'Machines of Government': Replacing the Liberum Veto in the Eighteenth-Century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

'Machines of Government': Replacing the Liberum Veto in the Eighteenth-Century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by Jerzy Lukowski The last century of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth saw a variety of proposals for modifying or replacing its notorious liberum veto the right of any individual envoy to its parliament, the Sejm, to terminate proceedings and nullify any legislation agreed. The most striking characteristic of these proposals was a greater or lesser degree of complexity. The veto was a simple device for the defence of supposedly almost timeless rights and privileges, which in their totality made up noble 'liberty'; replacement of the veto, and putting in adequate safeguards for noble freedoms, was to be anything but straightforward.