Francis Lieber | |
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| Born | Franz Lieber (1798-03-18)18 March 1798 |
| Died | (1872-10-02)2 October 1872 (aged 74) New York City, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of Jena |
| Notable work | Lieber Code |
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Francis Lieber (bornFranz Lieber; 18 March 1798 – 2 October 1872)[1][2] was aGerman-Americanjurist andpolitical philosopher. He is best known for theLieber Code, the first codification of thecustomary law and thelaws of war for battlefield conduct, which served as a basis for theHague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and for the laterGeneva Conventions.[3][4][5] He was also a pioneer in the fields of law, political science, and sociology in the United States.[2][6]
Born in Berlin, Prussia, to aJewish merchant family, Lieber served in thePrussian Army during theWars of Liberation againstNapoleon Bonaparte. He obtained a doctorate from theUniversity of Jena in 1820. Arepublican, he volunteered to fight on the Greek side in theGreek War of Independence in 1821. After experiencing repression in Prussia for his political views, he emigrated to the United States in 1827. During his early years in America, he worked a number of jobs, including swimming and gymnastics instructor, editor of the first editions of theEncyclopaedia Americana, journalist, and translator.
Lieber wrote a plan of education for the newly foundedGirard College and lectured atNew York University before becoming a tenured professor of history and political economy at theUniversity of South Carolina in 1835.[7] In 1857, he joined the faculty atColumbia University where he assumed the chair of history and political science in 1858.[7][8] He transferred toColumbia Law School in 1865 where he taught until his death in 1872.[2]
Lieber was commissioned by the U.S. Army to write theInstructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field (General Orders No. 100, 24 April 1863), the Lieber Code of military law that governed the battlefield conduct of theUnion Army during theAmerican Civil War (1861–1865).[9][10] The Lieber Code was the first codification of thecustomary law and thelaws of war governing the battlefield conduct of an army in the field, and later was a basis for theHague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and for theGeneva Conventions.[3][11]
Franz Lieber was born the tenth of twelve children to a wealthy Jewish merchant family inBerlin, then the capital of theKingdom of Prussia.[12][13] The year of his birth (1798 or 1800) has been debated because he lied about his age in order to enlist.[14][2] Lieber joined the Colberg Regiment of thePrussian Army in 1815 during theNapoleonic Wars, and was wounded inNamur, Belgium during theBattle of Waterloo.[2] He was treated in a military hospital inHuy, which was then part of the Netherlands but which is today Belgium.[7][15] He rejoined his regiment after recovering from his wounds, but developed a typhoid fever and was subsequently treated at military hospitals in Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne.[15]
After the war, he was a high school student atGraues Kloster in Berlin.[7] He became politically active during this time period, was arrested by Prussian authorities, and held for pretrial detention inSpandau prison from July to November 1819. Returning to Berlin after the Napoleonic wars (post 1815),[16] he passed the entrance exams for theUniversity of Berlin. However, he was denied admission because of his membership in theBerliner Burschenschaft, which opposed the Prussian monarchy. Moving toJena, Lieber entered theUniversity of Jena in 1820 and within four months finished writing a dissertation in the field of mathematics.[17][7] As the Prussian authorities caught up with him, Lieber left Jena forDresden to studytopography with Major Decker (briefly). In Prussia, Lieber was imprisoned and repeatedly questioned for his republican views.[2]
Lieber fought briefly on the Greek side in theGreek War of Independence.[2] He then spent one year, 1822–1823, inRome tutoring the son of the Prussian ambassador, historianBarthold Georg Niebuhr.[2][7] While there, Lieber wrote about his experiences in Greece. The result was published in Leipzig in 1823 and also in Amsterdam under the titleThe German Anacharsis. Lieber returned to Germany on a royal pardon, but was soon imprisoned once again, this time atKöpenick. He was in pretrial detention at Köpenick from August 1824 to April 1825.[7]
At Köpenick, Lieber wrote a collection of poems entitledWein- und Wonne-Lieder (Songs of Wine and Bliss), which on his release, with Niebuhr's help, were published in Berlin in 1824 under the pen name of "Franz Arnold". Lieber fled to England in 1825, and supported himself for a year inLondon by giving lessons and contributing to German periodicals. In London he met American writer and criticJohn Neal, who was studying gymnastics fromCarl Voelker and intent on bringing the movement to the US.[18] Neal published articles inThe Yankee[19] and theAmerican Journal of Education about Lieber's work, and recommending him as "qualified, almost beyond example" as a teacher of gymnastics, and "the chief personage with professorJahn himself".[20] Lieber also wrote a tract on theLancasterian system of instruction, and met his future wife, Mathilda Oppenheimer.[21] He left England upon receiving an offer to manage agymnasium and swimming program in Boston.
Lieber moved toBoston in 1827. He came with recommendations fromJahn, as well as fromGeneral Pfuel who ran a swimming program in Berlin. Lieber was also acquainted with the outgoing gymnasium administrator,Charles Follen, both believing thoroughly in the importance of training the body along with the mind. Follen had established the pioneer gymnasium in 1826. Lieber's Boston swimming school of 1827, a new departure in the educational field in the United States, became such a feature thatJohn Quincy Adams, thenPresident of the United States, went to see it.[22][23][24] The gymnasium had a difficult time once the novelty had worn off and in the face of caricatures in the newspapers. It closed its doors after two years.[24]
In Boston, Lieber edited anEncyclopaedia Americana,[25] after conceiving of the idea of translating theBrockhaus encyclopedia into English. It was published inPhiladelphia in 13 volumes, between the years 1829 and 1833.[26] At this time, he also made translations of a French work on the revolution of July 1830 and ofFeuerbach's life ofKaspar Hauser. He was also a confidant toAlexis de Tocqueville on the customs of the American people. Lieber was a nationalist, a supporter of free trade, and an opponent of slavery, though "[h]is reservations about slavery were ... ambiguous",[27] and he later owned slaves.[2] "He was distinctly hostile to abolition", which ended his friendship withCharles Sumner until the war "broke out and they found themselves both strong supporters of Lincoln".[28]
In 1832, he received a commission from the trustees of the newly foundedGirard College to form a plan of education. This was published at Philadelphia in 1834.[26] He resided in Philadelphia from 1833 until 1835. He soon became a professor of history andpolitical economics at South Carolina College (now theUniversity of South Carolina), where he owned slaves until his departure in 1856.[29][30] During his 20 years at the college, he produced some of his most important works. Such writers and jurists asMittermaier,Johann Kaspar Bluntschli,Édouard René de Laboulaye,Joseph Story andJames Kent, recognized in him a kindred mind.[31] The spirit of Lieber's work is indicated in his favorite motto,Nullum jus sine officio, nullum officium sine jure ("No right without its duties, no duty without its rights").[32]
From 1856 until 1865, he was professor of history and political science atColumbia College (later Columbia University) in New York City. He chose his own title and became the first academic identified as a political scientist in the United States.[21] In 1860, he also became professor of political science atColumbia Law School, a post he held until his death. His inaugural address as professor at Columbia, on "Individualism and Socialism or Communism", was published by the college.[33]
Lieber sided with the North during theAmerican Civil War, even though he had been a prominent resident ofSouth Carolina. Indeed, Lieber was even a slave owner himself, and his brothers-in-law, members of the powerful Oppenheimer (de) family dynasty, owned plantations and slaves in Puerto Rico.[29][30][34] However, in 1851, Lieber delivered an address in South Carolina warning the southern states against secession. One of his sons, geologistOscar Montgomery Lieber (see below), joined theConfederate army and died at theBattle of Eltham's Landing. A second son, Hamilton, who had fought for the Union, lost an arm.[35]
During the conflict, Francis Lieber was one of the founders and served as the head of theLoyal Publication Society of New York, compiling news articles for dissemination among Union troops and Northern newspapers. More than one hundred pamphlets were issued by it under his supervision, of which ten were by himself. He also assisted the UnionWar Department and PresidentAbraham Lincoln in drafting legal guidelines for the Union army, the most famous being General Orders Number 100, or the "Lieber Code" as it is commonly known. The Lieber Code would be adopted by other military organizations and go on to form the basis of the first Westernizedlaws of war. Lieber's legal legacy is detailed inJohn Fabian Witt's 2012 account entitled, ironically,Lincoln's Code.[36] Law professor Robert Fabrikant takes Witt to task for retitling "a famous legal code, giving it Lincoln's name but knowing full well Lincoln neither wrote the code nor made any contribution to it, knowing full well the identity of the actual author, and knowing equally well that the code at issue has, since its publication more than 150 years ago, always been known by the name of its actual author (and never by Lincoln's name)".[37]
An abridged version of the Lieber Code was published in 1899 inThe War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies in 1899.[38]
In February 1865, Lieber published a pamphlet he'd written containing seven proposal for amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Two involved the abolition of slavery, the first proclaiming slavery "forever abolished" and the second "prescribing the death penalty to those who continued to own or trade slaves".[39] Another proposal in Lieber's pamphlet "prefigured the Fourteenth Amendment" by stipulating that all free inhabitants of the United States "shall be deemed citizens of the United States, and without any exception of color, race, or origin, shall be entitled to all the privileges of citizens...."[40] Lieber also proposed an insurrection amendment: "It shall be a high crime directly to incite to armed resistance to the authority of the United States, or to establish or to join Societies or Combinations, secret or public, the object of which is to offer armed resistance to the authority of the United States, or to prepare for the same by collecting arms, organizing men, or otherwise."[41]
After the Civil War, Lieber was given the task of accumulating and preserving the records of the former government of theConfederate States of America. While working in this capacity, Lieber was one of the last known people to possess the infamousDahlgren Affair papers. Shortly after obtaining them, Lieber was ordered to give them to Secretary of WarEdwin M. Stanton, who likely disposed of them, as they have not been seen since.
From 1870 until his death inNew York City, aged 72, Francis Lieber served as a diplomatic negotiator between theUnited States andMexico.[42] He was chosen, with the united approval of the United States and Mexico, as final arbitrator in important cases pending between the two countries. This work was not completed at his death.[26] Lieber was a member of theFrench Institute and of many learned societies in theUnited States and elsewhere.[25]
He was married to Mathilde Oppenheimer, the daughter of a Hamburg merchant-banker.[7] They met in London in 1826 where Lieber was her tutor.[7] They married in New York City in 1829.[7] They had four children, one of whom died in infancy.[7] His sonOscar Montgomery Lieber was ageologist. During the Civil War, he was killed in action serving as a private in theConfederate army.
A second son, Alfred Hamilton Lieber (7 June 1835,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – 18 October 1876,Baden-Baden,Germany), entered the volunteer army at the beginning of the civil war as 1st lieutenant, 9th Illinois Regiment, and was badly wounded atFort Donelson. Afterward, he was appointed a captain in the veteran reserve corps, and served during thedraft riots in New York City in 1863. In 1866, he was made a captain and military storekeeper in the regular army, and was retired on account of disabilities contracted in the line of duty.
A third son,Guido Norman Lieber, was aUnited States Army lawyer and jurist. During the Civil War, he served in theUnion army and later rose to the rank of Brigadier General[7] and also becameJudge Advocate General of the United States Army—serving the longest-ever tenure as head of the Advocate General's Department (1884–1901).
Lieber expressed hostility to the French, Turks, and Russians. He wrote in 1854, "I do not like the Turks, they are a coarse race, without a history" and "I nourish a very strong hatred for the Russians."[15]
In 2015, theUnited States Department of Defense published itsLaw of War Manual. In section 1.9.2, it states:
The writings "of the most highly qualified publicists" have sometimes been used as a subsidiary means of determining the rules of international law. For example, classical publicists, such asHugo Grotius andEmmerich de Vattel, and recognized scholars, such as Francis Lieber andHersch Lauterpacht, have been widely cited and relied upon as practitioners have sought to interpret and apply thelaw of war.[43]
Numerous addresses on anniversary and other occasions.
Francis Lieber.
