DECLARATION OF THE STATES ASSEMBLED

All laws and statutes, old and new, contrary to the present constitution, or to any part thereof, are hereby abolished; and every paragraph in the foregoing articles, to be a competent part of the present constitution is acknowledged. We recommend to the executive power to see the Council of Guardians immediately begin its office under the eye of the Diet, and continue its duties without the least interruption.

We swear before God and the country to maintain and defend, with all possible human power, the present constitution; and considering this oath as a proof of real love of our country, we command all magistrates and troops here present to take it immediately. The commission of war shall issue orders to the rest of the army, quartered in the Kingdom, and in the grand Dutchy of Lithuania, to do the same within one month at farthest from the date of the present law.

We recommend to our Bishops to appoint one and the same day of public thanksgiving to God Almighty, in all churches over the kingdom; also, we appoint a day, N. N. for the solemn celebrating by us and our posterity, of a commemoration anniversary for the mercies of the Supreme Being shown to us after so many public calamities.

And that future ages may know and feel that it is by the assistance of the Supreme Disposer of nations we have surmounted the greatest difficulties and obstacles, and effected this happy Revolution, we decree, that a church shall be erected and consecrated to Divine Providence in memory of this event, and at the expense of the States.

Having thus satisfied our general feelings on this event, we turn our attention towards securing the same constitution, by declaring and enacting, that whoever should dare to oppose it, or to disturb the public tranquillity, either by exciting mistrust, or by perverse interpretation of this constitution, and much more by forming insurrections and confederacies, either openly or secretly, such person or persons are declared to be enemies and traitors to their country, and shall be punished as such with the utmost rigour by the Diet Tribunal. For this purpose we order this Tribunal to sit uninterruptedly at Warsaw, proroguing their sessions from day to day, and to try all persons so accused by any citizen of property, with the assistance of the Attorneys General of Poland and Lithuania, seizing all indicted persons, with the aid of the national troops, which shall be ready to act on the first order from the executive power as they shall be directed, and occasion may require.