Bluntschli, JOHANN KASPAR

Bluntschli, JOHANN KASPAR, jurist, was born 7th March 1808, at Zurich, where in 1833 he became professor in the new university. In politics he at first inclined to reform, but after 1839 was Conservative leader. He was a councillor of state, and became a member of the government and of the federal directory, and afterwards worked for the formation of a moderate Liberal-Conservative party in Switzerland. In 1848 he went to Munich as professor of Civil and International Law. There he published his Allgemeines Staatsrecht (5th ed. 1876), on which his reputation as a jurisconsult chiefly rests; Deutsches Privatrecht (3d ed. 1864); and, in conjunction with Arndt and Pözl, Kritische Ueberschau der Deutschen Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissenschaft (6 vols. 1853-58). In 1861 he removed to Heidelberg University, and became a privy-councillor of Baden, actively forwarding all liberal measures in the state. Liberty in ecclesiastical matters he had equally at heart; he acted several times as president of the Protestantenverein, and it was after delivering a closing speech at the general synod of Baden that he died suddenly at Karlsruhe, 21st October 1881. He is the author of valuable histories of Zurich and of the Swiss Confederation, and of a number of works on law, being especially an authority in international law. In 1884 his autobiography appeared in three volumes.