 
 the strictest autonomy, although they were united only by the two 
 central organs — the Diet and the King — their cohesion was such 
 that even the downfall of the Republic did not destroy it. And the 
 political work accomplished by Poland remains unequaled, even up 
 to the present time. 
 
 Quite incomparable also were the means used by the State to 
 reach the goal she had in view. The two fundamental reforms — 
 the law of 15 15 "nihil novi", that was the starting point of the par- 
 liamentary and political liberties and the Constitution of May 3rd, 
 1791, that adapted these liberties to the needs of the time — were 
 realized without any revolutionary disturbance and without the 
 shedding of one drop of blood. "That which other people," said 
 Stephen Buszczynski, "had aspired after through long centuries, and 
 had only reached through blood and massacres, regicides and scaf- 
 folds, the Polish people had won and held by legal means and in 
 all tranquility". And even thus, by way of peaceful evolu- 
 tion and through the wisdom of her statesmen and the attraction of 
 her political freedom, these different unions were accomplished: the 
 federation of several peoples without the help of sword or diplomatic 
 cunning. The superiority of this method of political construction 
 was on a par with the moral superiority of the Poles over their 
 neighbors near and far. 
 
 The State that instructed its youth that politics was not synon- 
 omous with cunning, treachery or violence, that, notwithstanding 
 the prevailing preponderance of rapacious instincts, avoided wars 
 of conquest on principle, that examined into the justice of each war, 
 that in the midst of general fanaticism was the only example of 
 religious toleration in Europe, that could not persecute people for 
 their faith or their origin, that had never assassinated their Kings 
 
 59 
 
but who did not allow their Kings to murder their subjects, that 
 attached more importance to the renown of their laws than to the 
 Crown, that loathed all extortion, and that gave freedom to the neigh- 
 boring peoples — such a State was morally, incontestably, in advance 
 of the Europe of yesterday, and of the Europe of today, by the 
 whole length of her historic existence. 
 
 -o- 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE DOWNFALL OF THE POLISH STATE. 
 
 INQUIRIES INTO THE CAUSE OF THE DOWNFALL. — ANARCHY AND ABSENCE 
 
 OF JUSTICE, "vital INCAPACITY" CREATING A MODEL CONSTITUTIONAL 
 
 STATE. — FOR WHOM DID POLISH ANARCHY CONSTITUTE A DANGER? — 
 
 POLAND VICTIM OF PHYSICAL VIOLENCE. 
 
 The Polish State had come to an end. For people who judge 
 principles and acts by their immediate success, this fact was suffi- 
 cient to disprove the course by which the development of Poland had 
 been accomplished. 
 
 "But it is not the hand of man that regulates the clock of his- 
 tory" .... The political organization that during long centuries was 
 a source of prosperity and high culture to a great people, the genius 
 of Polish history, that inspired entire generations with ardent patri- 
 otism, by inciting them to resist heroically every persecution and all 
 suffering, the ideal, so profoundly human, of freedom and of dignity 
 toward which the efforts of all nations tend, no ! that could not have 
 been the cause of all the suffering and misfortune that fell on Poland. 
 
 Today the Polish people believe, as Buszczynski said, "that their 
 role among nations is only interrupted — not ended". 
 
 The events that brought about the downfall of the Polish State 
 have been the subject of a great many learned discussions. The 
 authors of the partitions were the first to feverishly seek after these 
 causes. The greatest faith was put in a thesis that was zealously 
 pushed forward for a long time and that even at the present day is 
 still in circulation, like the proverbial "bad coin", in the mist of opin- 
 ions. This is the thesis of the official Russian historiographers who 
 pretended that Poland fell because of anarchy and of "internal in- 
 capacity" to live as a State. This story forged by perfidy and car- 
 
 60 
 
ried on by stupidity has, in the course of time, taken on the character 
 of an accusation pronounced from the height of a would-be his- 
 torical tribunal. 
 
 But who are they, that feel thus warranted to accuse the past 
 of Poland of anarchy ? Even those in whose countries for centuries 
 no laws existed and who a hundred-fold more than "the Polish an- 
 archy", should be subject to the severe judgment of history. 
 
 At the most unfortunate period of Polish evoluion — during the 
 reign of the Wettin dynasty of Saxony — the existence of an execu- 
 tive power, strong enough to enforce the strict application of the laws 
 was lacking, but the laws themselves never fell into disuse and never 
 lost their force. At the same period Russia had no notion of law. 
 The least sign or desire of their sovereigns became law even when 
 these signs came from a bloody maniac like Ivan the Terrible, or 
 strumpets like Catherine II. of Anhalt-Zerbst. 
 
 And who is it that speaks thus of our "incapacity to live?" Even 
 those whose vitality was manifested by spoilation and rapine and the 
 humility of dogs under the lash. It is a shameless lie to assert that 
 vitality is synonymous with slave-servility and rapacious instincts. 
 It will be enough to cite two facts to invalidate such accusations. 
 
 The final organization of the Republic was maintained through 
 three centuries; in consequence, it must have possessed a certain 
 vitality, especially since it was supported in a very slight degree 
 only, by the restraint exercised by the State. The second and third 
 partitions of Poland went into efifect at a time when Poland adapting 
 herself to the new ideas and needs of the time had instituted the 
 reforms of May 3rd, 1791 — at a time when by its organization and 
 laws it could be called a model State. This testifies in a striking 
 manner that Poland was capable of development. 
 
 Anarchy was one of the causes of our downfall but not the 
 anarchy generally understood as such. The nature of the Polish 
 Constitution that had become changed and degenerated through the 
 course of time still, however, had a foundation of sound and fertile 
 ideas even at the time of the worst disorders (for example, the 
 exaggerated conception of individual rights carried to the extreme 
 in the "liberum veto"). Now, these ideas of freedom carried over 
 the frontiers might have become dangerous to the absolutism that 
 reigned abroad. 
 
 "Is it necessary to search farther for the cause of the partitions 
 of Poland?" asks, with reason, Buszczynski, "this great country, 
 truly democratic was an anomaly among neighboring dynastic states. 
 
 61 
 
 r 
 
Poland, notwithstanding her decline and although apparently in her 
 death struggle, showed at least as strong a vitality as the European 
 monarchies, with all their martial uproar and the magnificence of 
 their courts. Everywhere in Europe the people were only things — 
 the blind instruments of him who was strongest and the most clever. 
 While in Poland the people had never been slaves to their Kings," 
 
 The neighboring powers saw in the Constitution of the Republic 
 (especially in the reforms of May, 1791) a dangerous example for 
 their "subjects" forced to blind obedience. And the more it was 
 feared, Polish Jacobism was all the more open to criticism. Autoc- 
 racy, that had already been sapped by France, would continue to 
 run the risk of being threatened by Poland, if her re-establishment 
 was not opposed. This danger had to be eliminated at all costs. 
 Hence the partitions. 
 
 Poland fell because she was not in unison with her neighbors, 
 and because, instead of restraining her citizens, she enlarged their . 
 rights. Poland fell guilty of having a political organization more .>,^ 
 liberal, more developed, more perfect, than the neighboring powers. 
 This was the "primary cause" of her disappearance from the map 
 of Europe. But on the other hand, her downfall was brought about 
 by the terrible ring encircling her, that hemmed her in and against 
 which she was powerless to struggle, 
 
 A great people — a people who had rendered immense service 
 to civilization — that had never cherished hostile sentiments against 
 anyone was surrounded in the very center of Europe, and hunted 
 like a beast. A thing without precedent in the history of peoples. 
 
 An examination of this unheard of situation leaves room, doubt- 
 less, for the critic to blame Polish politicians who were unable to 
 draw the country from this trap by improving the diplomatic situa- 
 tion of the country. But to the critic one may reply by bringing to 
 mind the existence of the alliance made in 1791 by Poland with the 
 Western Powers and which was cynically and ruthlessly broken and 
 trampled upon by them, Poland was confronted by a formidable 
 plot and succumbed to the preponderant force of the three neigh- 
 boring powers — victim of physical violence she fell as Prussia fell, 
 under exactly the same circumstances, after the battle of Jena. 
 Prussia, however, was a completely " militarized" State. 
 
 -o- 
 
 62 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF POLISH HISTORY AT THE 
 
 PRESENT TIME. 
 
 THE RESULTS OF THE PARTITION OF POLAND. — DESTRUCTION OF EQUILIB- 
 RUM. — THE DOWNFALL OF POLAND AND ITS RELATION TO THE PRESENT 
 DAY. — POPULARIZATION OF THE IDEA OF VIOLENCE. — DEVELOPMENT OF MIL- 
 ITARISM. — THE W^ORLD WAR. — THE REPRESSION OF THE INDIVIDUAL. — 
 HISTORICAL POLAND AND CONTEMPORARY EUROPE. 
 
 Poland was strack from the map of Europe. This violent sup- 
 pression of a great State, full of vitality, whose only aspiration was 
 toward development, had ill-fated consequences for the whole sys- 
 tem of European connections. 
 
 In a note to Metternich, in 1814, Talleyrand expressed the opin- 
 ion that the dismemberment of Poland was the cause of all the com- 
 motion that followed in Europe. Von Rotteck, that remarkable Ger- 
 man historian already quoted, wrote ninety years ago: 
 
 "The downfall of Poland proclaimed in a voice of thunder the 
 total overthrow of European equilibrum, the victorious reign of 
 violence and the utter destruction of international rights." Ac- 
 cording to the profound words of Johann von Muller: "God would 
 reveal the moral value of the powers of the world; a somber fu- 
 ture appeared to thinkers, showing them the advent of infinite dis- 
 tress and the prospect of appalling consternation, needful for the re- 
 establishment of right and justice." Today, these prophetic words 
 have found their terrible confirmation. 
 
 For minds that see into the heart of things it is evident that 
 between the great international crime of the partitions of Poland and 
 the monstrous conflict of today, there is the undeniable relation of 
 cause and effect. Lord Eversley states in his recently published 
 book * that the partitions of Poland, although remote and indirect, 
 are the essential cause of the great World War. The crimes com- 
 mitted against Poland, the tortures that were systematically inflicted 
 upon her, have had disastrous consequences on the Europe of the 
 XIX. and XX. centuries. 
 
 When the autocratic powers combined against the French Revo- 
 lution, Poland was no longer able to go to the aid of the French, 
 although her traditional love of liberty, her republican and demo- 
 cratic organization, her cult for the rights of the individual and the 
 
 * The Partition of Poland. 
 
 63 
 
sovereignty of the people responded to the ideas proclaimed by 
 Revolutionary France. 
 
 Napoleon, who changed the nature of the ideals of the Revo- 
 lution but adopted their principles and spread them broadcast over 
 Europe, admitted in his "memoires" that his greatest error was in 
 not hnving revived Poland. After the fall of Napoleon the authors 
 of the partitions laid at the Congress of Vienna the base of the 
 "Holy Alliance", that was for thirty years to smother every liberal 
 idea, hinder the development of peoples and thus leave such a deplor- 
 able impression on the whole of the XIX. century. 
 
 The attempts to justify the crime of which Poland was the 
 victim, corrupted the minds and moral sense of the peoples, slavery 
 and tyranny imposed on a nation made the idea of violence common- 
 place and the realization of the desires of despotic governments, who 
 were using this vigorous method with their own "subjects", was 
 made easier. Then, the States hastened to enlarge their military 
 forces, some because they feared the fate of Poland, and others be- 
 cause they were tempted by aggressive policies, to satisfy their ap- 
 petites whetted by the acquisition of Poldand. . . .AH this: antago- 
 nisms awakened by the division of the spoils, the immoderate in- 
 crease of one on the ruins of others, the building up of the gigantic 
 Russia on the ashes of Poland ; all this was the supreme reason for 
 the universal armament, so characteristic of the XIX. century. 
 
 "Russia with millions of servile people at her disposition," 
 writes Professor Waclaw Sobieski, "could, because of the partitions 
 of Poland, advance far into Europe; she advanced yet farther in 
 1815, and reached its very heart, in 1831, after having crushed the 
 Polish army. In place of the old Republic, that had no wish to keep 
 up a standing army, it was Russia that entered the lists and spread 
 terror by the continual onward movement of her troops and forced 
 the neighboring States to put themselves on guard and keep up their 
 standing armies. 
 
 The partitions of Poland hastened in yet another way the arma- 
 ments. Every violent conquest necessitates watchfulness over the 
 occupied territories and the subjection of the vanquished population 
 — especially of a population so imbued with freedom as the Poles 
 were. The German military writer. Max Jahns,* expressly declares 
 that "Prussia was forced to enlarge its armies because of the occu- 
 pation of the Polish Republic". Frederic William II., in 1795, insti- 
 
 * Max Jahns — Heeresverfassungen und Volkerleben. 
 
 64 
 
tuted a "Commission of Military Organization"* that not only felt 
 the need of enlarging the army but also of instituting a general re- 
 cruitment. 
 
 The exhaustion caused by the Napoleonic wars was not yet over 
 when it became necessary to apply themselves to watching the Poles 
 who waited only a favorable moment to regain their freedom. 
 
 Nicholas I. could not master his impatience or his anger when 
 he exclaimed: (1831) "only to keep the Poles in hand I am obliged, 
 at great expense, to maintain a whole army". 
 
 The advance made by the Russians west of the Vistula, after 
 183 1, filled the Prussians with such concern that, contrary to their 
 custom, instead of disbanding the conscripts after their term of serv- 
 ice, they kept them under the colors two years longer. 
 
 When the principle of nationalities and of national unions ap- 
 peared in Europe, electrifying once again the Poles, Alexander II. 
 put four army corps on a war- footing and re-enforced all the gar- 
 risons in Poland. These measures did not fail to awaken the dis- 
 trust of Prussia. The Prussian Regent, William, mobilized troops 
 at random (1859), doubled his permanent army, lengthened the dura- 
 tion of military service and made it obligatory. 
 
 These are facts that prove in an obvious manner the recoil of 
 the dismemberment of Poland on the development of contemporary 
 militarism. As Lx)rd Eversley says, "the armed peace — an indirect 
 but essential consequence of the subjection of a great people — be 
 coming amplified by other factors, has in the course of time taken 
 on huge dimensions and hindered the progress of civilization of all 
 the peoples of Europe". 
 
 The States, each and all, armed themselves and the world in 
 truth, became a stage for "a competition of armaments". 
 
 The greater part of the population, from the social point of 
 view, was turned from productive work. The budgets destined for 
 the development of industry, of public instruction and hygiene were 
 notably reduced in favor of military budgets, that more and more 
 consumed the State revenues. 
 
 The course followed by the European States, after the down- 
 fall of Poland, so authoritatively described by von Rotteck, "led the 
 powers to keep six million men under arms, condemning them to 
 inactivity during the strength of their manhood". It is the people who 
 have been obliged to furnish these six million men and it has been 
 the people who have been charged with the up keep of these armies, 
 
 * Immediat-Militar Organisations-Kommission. 
 
 65 
 
costing billions. And finally, this State militarism has ended in the 
 monstrous massacre that has covered the whole of Europe with 
 blood and destroyed so much of what had been created by human 
 activity during generations. 
 
 This cataclysm has surpassed all preconceptions : at the end of 
 the third year forty million men have been called to arms, at an 
 expense of three hundred billion francs ; there have been five million 
 men killed, twelve million more wounded and three and a half million 
 
 invahded The civilian mortality behind the lines increases in a 
 
 terrifying manner. "The infinite distress" that Charles von Rotteck 
 foresaw is an accomplished fact. 
 
 Sobs are choking millions of breasts ; millions of families have 
 lost their support, the spectre of death advances over the ruined 
 cities and villages. The spectre of famine rises up threatening the 
 Europe that yesterday was so proud of her wealth. The sacrifices 
 that war imposes on all peoples surpass imagination. 
 
 The obligation to make everything subordinate to the aims of 
 war extends to all domains of life. The individual has been repressed 
 to an inconceivable degree, until he has become nothing but the 
 wheel of a monstrous engine. 
 
 Under the empire of the instinct of self-preservation, humanity 
 can only face with horror the possibility of a renewal of such a 
 catastrophe. She demands the revision of the system that has 
 caused such disaster, the institutions of tribunals of arbitration, 
 that being subject to international control will decide disputes, and 
 lastly the elaboration of an international penal code, according to 
 which every attempt to disturb the peace will be considered as the 
 greatest crime. 
 
 And now, just one more glance backward. 
 
 In the perspective of time we see the resplendent Polish 
 Republic; in the olden time so full of vitality and later so 
 brutally destroyed. But in the Polish heart this Republic has never 
 ceased to live — this Republic that two centuries ago had already real- 
 ized many dreams of modern humanity, that never manifested 
 rapacious instincts, that detested all shedding of blood, that in- 
 structed her parliament to decide on war and peace, that put real 
 value on the conception of equity in the rules of international rela- 
 tionships, that gave the name of "Great" to Kings who were "con- 
 structors" and not to Kings who were "plunderers", that taught the 
 young not to confound treachery with politics or heroism with vio- 
 lence, that never persecuted people for their origin or their faith, 
 
 66 
 
that freed people and confederated them maintaining the equality of 
 rights, that was an island of freedom in the midst of a sea of abso- 
 lutism, that respected the rights of the individual ; that placed Law 
 above the Crown, that was centuries in advance of other States, not 
 only in realizing the different principles for which they struggled 
 later on, but also, in realizing a number of those that other peoples 
 are only just now beginning to foresee. 
 
 Considering all these original creations emanating from the 
 political genius of the Polish people, we can now understand, face to 
 face with the appalling reality, what humanity has lost by the dis- 
 appearance of the Polish State and how greatly the absence of 
 Poland's help has been felt in the realization of the common aims 
 toward which civilization tends. 
 
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