Peter Suter (politician, 1808)

Peter Suter (born December 27, 1808 in Sins , † March 14, 1884 in Beinwil (Freiamt) ; resident in Sins) was a Swiss politician . From 1852 to 1856 he was Councilor of the Canton of Aargau , 1866-1881, he represented his canton in the National Council .

biography

The son of the mill owner and appellate judge Xaver Suter attended the Latin school in Sins, then the Lucerne Cantonal School . There he joined the Zofingia , whose central president he was in 1827/28. Suter studied law at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg and at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität in Freiburg im Breisgau . After passing the bar exam, he worked as a council clerk for the canton of Aargau before setting up as a freelance lawyer.

In 1839 Suter was elected to the Grand Council . Two years later he supported Augustin Keller in formulating the ultimately successful application for the abolition of the Aargau monasteries . This attitude made him unpopular in large circles of the population in the Catholic-Conservative Oberfreiamt , his home region. During the Sonderbund War , too , he sided with the liberals, but then actively campaigned for reconciliation with the defeated conservatives. As a member of the Catholic Church Council, he promoted a state church policy that was contrary to the beliefs of the Freiämter.

In 1852 Suter was elected to the government council, to which he was a member until 1856. In the parliamentary elections in 1866 he was elected to the National Council, where he was a member of the radical liberal parliamentary group. In 1875 and 1878 he was the age president of the National Council. Suter repeatedly promoted the development of the upper Freiamt at the political level (foundation of the Sins district school , construction of the Auw - Dietwil road and the Aargau Southern Railway , Aristau - Ottenbach bridge , correction of the Reuss between Mühlau and Rottenschwil ).

In 1881 Suter ended his political career and spent the last years of his life in Horben Castle on the Lindenberg plateau above Beinwil (Freiamt) , which he had acquired in 1842 from the property of the Muri Monastery that had been confiscated by the state .

literature

• Anton Wohler: Suter, Peter. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• 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. 771-772 .