Henry Clay Brockmeyer

Henry C. Brockmeyer

Henry Clay Brockmeyer , also Henry Conrad Brockmeyer , born Heinrich Conrad Brockmeyer (born August 12, 1826 in Petershagen -Neuenknick; † July 26, 1906 in St. Louis , Missouri ) was a German-American philosopher and lieutenant governor of the US state Missouri. Brockmeyer is considered the founder of applied Hegelian philosophy in science, school, religion and politics in the United States of America . He also made a name for himself as a Democratic state and federal politician and became Deputy Governor of Missouri .

family

Heinrich was born the son of the farmer Wilhelm Brockmeyer and his wife Sophie Luise , née von Bismarck , on the Neuenknick homestead no. 45 in the parish of Windheim / Weser near the Westphalian border with the former Kingdom of Hanover . Luise came from the Rhenish branch of the Schönhausen line of the Bismarck family. The philosopher was related to the first German Chancellor, Otto Fürst von Bismarck (3rd cousin). Friedrich Wilhelm von Bismarck , Württemberg Lieutenant General , who was raised to the rank of Count of Württemberg in 1816 and participated in the Napoleonic Wars on the French side, was a brother of his mother and his uncle. Henry married the Franco-German Julia Kienlen (1847–1924) in St. Louis in January 1867, with whom he had three children: the sons Henry John and Eugene Christian, and the daughter Julia Louise.

Life

Heinrich Brockmeyer had left for America without permission in 1845 at the age of 19. He should have become a soldier in Minden , Prussia, in 1847 . However, because he had evaded it by fleeing, a manhunt was written out for him and his parents' property was fined 50 marks. Brockmeyer's early journeys to and in the USA are in the dark. He appeared in St. Louis around 1850 and initially earned his bread here as a tanner . During the devastating epidemics in Missouri and especially in St. Louis, the young man moved to Memphis ( Tennessee ) and Columbus ( Mississippi ) as a craftsman . Henry Brockmeyer used the years until he reported back in St. Louis, as he wrote himself from then on as a naturalized American, to study English thoroughly at Georgetown College. He then took up a degree in philosophy at Brown University . However, there were no school or university degrees. In 1854 Henry Brockmeyer found lucrative jobs at various metalworking companies in St. Louis and eagerly saved money to buy scientific books and for further studies. In order to increase the reserves he had already accumulated as quickly as possible, he took part in very risky land speculations in the outskirts of the Mississippi metropolis and lost almost everything in the process.

Philosophical self-study in the hut

Brockmeyer then withdrew to a lonely hut in Warren County (Missouri), disappointed . Here in the wilderness he tirelessly began a philosophical self-study with hard self-discipline. His idol was the German theologian and philosopher Friedrich Hegel . Pass an irrepressible inner urge, what they have learned and its acquired through self-study findings to the company, Brock Meyer led back to St. Louis, then the most populous metropolis in the Midwest of the US and where from 1858 under the name " Washington University " the first university of City came into being. One of the first professors to be hired was William T. Harris . Later, as superintendent of a combined German-American school system in St. Louis, which was unusual for the USA, he would write town history.

Back to St. Louis

In 1858 Brockmeyer rummaged through a St. Louis public library for philosophical literature. He got into conversation with Professor Harris, who was also present. Harris immediately took a liking to the bright, intelligent young man and took him to the "Saint Louis Kant Club", which was just being founded. Its initiators were educated Anglo-Americans as well as intellectual Germans from the predominant immigrant scene. It wasn't long before Henry Brockmeyer was right in the middle of the action, as was the case in the cultural and political scene in St. Louis, becoming the moderator and leader of this influential group. They dealt with German philosophy, initially primarily with the works of Immanuel Kant . And now Brockmeyer brought up Friedrich Hegel and his exciting, highly topical cultural-political theses. So that all American English-speaking members of the Saint Louis Kant Club should be able to read and understand Hegel, especially his famous work on logic, William T. Harris asked Henry Brockmeyer to translate Hegel from German into English. Brockmeyer did this with enthusiasm - an intellectual pioneering act in what was then the "Frontier" on the Mississippi .

As an officer at the front

Brockmeyer, who had evaded military service in his Westphalian homeland, took part in the civil war as a staunch opponent of slavery and a resident of the state of Missouri on the part of the northern states. "Brock" set up a separate unit (59th Regiment, Enrolled Missouri Militia Infantry, Company A) and served the army as an officer, most recently as a lieutenant colonel . Bitter war experiences and the associated dissolution of all state order made the previously rather liberal Henry Brockmeyer a staunch supporter of a significantly strengthened federal parliament, along with a strong executive in Washington, DC. Nevertheless, the staunch supporter of the Union did not support President Abraham Lincoln . It also entered civil war literature - through the novella "The Rebel's Daughter" penned by his friend John G. Woerner. Namely as “Professor Rauhenfels” - an extremely “hard bone”, as it literally means.

For the democrats in the state parliament

As early as 1862, Brockmeyer was a member of the Democrats and MP in the Missouri House of Representatives . On January 16, 1864, he made a spectacular appearance as a spontaneous speaker on the steps of the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City . His public appeal to the assembled state politicians: "Support and strengthen our federal policy, but not Abraham Lincoln!" With these and other political actions, Henry Brockmeyer gained a broad political reputation among the people of St. Louis. The year 1866, the civil war was over, the general confusion and disorder high. Especially in intellectual, cultural and political coexistence. Brockmeyer, who had returned unscathed from the war, took the initiative and, together with like-minded people, opened the now famous “Saint Louis Philosophical Society”. No wonder that in 1871 he was elected to the Senate of his state, of which he was a member until 1875 and in which he became chairman of the judicial committee. In 1875 Brockmeyer took part in the constituent assembly of the newly elected Missouri Parliament. In 1876 the ex-Westphalian Henry Brockmeyer achieved his highest political office in the "New World" to date with his election as Vice Governor of Missouri. A year later he was listed as "acting governor", that is, acting Prime Minister.

Retreat to the Oklahoma wilderness

In the late 1870s, Henry Brockmeyer retired from the Jefferson City Capitol and politics. Like many of his old companions from the “Saint Louis Hegelians”, he hated the new political class in state and federal politics. Disappointed, he withdrew - this time to distant, barely populated Oklahoma , to live here in peace and in his memory of the supposed "Golden Age of America". It has been handed down as a fact that the man from Westphalia cared socially and humanly devotedly to the unfortunate needy Indians in Wild West Oklahoma, but continued to study Hegel undeterred.

death

Henry Brockmeyer died on July 26, 1906. His grave is in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. His tombstone, which still exists today, bears the name Henry Brockmeyer with the addition "Poet - Statesman - Philosopher". Brockmeyer went down in US literature. Among the numerous publications of the academic self-taught Henry Brockmeyer, his novella “Mechanic's Diary” is considered a hidden autobiography of Westphalia, who has become famous in the USA.

source

“Westphalia in America” by Friedrich Schütte

literature

• Speech of Hon. HC Brockmeyer online
• Lawrence O. Christensen: "Dictionary of Missouri Biography", Brockmeyer, Henry Conrad (1826-1906) online in the Google Book Search

Web links

• Henry Clay Brock Meyer in the database of Find a Grave (English)