[Poland-Lithuania in the 1790’s] The Sejm realizing something all of Europe already knew



    by jackt-up

    4 Comments

    1. MrThickDick2023 on

      >In the period of 1573–1763, about 150 sejms were held, about a third failing to pass any legislation, mostly because of the liberum veto

      I’m actually very impressed that many sejms were able to pass anything with that rule.

    2. Tbh. role of veto in Commonwealth decline is really overblown.

      First full use of veto happend in 1669, by that point Commonwealth was already in decline (some point out 1652, but it was only about prolonging sejm, which was normal procedure actually).

      By 1764 institution was dead, as there were legal means to avoid veto by changing legal structure of sejm. Which paradoxically backfired as e.g. sejm that accepted 2nd partition of Poland used exactly that structure to avoid veto.

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