Altho, as time passed, the General Assembly (viche—a name that is applied to all political assemblies of the Ukrainians to this day) partly regained their former power, and, altho at the same time various provisions of the original constitution sifted into the new governmental organization, monarchy, nevertheless, always remained something extraneous and unpleasant to the people. There is no wonder, therefore, that the State of Kiev never attained a power in keeping with its great territory and population. The people ostensibly supported everything which tended to weaken the power of the government. Thru the entire existence of the ancient Kingdom of Kiev, its Great Princes were forced to wrestle with the Boyar nobility and the people for absolute power. This limitation of the monarchic power turned out to be a disaster for the Kingdom of Kiev. By applying the practice of succession to the throne, in accordance with a principle known as that of “seniority,” there resulted the formation of numerous petty principalities, all rather loosely, perhaps only nominally, subject to the authority of the Great Prince of Kiev. The Boyar caste and the people were very persistent in their labors to aid in the formation and maintenance of these petty principalities [180]thruout the southern portion of the Kingdom of Kiev. At the same time, it is very probable that if the ancient State of Kiev had survived a longer time, the Ukrainian People would gradually have become accustomed to a constitution founded on caste and privilege. It would also have been possible, as early as the Middle Ages, for the Ukrainian People to attain a constitutional monarchy. But things happened differently. The Kingdom, weakened by partitions, was soon confronted by a powerful enemy in the young Muscovite State which was formed by the northern petty principalities of the Kingdom. In a series of bloody wars with the Muscovite State, Kiev was so permanently weakened that the headquarters of Ukrainian political life had to be shifted southward, in the 13th Century, to Halich on the Dniester.