Constitution of 3 May 1791 3 May. Consistently with the U.S. Constitution, some background features, such as the order of the governmental Articles firstly distinguished the legislative power (Article VI), next the executive power (Article VII), and the judiciary power (Article VIII), with independent judges to be elected in small constituencies. Others have called it the world's second-oldest codified national governmental constitution after the 1787 U.S. Constitution; the U.S. Constitution was the first governmental constitution introducing a clear division of the executive, legislative and judiciary powers, accordingly with the legal and philosophical values influential in the Enlightenment. Polish constitutionalism can be traced to the 13th
French Constitution of 1793 of the need to employ emergency war powers during the French Revolutionary War. Those same emergency powers would permit the Committee of Public Safety to conduct the Reign of Terror, and when that long period of violent political combat was over, the constitution was invalidated by its association with the defeated Robespierre. In the Thermidorian Reaction, it was discarded in favor of a more conservative document, the Constitution of 1795. The National Convention chose Louis Saint-Just and several other deputies to serve on a committee that would draft a new governmental system for the recently established Republic. The new constitution