civil head, with the
direction that he should nominate a National Council to be under his
supreme authority. The proclamation then enters into the details of his
functions and those of the Council. He alone was responsible for the
military conduct of the war. Its financial management, the levy of taxes
for its support, internal order and the administration of justice, were
under the jurisdiction of the Council, to which was entrusted the task
of endeavouring to gain foreign help and of "directing public opinion
and diffusing the national spirit so that Country and Liberty may be the
signal to all the inhabitants of Polish soil for the greatest
sacrifices." All those who should act in any way against the Rising were
to be punished by death. Emphasis was laid on the fact that the
government was provisional, to rule only until the enemy should be
finally driven out of Poland, and that it held no power of making a
fresh constitution. "Any such act will be considered by us as a
usurpation of the national sovereignty, similar to that against which at
the sacrifice of our lives we are now rising." The head of the
government and the National Council were bound by the terms of the Act
"to instruct the nation by frequent proclamations on the true state of
its affairs, neither concealing nor softening the most unfortunate
events. Our despair is full, and the love of our country unbounded. The
heaviest misfortunes, the mightiest difficulties, will not succeed in
weakening and breaking the virtue of the nation and the courage of her
citizens.

"We all mutually promise one another and the whole Polish nation
steadfastness in the enterprise, fidelity to its principles, submission
to the national rulers specified and described in this Act of our
Rising. We conjure the commander of the armed forces and the Supreme
Council for the love of their country to use every means for the
liberation of the nation and the preservation of her soil. Laying in
their hands the disposal of our persons and property for such time as
the war of freedom against despotism, of justice against oppression and
tyranny, shall last, we desire that they always have present this
great truth: that the preservation of a people is the highest law."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Act of the Rising_. T. Korzon, _Kosciuszko_.]

For the first time in Poland--and it would have been an equal novelty in
most other countries of the period--nobles and peasants side by side
signed their a