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.

Koerner and Lincoln at the Illinois Supreme Court, 1845 to 1848
Research obtained by State Representative Tom Holbrook of Belleville provides new information about Gustave Koerner’s three year term on the Illinois Supreme Court. The Legislative Research Unit of the Illinois General Assembly prepared the report for Holbrook, who also has obtained state grants for stabilization work on Koerner’s home at 200 Abend, Belleville.
Koerner followed the political rise of Abraham Lincoln since the 1830’s, but, as an Illinois Supreme Court Justice in the mid 1840’s, Koerner was in a position to gain considerably more insight into Lincoln’s abilities.
Koerner’s university education began at Jenna, Germany in 1828. He and several beer-drinking friends were arrested Christmas eve of 1830 after a snow ball fight ended with a policeman being struck. He was jailed and studied his law books for the next four months. He wrote in his “Memoirs”,’ I really learned more law during my confinement than I had in Jenna for two years.” (1) Koerner immigrated to the United States in 1832 after participating in a student uprising that failed to bring liberal reforms to German government.
Koerner traveled sixty miles on horseback to the state capitol at Vandalia in June of 1835 to appear before two Justices of the Illinois Supreme Court to qualify for his law license. The interview took place in the judges’ rented room above a tavern. One judge was ill and laid in bed during the informal half-hour conversation. After being deemed fit to practice law by the judges, they went downstairs to have a drink. In his “ Memoirs”, Koerner contrasted the Illinois frontier licensing procedure with his four hour , University of Heidelberg law graduate examination- in Latin- by four law professors. In Frankfort, the licensing exam took two hours before two judges and was conducted in a banquet hall used to celebrate the coronation of German emperors. Koerner, wrote “the old imperial building and the one-horse tavern in Vandalia kept by an Irishman, whose normal state was drunkenness- what a change of historical setting.” (2)
Lincoln’s preparation for the bar was much less formal than Koerner’s and relied on his friendship with John Todd Stuart, a Springfield lawyer who lent Lincoln a copy of “Blackstone’s Commentaries” and several treatises on legal pleadings and practice. Lincoln passed the Illinois Supreme Court examination September 9, 1836, fifteen months after Koerner. (3)

Abraham Lincoln spoke at the 1832 St Clair County courthouse in 1840

Democrat Koerner observed Whig Lincoln’s speech at a political rally at the St. Clair County Courthouse in 1840:”In point of melody of voice and graceful delivery, though not in argument, most all other speakers surpassed him. His appearance was not very prepossessing. His exceedingly tall and very angular form made his movements rather awkward. Nor were his features, when he was not animated, pleasant, owing principally to his high cheek-bones. His complexion had no roseate hue of health, but was rather bilious, and when not speaking, his face seemed to be overshadowed by melancholy thoughts. I observed him closely, thought I saw a good deal of intellect in him, while his looks were genial and kind.”(4)
. Koerner, the first German native to be elected to the Illinois General Assembly in 1842, missed serving with Lincoln in the Illinois House as Koerner was elected the year in which Lincoln retired.
April 2, 1845, Koener was appointed to the high court to fill the vacancy created by James Shields who resigned to accept President James K. Polk’s appointment as Commissioner of the General Land Office. In the late 1830’s, Koerner and Shields were law partners in Belleville . In 1842, Shields, who then was State Auditor, challenged Lincoln to a duel over comments printed in a Springfield newspaper. The duel was cancelled after friends intervened. No doubt Koerner and Shields discussed the latter’s entanglement with Lincoln. Lincoln, for his part, held no grudge after the incident and later appointed Shields to the rank of General during the Civil War.
Koerner would hear Lincoln in fifty cases while on the state high court between 1845 and 1848, and in nine of the cases write the majority, concurring or dissenting opinions. (5)
What types of issues were argued by the early lawyers of Illinois? In “Life on the Circuit with Lincoln,” author Henry Whitney wrote ,“It is strange to contemplate that in those comparatively recent but primitive days, Mr. Lincoln’s whole attention should have been engrossed in petty controversies or acrimonious disputes between neighbors about trifles; that he should have puzzled his great mind in attempting to decipher who was the owner of a litter of pigs, or which party was to blame for the loss of a flock of sheep, by foot rot; or whether some irascible spirit was justified in avowing that his enemy had committed perjury; yet, I have known him to give as earnest attention to such matters as later he gave to affairs of State.” (6)
Koerner wrote four opinions in Lincoln cases in 1845. In” Patterson versus Edwards “ Lincoln had won a lower court slander award of $220 for Mrs. Patterson who was accused by Mrs. Edwards of “having children by a Negro man who was not her husband.” Koerner’s majority opinion overturned the lower court verdict because Mrs. Edwards’ words did not meet the definition of the Illinois slander law. (7) Other Lincoln cases before Koerner that year included: trespass involving a house that was transported from land whose ownership was in question; an estate dispute in which property was sold, allegedly in error, after the owner’s death; and, contract fraud where one party claimed fraud by the other party in an attempt to get the contract rescinded.(8)
In 1846 Lincoln argued five cases in which Koerner wrote opinions. Koerner wrote a dissenting opinion in a contract case where an employee left the employer without finishing the contract and the employee requested partial payment. (9) Koerner wrote the opinion overturning Lincoln’s lower court win in “Mayo versus Edgar County” in which Lincoln argued the county should reimburse court clerk Mayo $7.93; Koerner’s opinion held the state should have paid the fee. (10) Koerner’s other opinions were filed in cases involving evidence in an assault on a daughter that resulted in loss of service to the parent, a deed dispute and lastly, the length of a term for a state-issued grocery license. (11)
Other non-Lincoln cases in which Koerner authored an opinion involved allegations of fraud, debts, bankruptcy, contracts, nonpayment of rent, real estate foreclosure, real estate deed disputes, passage of counterfeit bills and a breach of marriage promise and defamation of character. (12)

Supreme Court Judges at that time also heard circuit level cases in their respective districts. Koerner traded case loads with a Peoria judge to avoid a conflict in Madison and St. Clair counties cases he had started before being appointed to the high court. He and Peoria Judge John Caton became good friends and roomed with each other in the winter of 1847-48 during court at Springfield.( 13)
Koerner and Lincoln cooperated on several private practice cases in the 1850’s. Lincoln’s appreciation of Koerner’s legal skills was evident in a July 19, 1857 letter to Koerner in which Lincoln noted one of their cases was coming up ”and I shall be glad to have the benefit of your legal assistance.” The same letter refers to a $312,000 judgment against the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, which bought the Belleville and Illinois Town Railroad, although it is not clear what legal interests both men represented. (14)
Amanda Huston, Research Librarian with the Legislative Research Unit of the Illinois General Assembly, estimates Koerner participated in about 800 cases in his three years on the court. In 1848, a revised state constitution eliminated 6 of the 9 justices and reduced their pay. Koerner was confident he could earn three to four times as much in private practice so he returned to Belleville and, according to his “Memoirs”, “I made a plan of building myself a house. But it was late in the fall before I made the contract and the house was not finished until spring of 1849.” (15)
Koerner was elected president of the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention that nominated Lincoln to run against Democrat Stephen Douglas. When it appeared New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley and others might support Douglas, Koerner said, “We must make them understand Lincoln is our man.” 16
After 160 years, the Gustave Koerner House Restoration Committee of the St. Clair County Historical Society “has made a plan” of restoring Koerner’s 3,300 square foot home. Future updates on our progress will be reported here

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