Jonas Anton Hielm

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Jonas Anton Hielm

Jonas Anton Hielm (born December 30, 1782 in Kristiansand , † March 30, 1848 in Christiania ) was a Norwegian lawyer and politician.

His parents were the regimental quartermaster and auditor Børge Jonassen Hielm (1740-1810) and his wife Hulleborg Abel (1762-1834). On December 30, 1807, he married Sophie Magdalene Bøegh (August 8, 1788-28 January 1863), daughter of the administrator Nils Sommerfelt Bøegh and his wife Dorothea Kraft in Copenhagen.

Hielm's time in Copenhagen

In 1800 he passed his law exam in Copenhagen. From 1803 he was auditor with various regiments in Copenhagen, where he distinguished himself in the English attack in 1807, in 1811 chief auditor and in 1812 attorney at the Supreme Court in Copenhagen. Nevertheless he lived in Copenhagen under difficult financial circumstances.

He had a great national interest in Norway, and when Nordmandsforeningen (Norwegian Association) was founded in Copenhagen in February 1814, he was an avid member there. He also became a member of the board there. When the rumor of an uprising in Norway against the Peace of Kiel reached January 14, 1814, he offered Christian Friedrich his support. But by the time he left his positions in Copenhagen and came to Norway in September, things had changed.

Hielm's work in Norway

His rise

In the following years Hielm worked in many fields, both as a lawyer and as head of the opposition. First he settled in Christiania as a lawyer, and from November 1814 he was a lawyer at the Supreme Court. 1815-1816 he was a lecturer in law at the university. 1815–1821 he was state auditor and played an important role in organizing the state audit.

The years 1814 to 1821 were the years in which Hielm established his fame as a lawyer. He was feared and respected as a defender. His office was thriving and he was making good money. During this time he had to oversee many proceedings relating to freedom from printing and freedom of the press. But his very direct way of arguing at the hearing not infrequently earned him fines for improper speech.

In 1820 Hielm became a government lawyer. But it turned out that in this role he came into conflict with his role in the opposition. He was a frequent writer in Det Norske Nationalblad and was seen as the real man behind the paper, although formally his younger brother Hans Abel acted as editor. But Hielm waged his fight against the government in many fields. In 1815, 1816 and 1818 he maintained good relations with the opposition in Storting and provided them with arguments and proposals.

Its decline

The end of his legal career came in 1821 with two anonymous insulting articles in the national newspaper against Christian Magnus Falsen . It was one of the many press freedom cases against his brother, who edited the national paper, and he refused to name the author. As a result, he was expelled from the country and later sentenced to prison. Hielm now persuaded a student who had been sentenced to imprisonment for embezzlement to pose as the author. But when that came out he was himself indicted, convicted, and suspended from his post as government advocate and attorney before the Supreme Court in 1822. After a short time he had to admit that his brother had stood behind the article, whereupon the latter was also convicted. There were many allegations against Hielm, and the trial dragged on. In the first instance he was sentenced to lose his office and expulsion from the country. In 1825 the Supreme Court changed the sentence to a fine of 500 Speziesthaler. Shortly thereafter, he was deposed as a government attorney, a legally dubious decision, and he penned a long defense letter to the Storting , arguing that there had been a ramified conspiracy against him. Although he did not get his office back, the Storting gave him an annual grant of 504 Speziesthalers as a pension. All of this led to enmity between the two brothers and further litigation between them over the financial settlement at Det Norske Nationalblad .

Hielm's commitment to the Norwegian language

Now came a difficult time. His office was destroyed and his health deteriorated. He bought a house on Jeløy, a large island in the outer Oslofjord. There he wrote and edited the Almindeligt Norsk Maandesskrift (General Norwegian Monthly). There he campaigned for everything Norwegian and the Norwegianization of the language. He thought that the national language was the spoken language and found three main dialects: "Fjellmål" (language in the mountains) with a strong relationship with Old Norwegian, "Bymål" (language in the cities) with a basis in Norwegian, and the written language, which was Danish. He imagined a Norwegian written language that would have to be developed from "Bymål", but would have to take over many words from the "much more perfect peasant language". He suggested writing a Norwegian grammar and dictionary first.

Hielm as a politician

Hielm's initiatives

Since Hielm had become a landowner on Jeløy, he had obtained the right to stand as a candidate for storting. He was elected as a delegate for Smaalene's office (today Østfold ) in 1830, 1833, 1836/1837 and 1842 . During this time he was also a member of the Lagting . He was a member of the opposition in Storting and represented national and liberal ideas. In the so-called Bauern-Storting in 1833 he was a colleague of John Neergaard and was a legal advisor to the farmers' opposition and its leader Ole Gabriel Ueland , but did not find the same support in his concerns. He also found journalistic support from Henrik Wergeland . He wanted to forge a political party out of the peasant opposition together with the liberals. Political parties did not yet exist, but instead the members of parliament joined together as loose interest groups on a case-by-case basis behind a spokesman. While the peasant opposition pursued extreme austerity in the state budget, he advocated approvals for better salaries, universities and better prisons. In foreign policy, national and constitutional issues, too, he often had different views than the peasant opposition. He campaigned for full equality between Norway and Sweden in the Union. He also campaigned for free access to the Reich for Jews, who at that time were prohibited from entering Reichsboden under Section 2 of the Constitution.

In 1830 he submitted the proposal that the Swedish government should not act alone in matters of Norwegian foreign policy, but only in cooperation with the Norwegian government department in Stockholm. Many felt the proposal was going too far and the Union Committee did not consider the 1830 proposal. The Storting kept the issue on the agenda in 1833 and it was decided to suspend the motion until 1836. In the meantime, the King passed a resolution that the Norwegian Minister of State or a Council of State had to be present on the Ministerial Council of State if foreign policy decisions were to affect Norway. The choice of the consular post should be made by the Swedish-Norwegian State Council and the consular officials should take their oath of office on the Swedish and Norwegian governments. This had been a solution recommended by the moderate part of the storting. But Hielm and his followers were not satisfied with this and rejected the solution in 1839. They wanted complete equality between the two countries.

The flag dispute

Hielm's suggestion

In the "radical Storting" in 1836, Hielm wanted Norway to have its own trade and war flag. So far, the Norwegian ships had to fly the Swedish flag with a Union field. Hielm suggested that both countries should each have their own flag with the Union field. A petition was prepared for the King in this matter, which also insisted on full equality between the two countries. The petition did not materialize, however, because the king dissolved and abolished the Storting on July 8, 1836. In the autumn, however, the Storting met and put the flag issue back on the agenda. The trade flag requested by Norway was allowed to be used on all seas at your own risk from 1838. This success was largely attributed to Hielm, and he was hailed as a national hero, especially by Henrik Wergeland . The so-called " flag dispute " only ended with Oscar I's accession to the throne in 1844, when the Norwegian flag was equated with the Swedish in everything. It was not until the Flag Act of 1899 that the Union field was removed.

The last few years

Grave of Jonas Anton Hielm in the Vår Frelsers gravlund cemetery in Oslo

In 1842 Hielm was sick. Nevertheless, he continued to fight for the abolition of the so-called “Jewish paragraph” in the constitution. Although he resumed his work as a lawyer at the Supreme Court, he was no longer active in the same way as in the 1930s. He took his leave in 1847 and died a year later.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Administrator of an office (district).
  2. ↑ a b c d O. A. Øverland, Edvard Bull: Hielm, Jonas Anton . In: Christian Blangstrup (Ed.): Salmonsens Konversationsleksikon . 2nd Edition. tape 11 : Hasselmus – Hven . JH Schultz Forlag, Copenhagen 1921, p. 436 (Danish, runeberg.org ).
  3. ^ Legal clerk to whom the entire military judiciary is subordinate.
  4. ↑ The state auditor checked the government's expenses to see whether they were covered by the decisions of the Storting, a kind of audit office.
  5. ↑ Government advocate was a lawyer who worked on difficult legal questions for the government and gave corresponding opinions and reports.
  6. ↑ a b Mardal Store norske Leksikon
  7. ↑ Salmonsen's Konverstionsleksikon knows nothing of a conviction of the brother and the hiring of a previously convicted student.
  8. ^ Council of State is the name for the other members of the government
  9. ↑ Here “Council of State” means the Stockholm-based body of Councils of State.
  10. ↑ Storting website , accessed on September 1, 2009.

See also

Flag dispute Norway-Sweden

literature

The article is essentially based on Norsk biografisk leksikon . Other information is shown separately.

personal data
SURNAME Hielm, Jonas Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian lawyer and politician, member of the Storting
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1782
PLACE OF BIRTH Kristiansand
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1848
Place of death Christiania