Karl Anton Hamacher

Karl Anton Hamacher (* 1771 ; † December 1, 1810 in Düsseldorf ) was a German lawyer, legal scholar and from 1803 to 1805 private lecturer at the Düsseldorf Law Academy . He was also the author of several jurisprudential treatises.

Life

From November 1789, his studies at the law academy can be proven, at which he would later work as a teacher. Are listed institutions , Pandekten and canon law and feudal law . He is recognized as Carl Joseph Henoumont's "hardest-working repeater ". In the years 1796 and 1797 he applied unsuccessfully for a job as a chancery lawyer in court, even after the alderman and Jülich-and Bergische Councilor Franz Wilhelm Neesen died.

In the years 1798/99 he completed practical training with his professor Theodor Josef Lenzen (1762-1835). In 1799 he applied for a position as a law teacher at the academy. The reasoning states that he spent 10 years studying there. Professor Johann Jacob Camphausen (1745 – after 1799) has "not given any lectures for many years and the other law teachers [would] not be enough to teach all parts of law." He also lists which subjects vacant or understaffed. The elector alone should be lucky enough to train young men to be good lawyers. In fact, he seems to have received the (unpaid) position, because at the beginning of September he publicly announces his lectures as a repetiteur. A month later he receives a certificate for his work at Lenzen.

At the end of March 1800, Elector Maximilian IV reacted to Hamacher's "well-founded and detailed suggestions for improving the facility at the legal academy" and announced a reorganization. But he wanted to "quieter times" - probably meant after the occupation of the Duchy of Berg by the French.

In 1801 he renewed his request for a Raths trainee position linked with the hope that with his earlier requests he would not have “made himself unworthy of the highest grace for a job”. In order to emphasize his request, he added a 26-page manuscript with "Thoughts about an improved establishment of the legal academy in Düsseldorf". This renewed request did not find a favor, because just four days later Vice Chancellor Georg Joseph von Knapp (1726–1802) replied :

"The request is based on himself and [the] supplicant would have to abstain from unnecessary supplicating - for if the supplicant is active and is approved by the lectures, he will not lack listeners and he may be the same as the conduct of the dermal at Göttingen the repetitioners [Johann Wilhelm] Neuss who are present as an example. "

Hamacher was not deterred by this and hurriedly criticized the current conditions at the academy, which was "only limited to the kitchen and cellar". He supplemented these statements with his ideas for a 6-semester curriculum. He also criticized that natural law and canon law could only be heard at the theological faculty, which excluded Protestants and which was too oriented towards Catholic moral theology . One of his remarks was: "Without any previous pedagogical, encyclopaedic and historical knowledge, the prospective legal practitioner is usually introduced to the wide-ranging field of law, while neither the duration of a course nor the length of study is fixed at all."

Johann Wilhelm Neuss (1780–1857) was sponsored by the universally recognized Henoumont and was able to receive his certificate of appointment as full professor on January 7, 1804 as a 24-year-old who had to be represented by his father as a minor . His constant suggestions did not work to his advantage. Von Knapp suspected that Hamacher wanted to “show his talent to the public”, that is, to make himself popular with the public and that his proximity to German idealism would be suspect to the royal court. Neuss, nine years younger than him, who had also attended the Düsseldorf Law Academy to study, even wrote a pamphlet in 1804 with the title History of my studies, and most gracious employment as a full teacher of law at the Electoral Academy in Düsseldorf . In it he mainly addresses the accusation of patronage expressed by Hamacher, but recognizes the motto honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere . This dispute ended with Hamacher, who was judged by Guntram Fischer as well as Neuss to be a hopeful young lawyer, resigned himself and did not pursue his legal journal Archive of Legislation and Administration of Justice, which was announced for 1804, with excellent consideration for the herzugthum Berg , as well as at the end of the semester quit his repetition position.

For a salary, he took care of a merchant's bookkeeping as well as business with poor relief and with a newspaper editorial office. In 1805 he published the text Correction of the Doctrine: On the obligation of the heirs of the furniture to pay debts which were made for the purchase of goods lying under the out-of-court pledging of the same . In the same year he bought the Zum Papagey house and property at Flingerstraße 41 from a widow. For the years 1805 to 1810 he is on record as a provisional justice of the peace. His various requests were officially "shelved" in 1806. Another document shows that he must have been the head of the poor administration before 1807.

Nothing is known about his family today. On December 21, 1798 he married Maria Lennartz. In 1811, a quarter of a year after his death, she gave birth to a son. It is in the Golzheim cemetery . The inscription on his tombstone reads: "Carl Hamacher, administrator and first justice of the peace of the Canton of Düsseldorf , died in the 39th year of his age on December 1st, 1810".

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Guntram Fischer : Düsseldorf and his legal academy , Triltsch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1983, ISBN 3-7998-0024-7
2. ^ State archive Düsseldorf : AZ Sp A 7/760 . Quoted in: Guntram Fischer: Düsseldorf und seine Rechtsakademie , p. 254