What is a constitution and why does it matter?
A constitution is the highest law of a state. It says:
- who makes laws, who governs and who judges;
- how power is limited and checked;
- which rights citizens have;
- how the constitution itself can be changed.
The idea behind it is constitutionalism: government must follow fixed rules, and even the ruler is under the law (the rule of law). The opposite is absolutism, where one ruler holds all power and answers to no one.
Key terms
- Sovereignty: the final power in a state. Liberals said it belongs to the nation or the people, not the king.
- Written vs unwritten: most states have one written document; the United Kingdom uses many laws and customs instead.
- Charter (granted) vs constitution (voted): a charter is given by a king as a favour; a constitution is made by representatives of the nation.
- Rigid vs flexible: hard or easy to amend.
Early limits on rulers (1215–1700)
Magna Carta, 1215
English barons forced King John to accept a charter: the king must respect old customs and no free man may be jailed or punished without lawful judgment. At first it protected nobles, but later people saw it as a symbol that the king is under the law.
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (from 1569)
The Union of Lublin (1569) joined the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into one state with one ruler and one parliament, the Sejm, while each kept its own army, treasury and law. After the last Jagiellonian king died (1572), the nobility (szlachta) created an elective monarchy: all nobles could come to vote for the king (free election, from 1573). Each new king had to sign the Henrician Articles (promises to call the Sejm, not to raise taxes or declare war without it, and to respect religious tolerance) and the pacta conventa (personal promises). This system is often called "noble democracy": around 8–10% of people, the nobles, had political rights, a large share for that time.
England's Bill of Rights, 1689
After the Glorious Revolution Parliament declared that the monarch cannot suspend laws, raise taxes or keep an army in peacetime without its consent. England became a constitutional monarchy.
Enlightenment ideas behind constitutions
- John Locke: people have natural rights to life, liberty and property; government exists to protect them, by consent of the governed.
- Montesquieu (1748): split power into legislative, executive and judicial branches so that "power checks power".
- Rousseau: the social contract and the general will; sovereignty belongs to the people.
These ideas became the core of liberalism: individual rights, equality before the law, a parliament, a written constitution and the free market.
The first written constitutions (1787–1812)
United States, 1787
The oldest written national constitution still in force. A federal republic with separation of powers and checks and balances; a Bill of Rights was added in 1791.
The Commonwealth in the 18th century and the 3 May Constitution, 1791
In the 1700s, under the Saxon kings, the Commonwealth was weak: the liberum veto let a single deputy break up the Sejm, and neighbouring powers interfered. After the First Partition (1772), reformers led the Four-Year Sejm (1788–1792). On 3 May 1791 it passed Europe's first modern written national constitution: it abolished the liberum veto and the free election (the throne became hereditary), set up separation of powers, gave some rights to townspeople and took peasants under the protection of the law. Opponents and foreign armies overturned it in 1792, and the state was partitioned out of existence by 1795, but the constitution remained a symbol of reform.
France, 1791
After the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), France's first constitution made the king a constitutional monarch and gave the vote to "active citizens" who paid a minimum tax.
Spain, Cádiz 1812
Written during the war against Napoleon, the Cádiz Constitution (nicknamed "La Pepa") declared national sovereignty, separation of powers, a single-chamber parliament (Cortes), wide indirect male suffrage and equality before the law. It was cancelled in 1814 but became a model for liberals in Southern Europe and Latin America.
Liberal regimes in the 19th century and the road to democracy
Across 19th-century Europe, rulers and liberals fought over constitutions. Common types:
- Granted charters (e.g. France 1814, Spain 1834): the king keeps most power.
- Moderate liberal constitutions: shared sovereignty of king and parliament, census suffrage (only men with property or tax), two chambers.
- Progressive or democratic constitutions: national sovereignty, more rights, and universal male suffrage (France 1848, Spain 1869).
An example of a country's sequence: Romania
1866: a constitutional monarchy based on a Belgian model, census vote. 1923: universal male suffrage and more rights. 1938: an authoritarian royal constitution. 1948 and 1965: communist constitutions that kept rights only on paper. 1991: a democratic, parliamentary republic with a constitutional court (revised 2003). Many countries show a similar zig-zag between liberal, authoritarian and democratic texts.
Toward democracy
In the 20th century most countries gave women the vote (for example New Zealand 1893, many European states after 1918) and adopted universal adult suffrage. New constitutions added social rights (education, work, health) and constitutional courts. India's Constitution (1950) gave every adult the vote from the very first election.
Try it
Ask an older relative in which year they first voted and what they had to be (age, citizen). Then use the 3D vote slider: how many of the 20 people could have voted in each stage?
Key formulas and definitions
- Constitution: supreme law on power, limits and rights
- Absolutism: ruler above the law; constitutionalism: ruler under the law
- Separation of powers: legislative, executive, judicial
- Census suffrage: only property owners or taxpayers vote
- Universal suffrage: all adult citizens vote
- Constitutional monarchy: monarch limited by a constitution
- Parliamentary monarchy: monarch is a symbol; government answers to parliament
- Liberum veto: one deputy could block the whole Sejm (abolished 1791)
Worked examples
1. A king gives his people a document granting some rights but keeps the power to change it himself. Is this a charter or a constitution? Why?
A granted charter. It comes from the king's will, not from representatives of the nation, so sovereignty stays with the king.
2. Why did reformers in 1791 abolish the liberum veto?
Because one deputy could cancel a whole Sejm session and all its laws, so the state could not pass taxes, build an army or reform. Foreign powers bribed deputies to use it.
3. In a country only men paying at least a set tax can vote. Later every man over 21 can vote, and later still every adult. Name the three stages.
Census suffrage → universal male suffrage → universal (adult) suffrage.
4. Put the separation of powers into practice: a parliament passes a law, the government carries it out, and a court rules it breaks citizens' rights. Which branch did what?
Parliament = legislative (made the law); government = executive (applied it); court = judicial (checked it against the constitution and stopped it).
Common mistakes
- Saying Magna Carta created democracy. It protected mainly nobles and the Church; its long-term value was the idea that the ruler is under the law.
- Calling the Polish–Lithuanian elective monarchy a democracy for all. Only nobles (about a tenth of people) had political rights.
- Mixing up constitutional monarchy and parliamentary monarchy. In the first the monarch still governs with real power; in the second the monarch is mainly a symbol.
- Thinking a written constitution always means democracy. Authoritarian and communist states also had written constitutions whose rights were not respected.