French Constitution of 1791

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French Constitution of 1791
French Constitution of 1791.
Original title(in French) Constitution française du 3 septembre 1791

The French Constitution of 1791 (

Ancien Régime. One of the basic precepts of the French Revolution was adopting constitutionality and establishing popular sovereignty
.

Drafting process

Early efforts

Following the Tennis Court Oath, the National Assembly began the process of drafting a constitution as its primary objective. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted on 26 August 1789 eventually became the preamble of the constitution adopted on 3 September 1791.[1] The Declaration offered sweeping generalizations about rights, liberty, and sovereignty.[2]

A twelve-member Constitutional Committee was convened on 14 July 1789 (coincidentally the day of the

comte de Clermont-Tonnerre and the marquis de Lally-Tollendal); and four from the Third (Jean Joseph Mounier, Abbé Sieyès, Nicholas Bergasse, and Isaac René Guy le Chapelier
).

Many proposals for redefining the French state were floated, particularly in the days after the remarkable sessions of

Marquis de Lafayette proposed a combination of the American and British systems, introducing a bicameral parliament, with the king having the suspensive veto power over the legislature, modeled to the authority then recently vested in the President of the United States
.

The main controversies early on surrounded the issues of what level of power to be granted to the

bicameral
). The Constitutional Committee proposed a bicameral legislature, but the motion was defeated 10 September 1789 (849–89) in favor of one house; the next day, they proposed an absolute veto, but were again defeated (673–325) in favor of a suspensive veto, which could be over-ridden by three consecutive legislatures.

New Constitutional Committee

A second Constitutional Committee quickly replaced it, and included Talleyrand, Abbé Sieyès, and Le Chapelier from the original group, as well as new members Gui-Jean-Baptiste Target, Jacques Guillaume Thouret, Jean-Nicolas Démeunier, François Denis Tronchet, and Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne, all of the Third Estate. As Simon Schama has pointed out, many of the members of the Constitutional Committee were themselves members of nobility, many of whom would later face execution.[3]

Their greatest controversy faced by this new committee surrounded the issue of

October Days (5–6 October) intervened and rendered the question much more complicated. In the end, a distinction was held between active citizens (over the age of 25, paid direct taxes equal to three days' labor) which had political rights, and passive citizens, who had only civil rights. This conclusion was intolerable to such radical deputies as Maximilien Robespierre
, and thereafter they never could be reconciled to the Constitution of 1791.

Committee of Revisions

A second body, the Committee of Revisions, was struck September 1790, and included

Barnave
, who used his position on the committee to preserve a number of powers for the Crown, such as the nomination of ambassadors, military leaders, and ministers.

Results

Proclamation of the Constitution on the place du marché des Innocents on September 14, 1791, by Jean-Louis Prieur, (Musée de la Révolution française).

After very long negotiations, the constitution was reluctantly accepted by King

Louis XVI
in September 1791. Redefining the organization of the French government, citizenship and the limits to the powers of government, the National Assembly set out to represent the interests of the
centralism
.

Evaluation

The Assembly, as constitution-framers, were afraid that if only representatives governed France, it was likely to be ruled by the representatives' self-interest; therefore, the king was allowed a suspensive veto to balance out the interests of the people. By the same token, representative democracy weakened the king’s executive authority.

The constitution was not egalitarian by today's standards. It distinguished between the propertied active citizens and the poorer passive citizens. Women lacked rights to liberties such as education, freedom to speak, write, print and worship.[citation needed]

Keith M. Baker writes in his essay “Constitution” that the National Assembly threaded between two options when drafting the Constitution: they could modify the existing, unwritten constitution centered on the three

Estates General or they could start over and rewrite it completely. The National Assembly wanted to reorganize social structure and legalize itself: while born of the Estates General of 1789
, it had abolished the tricameral structure of that body.

With the

10 August insurrection. A National Convention was called, electing Robespierre as its first deputy; it was the first assembly in France elected by universal male suffrage. The convention declared France a republic on 22 September 1792.[4]

Timeline of French constitutions

See also

References

  1. ^ The Constitution of 1791
  2. ISBN 978-0-393-93888-3
    .
  3. ^ Schama, Simon (1989). Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, NY: Penguin Books p. 478 [ISBN missing]
  4. ^ Pertue, M. "Constitution de 1791," in Soboul, Ed., "Dictionnaire historique de la Revolution francaise," pp. 282–283. Quadrige/PUF, Paris: 2005. [ISBN missing]
  5. ^ Opinion de M. de Tracy sur les affaires de Saint-Domingue, en septembre 1791. Paris: Laillet, s. a. (1791)

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