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Karl Ludwig von Haller
Karl Ludwig von Haller (1 August 1768 – 20 May 1854) was a Swiss jurist, statesman and political philosopher. He was the author of Restauration der Staatswissenschaft (Restoration of Political Science, 1816–1834), a book which gave its namesake to the Restoration period after the Congress of Vienna, and which Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel strongly criticized in §258 of Elements of the Philosophy of Right.
Von Haller's work, which was burnt during the Wartburg Festival, was a highly systematic defense both of the principles of dynastic legitimacy and monarchy founded on territorial lordship, as well as of pre-modern republics like those of the Swiss city-states, and considered one of the most consistent rejection of modern political ideas of the social contract, public law, and state sovereignty.
Von Haller was a son of Bern statesman and historian Gottlieb Emanuel von Haller, and grandson of poet and polymath Albrecht von Haller. His lineage descended from Johannes Haller (1487-1531), a Reformed preacher who died alongside Huldrych Zwingli in the Second War of Kappel.
He did not, however, receive an extensive education, but only some private lessons and a few classes at the Gymnasium. As a child Haller studied at a Greek school under Philipp Albert Stapfer, the latter going on to serve as an official in the Helvetic Republic. At the age of sixteen he entered the chancery of the Republic of Bern as a volunteer. The family moved to Nyon due to his father's promotion as a Landvogt (bailiff). He studied by himself and so filled out the gaps in his education. Following the death of his father in 1786, he became the de facto guardian of his estate. He is elected substitute chancellor the next year, and begins attending the lectures of Swiss theologian Johann Samuel Ith. At the age of nineteen, he was appointed to the important office of Kommissionsschreiber, or clerk of a public commission. In this capacity, he obtained an insight into methods of government, practical politics, and criminal procedure. As secretary of the Swiss diet held in Baden and Frauenfeld, he became familiar with the conditions of things in the Swiss Confederation.[citation needed]
In 1789 he began investing in a French annuity plan, which he resold two years later due to his ethical opposition to the French government's confiscation of church estates as biens nationaux. Around this time, he read the works of Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, and found himself drawn to constitutional liberalism.
A journey to Paris in 1790 provided him further acquaintance with new revolutionary ideas, and he was present at the Fête de la Fédération. The same year, he was elected to Bern's Kornkammer, responsible for managing the city's granaries. In 1792, he became a member of the Bernese Economic Society, and publishes his first written work, a report arguing against the export ban on butter. As secretary of legation he served several important embassies, for instance, one to Geneva in 1792, about the Swiss troops stationed there; to Ulm in 1795, regarding the import of grain from southern Germany; to Lugano, Milan, and Paris in 1797, regarding the neutral attitude of Switzerland towards the warring powers. These journeys acquainted him with some of the leading personalities of the day, including Napoleon and Talleyrand.
When the Old Swiss Confederacy was threatened[clarification needed] he was dispatched to Rastatt to allay the storm. It was too late, however, and by the time he returned in February 1798 the French army was already on Bernese territory. He tried to conciliate the authorities by penning a constitutional proposal, Projekt einer Constitution für die schweizerische Republik Bern, and attempted one last mediation with Gen. Guillaume Brune on March 1, 1798, but was unable to stay the dissolution of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Bern would fall definitively four days later at the Battle of Grauholz.
Von Haller soon renounced any liberal principles entirely, and became an uncompromising opponent of the Revolution. Thereupon he resigned the government office he had held under the revolutionary authorities and established a paper, the Helvetische Annalen, running for 64 issues from April to November 1798, in which he attacked the excesses and legislative schemes of the Helvetic Republic with such bitter sarcasm that the sheet was suppressed, and he himself had to flee to escape imprisonment. The specific article that led to his being proscribed was Beiträge zum einem revolutionären Gesetzbuch (Contributions to a revolutionary code of law), a political satire. Featuring lines such as “To slander or overturn any authority means patriotism, and to the patriots one should be loyal, but an ‘oligarch,’ or a citizen from a former capital, or an honest magistrate who has done his duty, is not a man, but a wild animal with which one can do what he wants,” the work did not impress the Helvetic authorities. Henceforth, von Haller was a reactionary and a divisive figure. The Swiss physiognomist Johann Kaspar Lavater was his most vocal defender in Switzerland during this time, and Haller would pay tribute to him in an essay after Lavater's death.
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Karl Ludwig von Haller
Karl Ludwig von Haller (1 August 1768 – 20 May 1854) was a Swiss jurist, statesman and political philosopher. He was the author of Restauration der Staatswissenschaft (Restoration of Political Science, 1816–1834), a book which gave its namesake to the Restoration period after the Congress of Vienna, and which Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel strongly criticized in §258 of Elements of the Philosophy of Right.
Von Haller's work, which was burnt during the Wartburg Festival, was a highly systematic defense both of the principles of dynastic legitimacy and monarchy founded on territorial lordship, as well as of pre-modern republics like those of the Swiss city-states, and considered one of the most consistent rejection of modern political ideas of the social contract, public law, and state sovereignty.
Von Haller was a son of Bern statesman and historian Gottlieb Emanuel von Haller, and grandson of poet and polymath Albrecht von Haller. His lineage descended from Johannes Haller (1487-1531), a Reformed preacher who died alongside Huldrych Zwingli in the Second War of Kappel.
He did not, however, receive an extensive education, but only some private lessons and a few classes at the Gymnasium. As a child Haller studied at a Greek school under Philipp Albert Stapfer, the latter going on to serve as an official in the Helvetic Republic. At the age of sixteen he entered the chancery of the Republic of Bern as a volunteer. The family moved to Nyon due to his father's promotion as a Landvogt (bailiff). He studied by himself and so filled out the gaps in his education. Following the death of his father in 1786, he became the de facto guardian of his estate. He is elected substitute chancellor the next year, and begins attending the lectures of Swiss theologian Johann Samuel Ith. At the age of nineteen, he was appointed to the important office of Kommissionsschreiber, or clerk of a public commission. In this capacity, he obtained an insight into methods of government, practical politics, and criminal procedure. As secretary of the Swiss diet held in Baden and Frauenfeld, he became familiar with the conditions of things in the Swiss Confederation.[citation needed]
In 1789 he began investing in a French annuity plan, which he resold two years later due to his ethical opposition to the French government's confiscation of church estates as biens nationaux. Around this time, he read the works of Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, and found himself drawn to constitutional liberalism.
A journey to Paris in 1790 provided him further acquaintance with new revolutionary ideas, and he was present at the Fête de la Fédération. The same year, he was elected to Bern's Kornkammer, responsible for managing the city's granaries. In 1792, he became a member of the Bernese Economic Society, and publishes his first written work, a report arguing against the export ban on butter. As secretary of legation he served several important embassies, for instance, one to Geneva in 1792, about the Swiss troops stationed there; to Ulm in 1795, regarding the import of grain from southern Germany; to Lugano, Milan, and Paris in 1797, regarding the neutral attitude of Switzerland towards the warring powers. These journeys acquainted him with some of the leading personalities of the day, including Napoleon and Talleyrand.
When the Old Swiss Confederacy was threatened[clarification needed] he was dispatched to Rastatt to allay the storm. It was too late, however, and by the time he returned in February 1798 the French army was already on Bernese territory. He tried to conciliate the authorities by penning a constitutional proposal, Projekt einer Constitution für die schweizerische Republik Bern, and attempted one last mediation with Gen. Guillaume Brune on March 1, 1798, but was unable to stay the dissolution of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Bern would fall definitively four days later at the Battle of Grauholz.
Von Haller soon renounced any liberal principles entirely, and became an uncompromising opponent of the Revolution. Thereupon he resigned the government office he had held under the revolutionary authorities and established a paper, the Helvetische Annalen, running for 64 issues from April to November 1798, in which he attacked the excesses and legislative schemes of the Helvetic Republic with such bitter sarcasm that the sheet was suppressed, and he himself had to flee to escape imprisonment. The specific article that led to his being proscribed was Beiträge zum einem revolutionären Gesetzbuch (Contributions to a revolutionary code of law), a political satire. Featuring lines such as “To slander or overturn any authority means patriotism, and to the patriots one should be loyal, but an ‘oligarch,’ or a citizen from a former capital, or an honest magistrate who has done his duty, is not a man, but a wild animal with which one can do what he wants,” the work did not impress the Helvetic authorities. Henceforth, von Haller was a reactionary and a divisive figure. The Swiss physiognomist Johann Kaspar Lavater was his most vocal defender in Switzerland during this time, and Haller would pay tribute to him in an essay after Lavater's death.