Bernhard von Meyer

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State secretary Bernhard Meyer, the first federal delegate from Lucerne

Bernhard Meyer , from 1854 Ritter von Meyer (born December 12, 1810 in Sursee , Canton Lucerne ; † August 29, 1874 Piesting , Lower Austria ), was a Swiss lawyer, state clerk, delegate of the Diet and politician in the canton of Lucerne and later in Austria . He was one of the leading personalities of the Sonderbund policy and a pioneer of modern democracy in Switzerland.

biography

Meyer grew up as the son of a goldsmith in Sursee and was the favorite student of the pedagogue Father Gregor Girard in Lucerne. He studied philosophy and law in Heidelberg , Berlin , Munich and Paris . In 1836 he was elected second state clerk in Lucerne alongside Constantin Siegwart-Müller . Politically, he joined the liberal middle party around the theology professor Burkard Leu .

As a member of the Lucerne Constitutional Council, he played a key role in the Lucerne Constitution of 1841. In the latter, he worked with the rural democrats around Josef Leu , because the middle between the liberal and conservative blocs had been wiped out. With the adoption of the new constitution on May 1, 1841, the rural conservative democrats were able to get their direct democratic demands through, while the liberals, who clung to representative democracy, suffered a defeat. The new constitution gave the people of Lucerne the greatest possible rights in what was then the Confederation and was also the pioneer for the introduction of modern democracy in the new federal state. Meyer helped the victory of the rural-conservative Democrats to a seat in the Grand Council and to succeed the liberal Siegwart as the first state clerk.

In 1842 Meyer succeeded in a speech to the Grand Council in preventing Josef Leu from appointing the Jesuits . He prophetically warned against opening a battlefield for the liberal opponents and thereby cutting off the Protestant cantons from their previous sympathies with regard to Lucerne: Who knows who will emerge victorious at the end of the long struggle?

Martin Disteli : Fight near St. Léonard in Valais between conservative Upper Valais and radical-liberal Lower Valais on April 1, 1840

From 1841 to 1847 he was the delegate of the Diet of Lucerne, which was a federal suburb from 1843 to 1845. As an envoy from the suburb, in 1843, he was supposed to mediate the fight between radicals from Young Switzerland and conservatives in Valais without clear powers . The radicals accused him of complicity in the bloody defeat of the radical liberals for his one-sided way of intervening. Because of the Aargau monastery dispute and the Baden article, Lucerne and five other Catholic cantons formed a "protection association", later the Sonderbund, to which the Valais now also joined. On behalf of the Sonderbund, he traveled as envoy to Turin in 1846 and to Metternich in Vienna in 1847 to advertise arms and allies. Before the Diet, he defended the Sonderbund, which wanted to prevent the radicals from imposing a revolution on Switzerland. He himself would rather go under in open combat than submit to the majority of the Diet.

After the defeat of the Sonderbund in 1847, he had to flee. From 1848 he stayed in the circle of Joseph Görres in Munich, where he worked for the historical-political papers for Catholic Germany . In 1851 he entered the Austrian civil service in Vienna, where in 1853 he was ministerial advisor in the Ministry of the Interior and from 1865 to 1868 head of the presidential office. In 1854 he was knighted. In 1859 and 1866 he wrote the imperial war manifesto.

In 1868 he retired, he worked on the Wiener Zeitung and wrote his memoirs, where he introduced a new perspective on Sonderbund policy.

plant

As a lawyer, writer and excellent speaker, Meyer was one of the leading forces in the creation of the most modern cantonal constitution in the Swiss Confederation, which pioneered the anchoring of direct democracy in the Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation of 1848. The resistance of Catholic-conservative and rural-democratic circles around the Sonderbund, in which Meyer played a significant role, against the concentration of political and economic power in the hands of the liberals, led the latter to agree to a stabilizing compromise in favor of direct rather than representative democracy.

With their conception, the psychological approach, the vivid style and the thoughtful presentation, Meyer's memoirs show a rare picture of historical events from the perspective of the losers of the Sonderbund War.

Award

Fonts

  • Experiences of Bernhard Ritter von Meyer: formerly state clerk and delegate of the Canton of Lucerne, later kk Austrian court and ministerial councilor, secretary of the ministerial councilor etc. etc. Authored and completed by himself. 2 volumes, C. Sartori Verlag, Vienna 1875

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Bernhard von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyer, Bernhard Ritter von; Meyer, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss politician
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Sursee
DATE OF DEATH August 29, 1874
Place of death Piesting , Lower Austria