Instrument of Government (1772) replaced by Constitution Act of Finland
Coup of 1809
After the Swedish defeat in the Finnish War, a coup d'état was mounted against Gustav's son and successor, King Gustav IV Adolf, by disgruntled liberals and army officers. The king was forced to abdicate and sent into exile, and a new constitution was then drawn up, the Instrument of Government (1809), which superseded the 1772 Instrument.In Finland after 1809
In the Grand Duchy of Finland, created in 1809 from the eastern third of Sweden as part of the Russian Empire, the 1772 Instrument of Government had a peculiar status. While the Russian emperors, reigning in Finland as grand dukes, never gave any indication that they considered their autocratic powers limited by any constitution, a theory was developed in Finland that the old Instrument of Government remained in force, mutatis mutandis, with Finland's position as part of the Empire having the nature of a personal union. This theory was, however, never put forward officially and never accepted in St. Petersburg. It did gain considerable popular currency in Finland, so that Russification measures instituted from the 1890s onwards were commonly decried as an "unconstitutional" assault on the country's autonomy. The "Constitutionals" (perustuslailliset) were an important political faction in Finland at this time, and their legacy of constitutional legalism has had a significant effect on later Finnish politics.
The matter remained officially uncontested and arguably unresolved for more than a century, but after the abdication of Nicholas II in 1917, the Parliament of Finland, as successor to the old Estates of the Realm, moved to assume sovereign power in Finland, based on the old Swedish provisions in case of a vacancy on the throne. This led to a power struggle with the Provisional Government of Russia, as well as within Finland, culminating, after the October revolution, in the Finnish declaration of independence.
The Instrument of Government was finally superseded when Finland adopted a new, republican instrument of government in 1919.
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