Page 195 - Beholding Liberty!

i. The Peloponnesian Senate, the result of a series of state-building initiatives in the insurgent Morea, beginning with the assembly at Kaltezes (May 1821), the assemblies at Vervena (July 1821) and Zarakova (August 1821), and, finally, the assembly at Argos (December 1821), chaired by Dimitrios Ypsilantis and attended by 24 representatives appointed by indirect election.
ii. The Organisation of the Senate of Western Greece, voted on the initiative of Alexandros Mav- rokordatos on November 4, 1821, by an assembly of 33 local dignitaries who met in Mesolong- hi and represented the regions of Aitolia and Epirus.
iii. The Legal Order of Eastern Continental Greece, or Areopagos, the Senate of Eastern Greece, texts drafted by Theodoros Negris and enacted on November 15, 1821, at Salona (today’s Amfis- sa) in Fokida by a 70-member assembly representing all of eastern continental Greece, from Attica to Macedonia.
This overview of the regional forms of government of the Struggle would not be complete with- out mentioning the constitutional charters drawn up by assemblies of the insurgent populations of two islands, Samos and Crete, which made their own distinctive contributions to the revolu- tion. On May 12, 1821, in Chora, Samos, an assembly of representatives of the whole island rat- ified a draft for a system of governance proposed by the leader of the local uprising, Logothetis Lykourgos (Georgios Paplomatas), titled Report of the Local System of Samos. On May 20, 1822, The Provisional Government of the Island of Crete was ratified by an assembly of representatives of the island, which had been in revolt since June 1821.
The importance of the emergence of regional systems of governance as elements of the revolu- tionary act lay, first of all, in their expressed intention to establish the rule of law in the insurgent areas and, secondly, in the attempt to integrate into the modern model of political and admin- istrative organisation they introduced certain elements of traditional Greek social life, such as community representation, the integration of armed elements into the new administrative struc- ture so as to bring them under the control of law and order, and the re-enactment of the law of the “late Christian emperors”.
We know, of course, that the regional forms of government of the Struggle did not get a chance to be put to the test in practice, as they were made obsolete by the constitutions of a national scope which were ratified by the national assemblies of Epidaurus, Astros and Troezen. The ex- istence of the early constitutional drafts of regional forms of government, however, is of partic- ular significance, as it established – as early as the first year of the Struggle – a framework for political reflection which gave substance to the emergent Greek constitutionalism. Moreover, the systems of governance of Crete and Samos, in particular – two Greek islands that, despite their struggles and sacrifices, were not fortunate enough to be included within the borders of inde- pendent Greece – created constitutional precedents for the two island communities that would be followed by the sequence of drafting acts and statutory reforms that marked, during the nineteenth century through 1912–1913, the political history of the two islands, which enjoyed an autonomous status, thanks mainly to their resolute participation in the 1821 Struggle.
The most important acquis for Greek constitutionalism during the revolutionary decade, how- ever, was accumulated by the three national constitutions voted by the First, Second and Third National Assemblies at Epidaurus, Astros and Troezen, on January 1, 1822, April 13, 1823, and May 1, 1827, respectively. This established in revolutionary Greece and bequeathed to indepen- dent Greece, which emerged on the international scene with the protocol of London, of February 3, 1830, a newly-developed tradition of constitutionalism, which was to prove decisive for the
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