Since the
sixteenth century, the monarchy had been elective, with the result that
the reign of every sovereign was disfigured by foreign intrigues and
domestic squabbles over the choice of his successor, and also that the
noble electors were able not only to secure liberal bribes but to wring
from the elect such concessions as gradually reduced the kingship to an
ornamental figurehead. Most of the later kings were foreigners who used
what little power was left to them in furtherance of their native
interests rather than of the welfare of Poland. Thus the kings in the
first half of the eighteenth century were German electors of Saxony,
who owed their new position to the interested friendship of Austria,
Prussia, or Russia, and to the large sums of money which they lavished
upon the Polish magnates; these same Saxon rulers cheerfully applied
the Polish resources to their German policies.
Another absurdity of the Polish constitution was the famous "_liberum
veto_," a kind of gentlemen's agreement among the magnates, whereby
no law whatsoever could be enacted by the Diet if a single member felt
it was prejudicial to his interests, and objected.
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