Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Brentano, Lorenzo

BRENTANO, Lorenzo, journalist, b. in Mannheim, Germany, 4 Nov., 1813; d. in Chicago, 18 Sept., 1891. He received a thorough classical training, and studied jurisprudence at Heidelberg and Freiburg. He was admitted to practice in Baden, and after attaining the legal age was elected to the chamber of deputies. He took part in the revolution of 1848, being a member of the Frankfort parliament, and subsequently president of the provisional republican government established in 1849, by the then hopeful revolutionists. The power of Prussia intervened in July of that year, and the grand duke was re-established. Brentano effected his escape, and only knew that he had been sentenced to imprisonment for life after reaching the United States. He settled as a farmer in Kalamazoo co., Mich., and remained there until 1859, when he removed to Chicago and was admitted to the bar. He soon became editor of the “Illinois Staats-Zeitung,” and in 1862 was a member of the state legislature. For five years he was president of the Chicago board of education. In 1868 he was presidential elector on the Grant and Colfax ticket. In 1869, a general amnesty having been granted to the revolutionists of 1849, he revisited his native land. He was appointed U. S. consul at Dresden in 1872, and served until 1876, when he was elected to congress, where he served until 3 March, 1879. After leaving congress he devoted much time to historical and literary researches designed to compare and contrast the American and European codes of criminal procedure. In this line of work he has published a report of the trial of the assassin of President Garfield, and a history of the celebrated case of King v. Missouri (U. S. Supreme Court Reports, 107). This last was republished in Leipsic. In 1884 Mr. Brentano gave up active work, owing to partial paralysis.