Josef Karl Amrhyn

Josef Karl Amrhyn (also Am Rhyn) (born April 7, 1777 in Lucerne ; † November 7, 1848 ibid) was a Swiss mayor .

Life

Josef Karl Amrhyn was born as the son of the counselor Franz Xaver Leopold Amrhyn and his wife Maria Elisabetha Schwytzer in the Furrengasse in Lucerne. The Amrhyn family had a mayor in at least every second generation from 1624 to 1840. The Amrhyn were permanently represented in the Small Council from 1564, at times even with several members. This made them, along with ten other families, one of the most important bearers of patrician rule in old Lucerne.

He was taught in his father's house by the enlightened clergyman Thaddäus Müller (* October 2, 1763, † April 10, 1826) and later at the St. Urban monastery school. A one-year educational trip from 1791 to 1792, which took him to Italy , France , Germany and Austria , was followed by a one-year study visit to Turin in 1792 .

He regularly visited the Lucerne Reading Society , which was under state surveillance because of its revolutionary members. There he got to know moderate and radical revolutionaries , u. a. the councilor Vinzenz Rüttimann , the later Helvetic Franz Bernard Meyer von Schauensee (born October 19, 1763 in Lucerne, † November 10, 1848 ibid), the pastor Johann Melchior Mohr and the later mayor Franz Xaver Keller (born October 12, 1772 in Lucerne , † September 12, 1816 ibid), with whom he was friends until his death.

In 1793, at the age of sixteen, he was appointed to the Grand Council as one of the youngest and from 1794 to 1798 he was clerk of the war council, then from 1798 to 1803 he was chief clerk of the Swiss administrative chamber of the canton of Lucerne . The respective clerk's position in several other commissions such as the Garrison, Timber and State Economy Commission, which gave him deep insights into the lower administrative structure of the patrician state, was also associated with his offices. In 1803 he was appointed senior archivist and clerk in the finance council in recognition of his loyal service and remained in this position for two years. On March 19, 1803 he was also appointed to the Board of Education and on August 5 of the same year he was elected state clerk.

On November 4, 1807 Josef Karl Amrhyn was appointed government commissioner by the mayor Heinrich Krauer , with the urgent task of taking care of the economic administration of the St. Urban monastery, because it was in a confusing and confused state. In May 1808 he was to receive a gratuity of 526 guilders for fulfilling this task, which he declined with thanks.

After Napoleon's defeat on his Russian campaign in 1812–1813, the aristocratic opposition in Lucerne began to undermine government offices. On January 20, 1814, 21 members of the former government submitted a memorandum to the Small Council, which referred to the abolition of the mediation government and demanded that the old families take over the state. After the regents had not responded to the opposition's ideas, they decided to carry out a violent regime change, including Josef Karl Amrhyn. After the successful coup, he was the youngest member of the Small Council to take on the tasks of the Council of State, the Council of Justice, the Director of the State Chancellery, the Council on Church Affairs and the Council on Education.

After his friend, Schultheiss Franz Xaver Keller, drowned in the Reuss on September 12, 1816 for unexplained reasons , Josef Karl Amrhyn was elected his successor as Mayor of the City and Republic of Lucerne at the end of December 1816. One of his first official acts was the establishment of an aid company to alleviate the weather-related famine in Lucerne by buying grain abroad.

He remained in this office until 1840. Through his work as mayor, he was President of the Federal Diet in 1819, 1825, 1831 and 1837 .

In 1819 he presided over the regional Council of State for the first time and at the same time presided over the entire confederation. In this role as local president, his powers were limited to the administrative and representative. Important decisions were made by the local Council of State, in which the mayor Vinzenz Rüttimann , the former Helvetian Minister of Justice, Säckelmeister Franz Bernard Meyer von Schauensee, Jakob Widmer, Josef Pfyffer v. Heidegg (* October 1, 1759 in Lucerne ; † September 12, 1834 ibid), governors Alfons Dulliker and Eduard Pfyffer (* October 13, 1782 in Rome ; † December 11, 1834 in Olten (in transit)).

After the conservative turnaround, Josef Karl Amrhyn resigned from the civil service in 1841.

Josef Karl Amrhyn married Theresia zur Gilgen (* 1776, † 1810) in 1799 with whom he had six children; After her death in 1812 he married the daughter of the community administrator Antonia Segesser (* 1789, † 1866), who worked as a teacher at the school in Yverdon Castle run by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi . His son Josef Franz Karl Amrhyn emerged from the first marriage , who was Federal Chancellor from 1830 to 1847.

Act

Josef Karl Amrhyn was considered to be a moderately liberal, cautious, cool, influential statesman who tended to be suspicious and who was himself unfit for service, but who promoted the military considerably. He was also the first to suggest the publication of the federal farewells (minutes), which had no legal force, but served the MPs to convey the content of the deliberations to their governments. As a State Councilor, he dealt among other things with extensive suggestions for improving the Criminal Code, some of which were given legal force.

As commissioner of the diocesan estates from 1820 to 1828, he played a key role in the establishment of today's diocese of Basel .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Martin Merki: Joseph Karl Amrhyn. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . October 7, 2010 , accessed September 1, 2017 .
2. ^ New nekrolog der Deutschen ..., p. 977 . BF Voigt, 1850 ( google.de [accessed September 1, 2017]).
3. ^ ADB: Müller, Thaddäus - Wikisource. Retrieved September 1, 2017 . 
4. ↑ The aristocratic coup d'état: Amrhyn's election to the mayor. In: Volume 94 (1939). The History Friend: Announcements from the Central Switzerland Historical Association, accessed on September 1, 2017 .