At the end of the Napoleonic wars, Alexander I became head of a newly constituted Kingdom of Poland and awarded to the country a liberal charter guaranteeing fundamental rights.

The tradition existing in your country has permitted me immediately to enact this constitution. I am guided by the principles of constitutionally endowed institutions, which are constantly the object of my thoughts and whose salutory influence I hope, God willing, to extend to all countries entrusted to me by Providence…. You have given me the means to show my country what I have been preparing for it for many years and of what it can avail itself when the foundations for such an important event achieve a desired maturity. [P]rove to your contemporaries that liberal institutions... are not at all a dangerous marvel [but, when stripped of] subversive doctrines, they accord perfectly with order and produce by common agreement the true prosperity of nations.

From: Ostaf'evskii arkhiv kniazei Viazemskikh [The Ostafevskii Archive of the Viazemskiis]. Edited by S. D. Sheremetev and V. I. Saitov. Vol. I. St. Petersburg, 1899. Translated by Cynthia Hyla Whittaker.
Reprinted courtesy of Cynthia Hyla Whittaker