Franz Lieber was born the tenth of twelve children to a wealthy Jewish merchant family in
Berlin, then the capital of the
Kingdom of Prussia. The year of his birth (1798 or 1800) has been debated because he lied about his age in order to enlist. 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. he passed the entrance exams for the
University of Berlin. However, he was denied admission because of his membership in the
Berliner Burschenschaft, which opposed the Prussian monarchy. Moving to
Jena, Lieber entered the
University of Jena in 1820 and within four months finished writing a dissertation in the field of mathematics. He then spent one year, 1822–1823, in
Rome tutoring the son of the Prussian ambassador, historian
Barthold Georg Niebuhr. Neal published articles in
The Yankee and the
American 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 professor
Jahn himself". Lieber also wrote a tract on the
Lancasterian system of instruction, and met his future wife, Mathilda Oppenheimer. He left England upon receiving an offer to manage a
gymnasium and swimming program in Boston.
American educator and writer Lieber moved to
Boston in 1827. He came with recommendations from
Jahn, as well as from
General 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 that
John Quincy Adams, then
President of the United States, went to see it. 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. after conceiving of the idea of translating the
Brockhaus encyclopedia into English. It was published in
Philadelphia in 13 volumes, between the years 1829 and 1833. At this time, he also made translations of a French work on the revolution of July 1830 and of
Feuerbach's life of
Kaspar Hauser. He was also a confidant to
Alexis 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", and he later owned slaves. In 1832, he received a commission from the trustees of the newly founded
Girard College to form a plan of education. This was published at Philadelphia in 1834. 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"). From 1856 until 1865, he was professor of history and political science at
Columbia 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.
Civil War activities Lieber sided with the North during the
American Civil War, even though he had been a prominent resident of
South 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. However, in 1851, Lieber delivered an address in South Carolina warning the southern states against secession. One of his sons, geologist
Oscar Montgomery Lieber (see below), joined the
Confederate army and died at the
Battle of Eltham's Landing. A second son, Hamilton, who had fought for the Union, lost an arm. During the conflict, Francis Lieber was one of the founders and served as the head of the
Loyal 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 Union
War Department and President
Abraham 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 Westernized
laws of war. Lieber's legal legacy is detailed in
John Fabian Witt's 2012 account entitled, ironically, ''Lincoln's Code''. 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)". An abridged version of the Lieber Code was published in 1899 in
The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies in 1899. 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". 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...." 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."
Preserving Confederate documents After the Civil War, Lieber was given the task of accumulating and preserving the records of the former government of the
Confederate States of America. While working in this capacity, Lieber was one of the last known people to possess the infamous
Dahlgren Affair papers. Shortly after obtaining them, Lieber was ordered to give them to Secretary of War
Edwin M. Stanton, who likely disposed of them, as they have not been seen since.
Diplomacy From 1870 until his death in
New York City, aged 72, Francis Lieber served as a diplomatic negotiator between the
United States and
Mexico. 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. Lieber was a member of the
French Institute and of many learned societies in the
United States and elsewhere. ==Personal life==