Carl Friedrich Emil von Ibell
Carl Friedrich Emil von Ibell | |
---|---|
Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Hesse-Homburg, German Confederation | |
Occupation(s) | Political administrator Government president (Regierungspräsident) |
Spouse | Caroline Weis (1785-1873) |
Children | Karl von Ibell (1806-1847) Emma von Ibell / Koch (1807-1885) Dr. med Rudolf von Ibell (1814–1864) |
Parent(s) | Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Ibell (1744-1826) Christiane Dorothea Franziska Schmidt (1756-1823) |
Carl Friedrich Justus Emil von Ibell (29 October 1780 – 6 October 1834) was a senior government official (Amtmann) who famously survived an assassination attempt in 1819,[1] and who ended up as president of the government in Hesse-Homburg which by this time was part of the German Confederation.[2][3]
Life
Family provenance
The Ibell family had originated in France, but they were
Carl Ibell was his parents' only recorded son, and their fourth recorded child, born in the substantial hunting lodge at
Early years
Ibell was a delicate child, and for much of the time during his first nine years he was ill, after which his health improved, much to his parents' relief.[1] Initially educated by his parents, from 1790 he was taught by his great uncle (by marriage), the Protestant pastor Jakob Ludwig Schellenberg, in Bierstadt.[7] Between 1793 and 1797 he attended the secondary school in nearby Idstein[7] which his father had attended before him.[1] Here he was able to live with a friend of his father's who was a physician.[1] At school the boy excelled academically.[1] After this he went away to university, studying Jurisprudence at Göttingen from 1798 till 1801, just as his father had done a generation earlier.[1] Two of his more memorable teachers at Göttingen were Johann Stephan Pütter (Law) and Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (Natural Sciences), both of whom were old enough to remember his father's time as a student, which led them to welcome the son with particular warmth, although Professor Lichtenberg died in 1799.[1] In 1801 Carl Ibell received his practicing certificate.[3] His university studies also took in natural sciences along with historical, archaeological, philosophical and language studies.[3]
Government service in Nassau-Usingen
In 1802 he accompanied the president of the government of
Between 1804 and 1815 he held a succession of influential posts at the heart of government as an administrative lawyer ("Verwaltungsjurist").
Towards the end of his time at Göttingen Ibell had studied closely both The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith and Traité d'économie politique by Jean-Baptiste Say, in both cases insisting on studying the works in their original language due to the inadequacy of the available translations.[1] In terms of the contemporary political and economic context, he was uncompromising in his promotion of economic liberalism. His studies had left him with a particular expertise in matters concerning government finance and taxation.[1] He was centrally involved in the abolition of serfdom and forced labour (1808), the tax code of February 1809, celebrated at the time as the "simplest and most expedient" and abolishing the tax collection privileges of the aristocracy. He was responsible for the Free Movement Law (Freizügigkeitsgesetz 1810) as a result of which each citizen of Nassau could choose freely where he would live.[3] He also pushed through the abolition of various old laws that inhibited trade and ended internal tolls on the waterways.[1]
Ibell was closely involved, together with von Bieberstein and Stein, in drafting the Nassau Constitution of 1814.[1] The document was widely welcomed by liberals and progressives as the first modern written constitution to appear anywhere in the territories defined by what had been, till 1806, the Holy Roman Empire.[8] His "Schools Edict" of 24 March 1817, which reflected a lifelong commitment to education, provided a structure for basic schooling and made school attendance compulsory.[1] Later, in 1817, he was also closely involved in discussions leading up to the merger between the Lutheran and Reformed Protestant churches in Nassau,[3] which was finally enshrined in an edict of 8 April 1818 which provided for a closer relationship between the liturgies of the hitherto separate churches, and set down principals for the regulation of church property.[1]
Ibell's success as a statesman attracted gratitude from
On 1 July 1819 President Ibell received a visit at his home from a 28-year-old pharmacist called Karl Löning.[1] The visit was unusual both because the man arrived without any advance notice, and because he arrived before mid-day. Löning's appearance was distracted and unconventional. Ibell nevertheless invited him in and they sat down to talk. Shortly after this Löning produced a dagger and stabbed Ibell. Ibell was able to deflect the blade, so that while he ended up bleeding badly, he suffered no lasting physical damage.[1] A struggle ensued and after they ended up on the floor Ibell was able to hold Löning still for long enough to be able to call for help. Eventually his wife heard his calls for help and attempted to disarm the attacker. After this failed she too called for help. Eventually more people arrived, including Ibell's fifteen-year-old son, and the men were able to remove Löning.[1] It turned out that Karl Löning was connected with the Gießen Blacks, a radical republican student fraternity. The assassination attempt was one of a series of events which was triggered by the passing by the quasi-parliamentary Federal Assembly, in September 1819, of the Carlsbad Decrees, an essentially reactionary set of legislative measures which banned nationalist fraternities ("Burschenschaften"), removed liberal university professors, and extended press censorship.[10] The measures were a long way from the liberal principles espoused by Ibell himself. The incident left Ibell deeply shaken and in 1820 he retired into private life.[3] There are also indications that an end to Ibell's political career was triggered both by the reactionary currents that set in more generally and by increasingly stark differences with his prince on the interpretation of the constitution, notably as to whether the prince held his property on behalf of the state or on behalf of himself.
Government service in Hesse-Homburg
When Ibell retired from public service in 1820 he was aged just 40: his reputation for administrative and economic competence were intact. Six years later he entered the service of a neighbouring
For Unterliederbach, Ibell funded and set up a progressive school for young people hitherto deprived of schooling in 1831. The curriculum included arithmetic, calligraphy, written composition and geodetics.[citation needed]
The constantly shifting complexities of relationships between
In 1832 he fell seriously ill and withdrew from his office. Two years later he felt well enough to attempt a return to work, representing Hesse-Homburg at a ministerial conference at Vienna which Metternich had convoked, as a response to the upheavals of 1830, in order to impose an anti-democratic constitution across the German confederation.[11] Ibell was quickly forced by his illness to return home to his home in Unterliederbach where he died a few weeks later.[3]
Notes
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Dr Karl Schwartz. "Lebensnachrichten über den Regierungspräsidenten Karl von Ibell mit Briefsauszügen als Beilagen". Nassauische Alterthumskunde und Geschichtsforschung. Wiesbaden 1875, Auf Kosten des Vereins (In Commission bei W.Roth). Retrieved 25 May 2016.
- ^ a b c d Thomas Krohn; et al. "Carl Friedrich Emil von Ibell". Rhein-Main.Net GmbH, Frankfurt/Main. Archived from the original on 25 June 2016. Retrieved 25 May 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Ernst Joachim (1881). "Ibell: Karl Friedrich Justus Emil v. J., geb. den ..." Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. Duncker & Humblot & Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. pp. 737–739. Retrieved 25 May 2016.
- ^ "Carl Friedrich Emil Ibell von". i.A.Klaus Nitzsche. 11 January 2016. Archived from the original on 4 June 2016. Retrieved 26 May 2016.
- ^ "Christiane Dorothea Franziska Schmidt". i.A.Klaus Nitzsche. 11 January 2016. Archived from the original on 4 June 2016. Retrieved 26 May 2016.
- ^ "Schmidt, Carl Ludwig". Hessische Biografie. Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS), Marburg. 13 March 2014. Retrieved 26 May 2016.
- ^ a b "Ibell, Carl Friedrich Julius Emil von". Hessische Biografie. Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS), Marburg. 12 March 2014. Retrieved 25 May 2016.
- ^ W Schueler (19 September 1989). "175 Jahre Nassauische Verfassung" (PDF). Hessische Landtag. pp. 9–23. Retrieved 26 May 2016.
- ^ a b "Karl Friedrich von Ibell". Jutta Müller i.A. Heimat- und Geschichtsverein Unterliederbach e.V., Frankfurt am Main. Retrieved 27 May 2016.
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- ^ Botzenhart, Reform, Restauration, Krise, p. 120–125; Angelow, Deutscher Bund, p. 49–54.