Gustave Koerner decided he did not want to be a “latin farmer”- a term given to university educated Germans who desired to own land, the possibility of which was denied them in their homeland. Koerner attended lectures at Transylvania University in Kentucky to become fluent in English and learn more about the American legal system. He married Sophie Engelmann in 1836 and rented a home near the law office of Adam Snyder where he worked. Snyder was a Democrat office holder and Koerner’s business association with Snyder would be Koerner’s entrée to politics. Koerner later opened an office with James Shields, who became Koerner’s “best American friend.”

Gustave Koerner’s Early Years in America: Koerner’s Concern for German Immigrants and Their Understanding of American Life and Law

We are pleased to post the scholarly writings of University of Missouri–St. Louis Professor Steven Rowan. His translations and perspectives, more fully described below, add greatly to our understanding of Koerner’s intellectual activity in the 1830s. Graduate student, Michael Beatty, contributes a transcription of Fraktur into modern typeface, and an opposing viewpoint.

Links to these pages may be made, and one copy for your personal use is permitted by law. However, you must obtain permission from the original author to make any other reproduction, distribution, or other form of publication.

In Gesetzbuch, Koerner translated the laws of Illinois (1833) into German for newly-arrived immigrants.

Professor Rowan’s article, “Gustav Körner’s IllinoisGesetzbuch: A Legal Handbook for Illinois Germans in 1838″ summarizes the content of Koerner’s book with readers after first translating it back into English.

This Gesetzbuch article first appeared in Der Maibaum (Spring 2009) published by the Deutschheim Association, P.O. Box 16, Hermann, Missouri, 65041, digitized here with permission of the editor and author.

Read Page 1, 2, 3, 4

In 1842 Charles Dickens visited Belleville and ate at Belleville House Hotel. His description of the area was not flattering in his book Notes on Travel in America.  Lt. Gov. William Kinney, who favored slavery, felt compelled to write a response to Dickens’s portrayal of Belleville which Kinney thought was based on Dickens’s hatred of slavery. Kinney’s small booklet was panned as an unworthy response. Read a portion of it at this link.

Koerner entered local politics and was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1840, becoming the first German-born member of the house.. He served on the Judiciary Committee at the time black codes were introduced which were aimed at preventing black people from settling in Illinois. This item in the December 15, 1842 Belleville Advocate notes his parliamentary maneuvers to refuse bringing one of the bills to a vote. Koerner would next take a seat on the state supreme court from 1845 to 1848. In that position he heard Abraham Lincoln argue many cases. Koerner ruled on nine of Lincoln’s cases. The two would join forces a few years later on some railroad cases.

Gustave Koerner and his son, Gustave A., defended a lawsuit challenging German language instruction in Belleville public schools. The opinion of the Illinoi Supreme Court was issued in 1881.  The court upheld Koerner’s argument that German was an appropriate subject as long as English was the main language of instruction in the school system. Koerner Powell v Board of Education