Franz Joseph Venerand Friderich

Franz Joseph Venerand Friderich (born May 28, 1771 in Laufenburg ; † March 3, 1847 ibid) was a Swiss politician , judge and local historian . From 1803 to 1831 he was a member of the Small Council , the government of the Canton of Aargau .

biography

The son of the teacher of the Laufenburg Latin School studied law at the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg im Breisgau from 1791 . After graduating in 1795 Friderich stepped in his hometown Laufenburg the post of General Counsel to which he also belonged because of the City Council Office. In 1797, in the Peace of Campo Formio , Upper Austria had to cede the Fricktal to France and the area became a French protectorate . In the Peace of Lunéville of 1801 Austria had to give up the Fricktal for good. The area was added to the Helvetic Republic and from February 1802 formed the short-lived canton of Fricktal .

During this uncertain time, Friderich remained a city councilor and also served as district judge in Laufenburg and Frick . Together with Johann Baptist Jehle and Johann Karl Fetzer , he was one of the most prominent opponents of Sebastian Fahrländer , who, with French support, had appointed himself governor. In December 1802, he and Jehle were seconded to Paris as a representative of the canton to the Helvetic Consulta . The demand of their voters for the largest possible self-government in the Fricktal was not enforceable, and the division of Laufenburg into a Baden and a Swiss part was already a deal. Friderich's efforts were therefore limited to a fair distribution key for the division of the city's assets and liabilities.

After the union of the Fricktal with the Canton of Aargau in February 1803, Friderich was elected to the Aargau Grand Council , of which he belonged until 1831 and presided over a total of five times. The Grand Council in turn elected him in 1803 to the Small Council , the cantonal government with great powers. As the head of the Justice Department, Friderich brought his knowledge of Austrian law to the case law of the new state, which, due to its historical development, had to combine four different legal systems into a new, unified system. He is one of the co-creators of personal law and the general civil code, which came into force in 1826 and 1847. In vain did he advocate the abolition of the death penalty .

In 1831, Friderich resigned from all political offices after the Freiämtersturm and worked as a local historian. He was particularly concerned with the history of the county of Hauenstein , the Fricktal and the Olsberg women's monastery, which was repealed in 1835 . He bequeathed a significant part of his fortune to charitable causes.

literature

• Biographical Lexicon of the Canton of Aargau 1803–1957 . In: Historical Society of the Canton of Aargau (Ed.): Argovia . tape 68/69 . Verlag Sauerländer, Aarau 1958, p. 240-241 .

Web links

• Andreas Steigmeier : Franz Joseph Venerand Friderich. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .