Johann Heinrich Rothpletz

Johann Heinrich Rothpletz (born September 14, 1766 in Aarau ; † August 31, 1833 in Bad Teinach , Württemberg ; resident in Aarau) was a Swiss politician . In the Helvetic Republic he was finance minister and governor. From 1815 to 1831 he was Councilor of the Canton of Aargau .

biography

The son of the councilor and country major of the same name came from a respected Aarau family that had provided several mayors . He received his training in Colmar at the École militaire from Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel , then he embarked on a military career and achieved the rank of major . In the 1790s Rothpletz in Aarau was one of the most radical supporters of the ideas of the French Revolution and strove to end the rule of Bern . After the French invasion began in January 1798, he was a member of the Aarau Revolutionary Committee and was in command of the city militia. When Bern surrendered in March of the same year, he was appointed to the provisional Aargau National Assembly.

After the proclamation of the Helvetic Republic in April 1798, Rothpletz took over the presidency of the administrative chamber of the newly created canton of Aargau. He was on the side of the Unitarians, who wanted a centralized state based on the French model. The Helvetic Directory , the government of the republic, appointed him Minister of Finance on February 10, 1800. Due to the federal coup he had to resign on November 13, 1801. In April, the Unitarians took power again and set Rothpletz as governor of the cantons of Aargau and Baden .

The Aargau Cantonal Assembly appointed Rothpletz in November 1802 as a member of the Helvetic Consulta , which negotiated the mediation act with Napoleon Bonaparte in Paris . As a member of the provisional government commission, in March 1803 he introduced the mediation constitution in the canton of Aargau, which had been merged with the cantons of Baden and Fricktal . This was followed by the election to the Grand Council . From 1804 to 1820 he was a member of the cantonal finance council, and in 1812 he represented the Aargau at the federal assembly .

In 1815 the Grand Council elected Rotzpletz to the cantonal government, where it took over the police department. From 1820 he chaired the accounting commission, from 1827 the military commission. The adoption of a new constitution after the Freiämtersturm in December 1830 resulted in radical changes. Rothpletz remained represented in the Grand Council, but was no longer confirmed as a councilor in June 1831. A year later he also resigned from his seat on the Grand Council. At the age of 66 he died while taking a spa stay.

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. 641-642 .

Web links

• Felix Müller (Brugg): Rothpletz, Johann Heinrich. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .