Constitution of the Kingdom of New Netherlands

Constitution of the Kingdom of New Netherlands

When the French invaded in 1794 the Dutch Republic, the pro-French Batavian Republic, a unitary state, was proclaimed. In responds the Council of Twenty Four Men, the fore runner of the New Netherlands States-General and Director-General Pierre Van Cortlandt in 1795 issued the Declaration of the Rights of the New Netherlands people (Dutch: Verklaring der Rechten Voor de Nieuw Nederlandse volk ) thereby declaring that the colony of New Netherlands would hence forth be an independent nation.

In 1798 the Constitution of the New Netherlands (Dutch: Grondwet voor Nieuw Nederland ) was written by the New Netherlands Constitutional Convention and approved by the New Netherlands Assembly. A year after the Kingdom of New Netherlands became a country within the United Kingdom of the Netherlands the New Netherlands Constitutional Convention in 1816 wrote the Constitution of the Kingdom New Netherlands (Dutch: Grondwet voor Koninkrijk der Nieuw Nederlanden) which was also approved by the New Netherlands Assembly.

The Constitution of the Kingdom New Netherlands was revised again in 1846 and which is considered the current version which is in force as of 1940. And which major changes where that suffrage was enlarged as was the Rights of the New Netherlands people.

In 1888 there was a minor revision to the Constitution of the Kingdom New Netherlands when the census suffrage system was replaced by one based on minimal wealth and education, which allowed an ever growing percentage of the male population to be given the right to vote and that penal measure not based on formal law was prohibited.

In 1919 the Constitution of the Kingdom New Netherlands, manhood suffrage was introduced combined with a system of proportional representation to elect the New Netherlands Assembly and the municipality councils.

By the revision of 1923 universal suffrage was explicitly adopted in the Constitution of the Kingdom New Netherlands, after it had already been introduced by law in 1919.

In 1939 the current Constitution of the Kingdom New Netherlands received a minor revision, introducing some elements of the then fashionable corporatism by giving a constitutional base to public bodies regulating sectors of the economy.