Government
The government of the Congress of Poland was outlined in the Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland in 1815. The Emperor of Russia was the official head of state, considered the King of Poland, with the local government headed by the Viceroy of the Kingdom of Poland (Polish: Namiestnik), Council of State and Administrative Council, in addition to the Sejm.
In theory, Congress Poland possessed one of the most liberal governments of the time in Europe, but in practice the area was a puppet state of the Russian Empire. The liberal provisions of the constitution, and the scope of the autonomy, were often disregarded by the Russian officials.
Read more about this topic: Congress Poland
Famous quotes containing the word government:
“Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.”
—Andrew Jackson (17671845)
“... Washington was not only an important capital. It was a city of fear. Below that glittering and delightful surface there is another story, that of underpaid Government clerks, men and women holding desperately to work that some political pull may at any moment take from them. A city of men in office and clutching that office, and a city of struggle which the country never suspects.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (18761958)
“[F]rom Saratoga [N.Y.] till we got back to Northampton [Mass.], was then mostly desert. Now it is what 34. years of free and good government have made it. It shews how soon the labor of man would make a paradise of the whole earth, were it not for misgovernment, and a diversion of all his energies from their proper object, the happiness of man, to the selfish interests of kings, nobles and priests.”
—Thomas Jefferson (17431826)