Constitution of 1791: Drafting Process
One of the stated goals of the National Assembly formed by the Third Estate on June 13, 1789, was to write a constitution. A twelve-member Constitutional Committee was convened on July 14, 1789 (coincidentally the day of the Storming of the Bastille). Its task was to draft most of the articles of the constitution. It originally included two members from the First Estate; two from the Second; and four from the Third. Many proposals for redefining the French state were floated, particularly in the days after the remarkable sessions of August 4-5, when feudalism was abolished. For instance, the Marquis de Lafayette proposed a combination of the American and British systems, introducing a bicameral parliament, with the king having the suspensive veto power over the legislature, modeled on the authority then recently vested in the President of the United States.
The main early controversies surrounded the issues of what level of power should be granted to the king of France and what form would the legislature take (i.e.: unicameral or bicameral). The Constitutional Committee proposed a bicameral legislature, but the motion was defeated in favor of one house. They also proposed an absolute veto, but were again defeated in favor of a suspensive veto, which could be overridden by three consecutive legislatures.
A second Constitutional Committee quickly replaced the first one. It included three members from the original group as well as five new members, all of the Third Estate. The greatest controversy faced by the new committee surrounded the issue of citizenship. The critical question to consider was: Would every subject of the French Crown be given equal rights, as the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen theoretically promised, or would there be some restrictions? The March on Versaille (October 5-6), led by women from marketplaces around Paris, rendered the question even more complicated. In the end, a distinction between active citizens who held political rights (males over the age of 25 who paid direct taxes equal to three days' labor) and passive citizens, who had only civil rights, was drawn. Some radical deputies, such as Maximilien Robespierre, could not accept the distinction.
A second body, the Committee of Revisions, was created in September 1790. Because the National Assembly was both a legislature and a constitutional convention, it was not always clear when its decrees were constitutional articles or mere statutes. It was the task of the Committee of Revisions to sort it out. The committee became very important in the days after the Champs de Mars Massacre (July 17, 1791), when a wave of opposition against popular movements swept France and resulted in a renewed effort to preserve powers of the Crown. The result was the rise of the Feuillants, a new political faction led by Antoine Barnave, one of the Committee's members who used his position to preserve a number of powers of the Crown, including the nomination of ambassadors, military leaders, and ministers.
The Constitution
After very long negotiations, a new constitution was reluctantly accepted by Louis XVI in September 1791. Redefining the organization of the French government, citizenship, and the limits to the powers of government, the National Assembly set out to represent the interests of the public. It abolished many institutions defined as "injurious to liberty and equality of rights." The National Assembly asserted its legal presence as part of the French government by establishing its permanence in the Constitution and forming a system of recurring elections. The National Assembly was the legislative body, the king and royal ministers made up the executive branch, and the judiciary was independent of the other two branches. On a local level, previous feudal geographic divisions were formally abolished and the territory of the French state was divided into several administrative unit (Départements), but with the principle of centralism.
The Assembly, as constitution-framers, were concerned that if only representatives governed France, they were likely to be motivated by their own self-interest. Therefore the king was allowed a suspensive veto to balance out the interests of the people. By the same token, representative democracy weakened the king’s executive authority. However, the constitution was not egalitarian by today's standards. It distinguished between the active citizens (only male property owners of certain age) and the passive citizens. All women were deprived of rights and liberties, including the right to education, freedom to speak, write, print, and worship.
The first page of the French Constitution of 1791, Archives Nationales.
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. One of the basic precepts of the revolution was adopting constitutionality and establishing popular sovereignty.
Effectiveness
With the onset of French Revolutionary Wars and the involvement of foreign powers in the conflict, radical Jacobin and ultimately republican conceptions grew enormously in popularity, increasing the influence of Robespierre, Danton, Marat and the Paris Commune. When the King used his veto powers to protect non-juring priests and refused to raise militias in defense of the revolutionary government, the constitutional monarchy proved no longer acceptable to radical revolutionaries and was effectively ended by the August 10 Insurrection. A National Convention was called, electing Robespierre as its first deputy. It was the first assembly in France elected by universal male suffrage. The convention declared France a republic on September 22, 1792, which meant that France needed a new constitution.