Constitutional conflict in the state of Hesse
The Hessian constitutional conflict was a constitutional conflict that occurred in 1850 in the Electorate of Hesse .
In 1850, Elector Friedrich Wilhelm and his first minister, Ludwig Hassenpflug , who wanted to overturn the constitution , and the bourgeoisie , who wanted to prevent this, faced a stalemate .
The Hessian constitution of 1831 stipulated in § 143 that taxes could only be levied with permission from the state. The assembly of estates , dominated by the bourgeoisie, refused to approve the state budget presented by the government. As a result, Elector Friedrich Wilhelm I, contrary to the clear wording of the constitution, issued an emergency tax ordinance in order to be able to continue to raise taxes. The administration and judiciary, which are dominated by the bourgeoisie, regarded the corresponding sovereign decrees as unconstitutional and did not implement them. The highest court in the country, the Higher Appeal Court in Kassel, took the judicial review right for itself - at that time it was not a matter of course - and, chaired by Elard Johannes Kulenkamp , declared the emergency tax ordinance also unconstitutional and null and void.
The elector then imposed martial law . That hardly had any effect either. Thereupon the elector tightened martial law with a sovereign ordinance of September 28, 1850, based on a resolution of the German Confederation , in particular denied the courts the competence to review sovereign decrees for their constitutionality. But they did not adhere to it: on October 3, 1850, the Higher Appeal Court in Kassel also declared the sovereign ordinance of September 28, 1850 to be unconstitutional.
The military commander of the Hessian army , Lieutenant General Carl von Haynau , a son of the Elector Wilhelm I and his second mistress , Rosa Dorothea Ritter , tried with a proclamation to the soldiers and an address to the officers on October 4, 1850, at least the military keep going. This also failed. The officers had sworn their oath not only on the elector, but also on the constitution - a unique constellation in 19th century Germany. In order not to break the oath, 241 of the 277 officers submitted between October 9 and 12, 1850 requests for dismissal. This “ general strike ” by 87 percent of the officer corps made the Hessian military incapable of acting. In order to save the counterrevolution, the elector called for help from the Federal Assembly , which, as part of a federal intervention , sent Bavarian occupation troops in particular to Kurhessen, the so-called " penal Bavaria ".
See also
literature
- Marco Arndt: Military and State in Kurhessen 1813-1866. The officer corps in the field of tension between the monarchical principle and the liberal bourgeois world , Darmstadt, Marburg 1994 (= sources and research on Hessian history , 102).
- Werner Frotscher / Bodo Pieroth : Verfassungsgeschichte , 5th edition, Munich 2005, Rn 329 ff.
- Ewald Grothe (ed.): Ludwig Hassenpflug: Memories from the time of the second ministry 1850–1855 , Marburg 2008 (= publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse , 48.11; Political and parliamentary history of the State of Hesse , 34).
- Ewald Grothe: Constitutional conflict 1850 . In: Kassel Lexikon , ed. von der Stadt Kassel, vol. 2, Kassel 2009, p. 289 f.
- Nadine E. Herrmann: The Hessian constitutional conflict . In: JA 2001, pp. 202-214.