Anton Martin Schweigaard

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Anton Martin Schweigaard

Anton Martin Schweigaard "Anton Martinus Schweigaard" (born April 11, 1808 in Kragerø , Telemark , † February 1, 1870 in Christiania ) was a Norwegian lawyer, economist and politician.

Life

Schweigaard was the son of the merchant Jørgen Fredrik Schweigaard (1771-1818) and his wife Johanne Marie Dahll (1785-1818).

He grew up in Kragerø, where his father ran a not particularly prosperous general store. He and his three sisters grew up in very humble circumstances. Both parents died when he was 10 years old, and from then on he was looked after by his grandmother Dahll. He was actually intended to take over his father's general store.

But he was first sent to Westerholt in Lower Saxony to learn languages. There it was Pastor Koeppen who noticed the boy's special talent and urged his parents to send him to the Latin school in Skien . Alongside Peter Andreas Munch, he soon became the best in his class and passed the Artium 1828 exam with the best result to date in Norway. After a short vicariate in Norwegian and Greek at his old school, he began studying law at the University of Christiania and in 1832 passed the state examination with special distinction, which was even reported to the king. In 1835 he became a lecturer at the law school. In 1840 he became a professor of law, economics and statistics.

Schweigaards gate in Oslo.

He married on September 24, 1835 in Kragerø Caroline Magnine Homann (1814-1870), daughter of the district doctor Christian Horrebow Homann (1782-1860) and his wife Boel (actually "Bodil") Catharine Biørn (1796-1865). It was a happy marriage and he died just five days after her death. The common funeral ceremony took place in the Holy Trinity Church in Christiania and they were buried “Vår Frelsers gravlund” (Savior Cemetery). Donations were raised for a memorial that was executed by Julius Middelthun and unveiled on University Square. The new road connecting Christiania and the then suburb of Oslo (today Gamlebyen) was named "Schweigaards gate" in 1879.

effect

The academic beginnings

As a student he joined the student group “Intelligensen” and soon became their central figure. It was a group of students who had resigned from the “Det norske Studenterforbund” student association in protest against Henrik Arnold Wergeland . This group included the later famous Christian Birch-Reichenwald , Johan Sebastian Welhaven , Peter Andreas Munch and Frederik Stang . These students rebelled against the established civil service, later occupied the most important control points of the state and tried to implement their ideas.

Schweigaard wrote several articles in the student newspaper Vidar , among other things he advocated pushing back the classical languages ​​at the Latin School in favor of natural science subjects. In another, he turned against the chaos in Norwegian coinage. When the newspaper Den Constitutionelle was founded in 1836 , he published long treatises there. In 1833 he received a grant from Storting for a stay abroad. He entered the academic milieu in Germany and France. The result was a biting criticism of German idealistic philosophy and of speculative philosophy in general in the French La France Litéraire in 1835 . The same bitter criticism met the German jurisprudence, which he published under the title “Betragtninger over Retsvidenskabens nuværende Tilstand i Tyskland” (Considerations on the current state of jurisprudence in Germany) in the Danish Juridisk Tidsskrift , Volume XXIII. He rejected any natural legal justification of the law. In the magazine Revue étrangère des Législation he published an article on the position of women in Danish and Norwegian law.

When Schweigaard got a position as a lecturer in law in 1835, he had already published his basic views in many articles. He advocated a strict empirical orientation in science and a new foundation of law, which was fed by the utilitarianism of the English school of thought. This failure to lay a philosophical foundation for law had consequences in the following generations of lawyers: They were good practitioners, but literary scientific production was negligibly small. In 1837 he gave lectures in "Economics and Statistics" and in 1840 was appointed professor. This led to a public attack on his person by Ludvig Kristensen Daa , who had also applied for the chair.

The national culture should absorb the international currents. This development had to be initiated by a social renewal. With this starting point he polemicized against Henrik Wergeland and his circle and against the established administration. He argued against Wergeland that his poetry could not open up to the world, and against the civil servants that they were too passive and lacking initiative.

During his teaching activity he wrote several textbooks. The most important are Commentar over den Norske Criminallov (Commentary on Norwegian Criminal Law) (1844–46) and Den norske Proces (The Norwegian Trial) (3 volumes, 1849 and 1858). But there are also transcripts of his lectures by students. Most influential was his socio-economic lecture of 1847, the transcript of which was later presented in print. In it he turned against the extreme forms of liberalism. He was of the opinion that the state should play an important role in economic life, especially in a country as small as Norway. This work is also important because it reveals the relationship between the scientist Schweigaard and the politician Schweigaard.

The political program

Schweigaard was a supporter of the constitutional constitution of 1814 throughout his life. In his many articles he presented his political visions and a program for the modernization and development of the Norwegian nation to the public. It encompassed cultural, economic and social areas. Like many of his academic contemporaries, he was convinced that as the natural sciences increased, humanity would develop higher and higher and for the better. According to him, this was a common concern for all of humanity. To that extent he was cosmopolitan. He was also a supporter of liberalism in business. In his essay "Indførselstolden og dens Historie" (The import duty and its history) he pleaded for free foreign trade. He was a supporter of Scandinavianism and advocated closer union between Norway and Sweden. and turned decidedly against anti-Danish tendencies in cultural life.

His ideas were widespread in international thought. He represented the liberal optimism of progress, was convinced of the victory of reason, defended private property and freedom of spirit, advocated legal security and other individual rights.

In educational policy, he actively advocated the suppression of classical languages ​​in favor of the natural sciences, which in 1857 led to the abolition of Latin lessons in secondary schools. He viewed Danish literature and culture as trend-setting and thus turned against a Norwegian nationalism, which aimed for a literary-cultural separation from Denmark in the course of the development of an independent nation. He wrote an article on "Om den litterære Antidanskhet" (On the literary anti-Danish affect), which Welhaven took up a few years later in his poem "Norges Dæmring".

Political activity

Schweigaard was elected to the Storting (parliament) in 1842 . 1845–1869 he was the most influential representative in Storting. He could have joined the government at any time if he had wanted, but he preferred to work in Storting all his life. Instead, he mostly preferred to let his like-minded comrades from the "intelligent" like Frederik Stang work in the government. One can say that from 1845 to 1870 the “Duumvirat” Schweigaard / Stang determined the fate of Norway. As presented in his socio-economic lectures, he turned against extreme liberalism, that is, against the minimization of state control. His practical sense of the role of the state is also expressed in his eloquent commitment to a state ban on alcohol . His focus was on the liberalization of foreign trade. This should go hand in hand with the expansion of merchant shipping, which he considered to be the engine of the upswing in Norway. At the same time, the infrastructure should be improved and trade privileges reduced in order to strengthen the internal market. He also advocated the improvement of education and agriculture. Schweigaard was at the forefront of the modernization strategy in Storting. After a tentative start, the Storting began to abolish the privileges of the craft guilds with a law of 1839.

From 1840 onwards, deregulation became more systematic. Inland trade was cleared by laws of 1842 and 1866: Commercial Law of 1842, Customs Law of 1845, Maritime Law of 1860, and the Spirits Law of 1845–1848. In 1854, the sawmill privilege was abolished from 1860 onwards. At the same time, protective tariffs against foreign countries were reduced or lifted. In 1854 the first railway line from Christiania to Eidsvoll was also put into operation. He was the driving force in all of these measures. In the economic crisis of 1857, as a member of the management of the Bank of Oslo, he played a decisive role in ensuring that the commercial estate did not ruin. In 1866 the craftsman's privileges were also completely revoked.

All these measures brought a great economic boom in a short time. He always had to look for comrades-in-arms from the majority in the Storting, the farmers' faction, especially when it came to approving funds for investments. The peasant faction was also economically liberal.

In terms of power politics, he was in favor of a leadership role for the elite in the state within the scope of the constitutional constitution. He defended the balance of power established by the constitution and opposed any reforms aimed at further democratization, including the vote on the amendment of the constitution to the effect that instead of the storting meetings every three years for nine months, the meetings take place for three months a year should. But at the end of his career in 1869 he had to experience that in Storting an aggressive opposition under the leadership of the radical Johan Sverdrup and Ole Gabriel Ueland from the group of peasants took control.

meaning

Anton Martin Schweigaard was proclaimed Norway's “best son” (Norges bedste Søn) when he was 25 years old. When he died he was called the "Land of First Citizen". It is true that it was well-meaning citizens, especially his friend Johan Sebastian Welhaven and the newspaper Morgenbladet , who named him that. But he was certainly Norway's most important statesman and an intellectual greatness in 19th century Norway.

literature

The article is essentially taken from the Norsk biografisk leksikon . Information from other works is identified by means of individual references.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Corresponds to our Abitur, but is accepted by the university as an entrance examination for the course.
  2. ↑ a b Ebbe Hertzberg , Edvard Bull: Schweigaard, Anton Martin . In: Christian Blangstrup (Ed.): Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon . 2nd Edition. tape 21 : Schinopsis spectrum . JH Schultz Forlag, Copenhagen 1926, p. 96 (Danish, runeberg.org ).
  3. ↑ a b c d Ebbe Hertzberg , Edvard Bull: Schweigaard, Anton Martin . In: Christian Blangstrup (Ed.): Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon . 2nd Edition. tape 21 : Schinopsis spectrum . JH Schultz Forlag, Copenhagen 1926, p. 97 (Danish, runeberg.org ).
  4. ↑ Ludvig Christensen Daa . In: Norsk biografisk leksikon .
  5. ↑ a b c Mardal
  6. ^ Ebbe Hertzberg , Edvard Bull: Schweigaard, Anton Martin . In: Christian Blangstrup (Ed.): Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon . 2nd Edition. tape 21 : Schinopsis spectrum . JH Schultz Forlag, Copenhagen 1926, p. 98 (Danish, runeberg.org ).
  7. ↑ The sawmill privilege was the required license to cut trunks of felled trees. This brought the wood aristocracy, the so-called "Plankeadel" (from ship planks), big profits, as the sawmills were firmly in their hands. The privilege could also be sold or inherited.
  8. ↑ It was not a faction in today's parliamentary sense, because there were no formal parties. Nevertheless, there were MPs with the same interests who rallied behind a spokesman.
  9. ↑ Ording, p. 188.
personal data
SURNAME Schweigaard, Anton Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian lawyer, economist and politician, member of the Storting
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1808
PLACE OF BIRTH Kragerø , Telemark
DATE OF DEATH February 1, 1870
Place of death Christiania