Page:Constitutional Charter of the Kingdom of Poland, In the Year 1815.pdf/45



The protection here promised, which was in general terms, and ought consequently to have extended to the relations of subject and ruler, was null and void with respect to the grand duke. Every one was exposed to be the victim of his rage, or of the counsels of those who were about him, and the law offered no redress for the injuries which might result from it. This deficiency in the existing laws was generally felt, but the constitution assigned the initiation of new laws exclusively to the sovereign; which proves the insufficiency of the charter as respects the formation of laws.

All Europe has resounded with outcries at the violation of these articles; and volumes might be written on the subject. Such was the manner of proceeding towards the unhappy Poles, that it would have been supposed there were articles in their constitution diametrically opposite to those we have cited. During the fifteen years which have elapsed since the birth of the modern kingdom of Poland, in all which time a restless police—a police paid for the express purpose of hatching conspiracies—has never ceased to bring forward its political accusations—in all this time not one man has been tried by the regular tribunals; they have all been tried and sentenced by the grand duke. ever shall we forget the unfortunate Lukasinski condemned to degradation and perpetual imprisonment by a commission nominated by the grand duke. Long shall we remember the persecution of the nuncio, Vincent Niemoiewski, confined for years to his own estate, for having freely expressed in the diet, opinions which were not contrary to the state of things established by the charter. The only cause submitted to the high national court was that of Soltyk, Kryzanowski and others, and in this case it is observable that the grand duke had already discharged the functions of preliminary