The New International Encyclopædia/Stahl, Friedrich Julius

STAHL, Friedrich Julius (1802-61). A German politician and political philosopher. He was born in Munich of Jewish parents, turned Protestant in 1819, studied at Würzburg, Heidelberg, and Erlangen, and in course of time became professor of law at Erlangen, Würzburg, and Berlin. In 1849 he was made a member of the Upper House of the Prussian Legislature, and in 1850 he was a member of the Erfurt Parliament. Stahl was a leader in the Lutheran Church, and became one of the most powerful influences for reaction in Germany. He stood for an absolute monarch and an absolute Church that should control the monarch. The basis of his political philosophy was the conception of the subserviency of all things lay and clerical to the will of God as expounded by the clergy. His most important work is the Philosophie des Rechts nach geschichtlicher Ansicht (1830). Some of his other works are Ueber Kirchenzucht (1845), Das monarchische Prinzip (1845), Der christliche Staat (1847), Die Revolution und die konstitutionelle Monarchie (1848), Die lutherische Kirche und die Union (1859).