Hamburg Constituent Assembly

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In the course of the revolution of 1848/1849 the Hamburgers elected a constituent parliamentary assembly, the Hamburg Constituent Assembly, in the autumn of 1848 . On June 14, 1850, the Hamburg Constituent Assembly was dissolved again.

prehistory

After the Hamburg fire in 1842, in which the old Hamburg town hall was destroyed, criticism of the state and administrative bodies increased. During the pre-March period , which provoked criticism of the situation everywhere in Germany, political currents also emerged in Hamburg. On the one hand stood the Liberals, who called for a representative constitution based on the English model. But they wanted to give preference to the wealthy and educated bourgeoisie over the poorer classes in the elections. The group of Democrats, on the other hand, wanted “unconditional popular sovereignty” and the participation of all layers in the political process. The hereditary citizenship, from which the Senate was elected, braced itself against both directions.

On March 13th, the Senate and the hereditary citizenship responded to the increasingly massive demands in the winter and spring of 1848 with a joint deputation . She should collect and advise on all claims. Surprisingly, the mood calmed down, even if only members of the two bodies were involved in the deputation. The first modern election from April 18th to 20th took place not for a Hamburg parliament, but for the Frankfurt National Assembly . The three liberal politicians Edgar Daniel Roß , Ernst Merck and Johann Gustav Wilhelm Moritz Heckscher , who became Reich Minister in July, were elected.

Establishment of the Hamburg Constituent Assembly

House of the Patriotic Society and seat of the Hamburg Constituent Assembly from 1848 to 1850

Since the deputation could not agree on a new electoral law or a constitution and it became clear that they wanted to stick to the previous conditions, the political associations in Hamburg demanded a "Constituent Assembly" (constituent assembly) based on the model of the Frankfurt National Assembly. The Senate and the hereditary citizenship could hardly escape the pressure of the people because the citizens' military also sympathized with the new political ideas. But the free elections promised by the Senate on August 18, 1848, resulted in a dispute between the liberal and the democratic currents. The main points of contention were the issues of relative or absolute majority voting and the diets of the MPs.

On September 8, 1848, the electoral law was promulgated with the consent of the hereditary citizenship. With few exceptions, all male citizens aged 22 and over should be eligible to vote. Hamburg was divided into eleven constituencies, from which a total of 188 MPs and 63 substitutes were to be elected. The two main groups that ran for election were the progressive “Liberal Election Committee” and the more conservative “Patriotic Association”. Participation in the election from October 5 to December 4 (it was elected one after the other in the constituencies) was sobering with 50% of the 38,000 eligible voters. The Liberal Election Committee emerged as the clear winner of this election with more than two thirds of the votes. David Christopher Mettlerkamp became senior president of the Constituent Assembly and demanded at the beginning of the deliberations: "Equal political and civil rights for all citizens [...] is an unavoidable requirement of reason and a moral will."

The elected members were obliged to take the following oath:

“I swear to God Almighty that, as an elected member of the constituent assembly, I will promote the purpose for which it has been called, the establishment of the future Hamburg constitution, for the good of the state, to the best of my knowledge and belief, and until that of the constituent assembly The new constitutional constitution to be drafted will have been fully and definitively established and come into being, and will recognize the existing legislative powers and all other authorities and institutions in their constitutional effectiveness. "

Johannes Versmann was temporarily president of this constituent assembly . The adoption of the "Constitution of the Free State of Hamburg" on July 11, 1849 can be seen as an outstanding success. The Constituent Assembly met until its dissolution on June 14, 1850 in the rooms of the Patriotic Society of 1765 .

Members of the Hamburg Constituent Assembly (selection)

People around the Hamburg Constituent Assembly

  • Ludwig Friedrich Wilhelm Kaufmann was elected as a substitute for the Hamburg Constituent Assembly, was also called up, but declared under the given circumstances and regulations that he could not enter and asked for his dismissal.
  • Carl Friedrich Petersen was a member of the Neuner Commission, which was given the task by the Senate of examining the draft constitution proposed by the Hamburg Constituent Assembly.
  • The elected Hermann Emil Fischer refused to take the oath required by the members and was therefore dismissed from the Constituent Assembly.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The history of the Hamburg citizenship . ( Memento of the original from June 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. hamburgische-buergerschaft.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hamburgische-buergerschaft.de
  2. Eckardt: From the privileged rule , p. 21.
  3. a b Hamburg . In: German newspaper . No. 244 . Heidelberg September 6, 1848, p. 1834 ( online ).
  4. Kopitzsch (1999), p. 295
  5. Eckardt: From the privileged rule , pp. 21-27.
  6. ^ Ernst Christian Schütt: The Chronicle of Hamburg . Chronik Verlag, Dortmund 1991, p. 230.
  7. Jakob Audorf (the elder), * December 20, 1807; † August 30, 1891 in Hamburg. Digital library of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
  8. ^ Wilhelm Heyden: The members of the Hamburg citizenship 1859-1862 . Festschrift for December 6, 1909. Herold in Komm., Hamburg 1909, p. 5 .
  9. Reports on the negotiations of the constituent assembly in Hamburg and the minutes of the preliminary consultations for the constituent assembly, 1850 .
  10. literaturhaus.ch
  11. ^ Wilhelm Marr. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
  12. ^ Wilhelm Heyden: The members of the Hamburg citizenship 1859-1862 . Festschrift for December 6, 1909. Herold in Komm., Hamburg 1909, p. 82-83 .
  13. ^ Wilhelm Heyden: The members of the Hamburg citizenship 1859-1862 . Festschrift for December 6, 1909. Herold in Komm., Hamburg 1909, p. 84 .
  14. ^ Wilhelm Heyden: The members of the Hamburg citizenship 1859-1862 . Festschrift for December 6, 1909. Herold in Komm., Hamburg 1909, p. 86-87 .
  15. ^ Peter Anton Rodatz in Hamburg Personalities
  16. Hans Schröder: 4239. Wamosy (Daniel) . In: Lexicon of Hamburg writers up to the present . tape 7 . Hamburg 1879 ( uni-hamburg.de ). uni-hamburg.de ( Memento of the original dated November 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / schroeder.sub.uni-hamburg.de