There was still a King, but a Legislative Assembly would make the laws. 6. Identify three adjectives that could be used to describe Columbus and explain why. Again, this was resolved with debate and compromise. In France in 1789-90, the National Constituent Assembly remained wedded to the idea of a constitutional monarchy. Updates? Their deliberations eventually produced the Constitution of 1791, which was ratified in September that year. Voting was not a natural right conferred on all: it was a privilege available to those who owned property and paid tax. The Constitution of 1791 In September 1791, the National Assembly released its much-anticipated Constitution of 1791 , which created a constitutional monarchy , or limited monarchy , for France. The constitution established a limited monarchy, with a clear separation of powers in which the king was to name and dismiss his ministers. The main features of the Constitution of 1791 are given below: (i) France became a Constitutional monarchy. One of the basic precepts of the revolution was adopting constitutionality and … Proclamation of the Constitution of 1791 On the day of the Tennis Court Oath, the National Assembly had declared that it would not disband until a new constitution had been created for France. “When the Constitution of 1791 was finally adopted, it embodied a fundamental contradiction and a recipe for constitutional impasse. ‘Active citizens’ were males over the age of 25 who paid annual taxes equivalent to at least three days’ wages. The king’s attempt to escape Paris and the revolution brought anti-royalist and republican sentiment to the boil. These could not be taken away. Date published: August 1, 2020 those who paid a minimum amount of taxation. It was eventually decided to give the king a suspensive veto. The Assembly delegated the task of drafting the constitution to a special constitutional committee. It retained the monarchy, but sovereignty effectively resided in the Legislative Assembly, which was elected by a system of indirect voting. This new constitution set up a limited monarchy. France now had a constitutional monarchy but the monarch, by his actions, had shown no faith in the constitution. To safeguard national sovereignty from the dangers of representation it permitted the monarch to veto legislative decrees – and hence paralyse the Assembly… As a result of the veto the Constitution of 1791, as Brissot remarked, could only function under a ‘revolutionary king’… Once it appeared, in the spring of 1792, that Louis XVI’s exercise of the veto was frustrating rather than upholding the will of the nation, the monarch and the Constitution itself were under siege.” The Assembly eventually concluded that France should be a constitutional monarchy with a unicameral (one house) legislature. The constitution retitled Louis XVI as “King of the French”, granted him a reduced civil list, allowed him to select and appoint ministers and gave him suspensive veto power. Gary Kates. The biggest disagreement was over how much power the King of France should have in such a system. The short-lived French Constitution of 1791 was the first written constitution in France, created after the collapse of the absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime. St. Domingue’s slave-based sugar and coffee industries had been fast-growing and successful, and by the 1760s it had become the most profitable colony in the Americas. The American constitution embraced and codified several Enlightenment ideas, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau‘s popular sovereignty and Montesquieu’s separation of powers. The fate of the 1791 Constitution, however, hinged on the attitude and actions of King Louis XVI. By October 1789, the committee was wrestling with the question of exactly who would elect the government. The major undertaking of the National Assembly was the Constitution of 1791. For more information on usage, please refer to our Terms of Use. In many ways, the Constitution of 1791 seemed to fulfill the promises of reform which had been first uttered by the men of 1789. First, they had to find a constitutional role for the king and determine what political powers, if any, he should retain. This French Revolution site contains articles, sources and perspectives on events in France between 1781 and 1795. A more pressing question was whether he would have the power to block laws passed by the legislature. This group, led by Sieyès and Talleyrand, won the day in the National Constituent Assembly. The Constitution of 1791 was the revolutionary government’s first attempt at a written constitutional document. 4. By way of comparison, England in 1780 was a nation of around eight million people, yet only 214,000 people were eligible to vote. The powers of the king were reduced to a great extent. Men like John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu and Thomas Paine believed that government must be founded on rational principles and organised in a way that best serves the people. The king’s flight to Varennes in June 1791 rendered the Constitution of 1791, and thus the constitutional monarchy, unworkable. One of the basic precepts of the revolution was adopting constitutionality and establishing popular sovereignty. This Constitution of 1791 created a limited/constitutional monarchy in France. The National Constituent Assembly’s property qualifications were considerably more generous than that. The reluctance, and in part open enmity, of the Catholic church to accept the new Civil Constitution of the Clergy (see July 12, 1790) prompts the National Constituent Assembly to demand from the clergy an oath of obedience to this decree. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. 2. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. It was, in effect, a property qualification on voting rights. 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