Carl, 3rd Prince of Leiningen
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Emich, Prince of Leiningen ( born September 12, 1804 in Amorbach, Lower Franconia, Bavaria, † November 13, 1856 at Castle Waldleiningen at Amorbach ) was the third Prince of Leiningen and came from the line Leiningen- Dabo - Hartsburg. He served as a royal Bavarian Lieutenant General, was the first Prime Minister of the members of the Frankfurt National Assembly Imperial Government of the Provisional Central Power and first chairman of the Mainz noble association.
Family
Karl zu Leiningen the son of Prince Emich Carl was Leiningen (1763-1814), which hunting writer and author of plays was, and his second wife Victoire of Saxe- Coburg -Saalfeld ( 1786-1861 ).
Karl zu Leiningen was the half-brother of Queen Victoria, because after the death of his father his mother married on 11 July 1818 in Kew Palace ( Surrey, England) Eduard August, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, a younger son of King George III. of Great Britain. From this second marriage came as the only child Alexandrina Victoria, who later became Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India.
Karl zu Leiningen married on 13 February 1829 in Amorbach Maria Countess of Klebelsberg ( born March 27, 1806 Dirna in Tábor, Bohemia, † October 28, 1880 in Bonn). The marriage produced two sons were born.
Life
After private lessons at the family castle Karl zu Leiningen attended a private school in Berne. His widowed mother wrote in 1816: " We also have an excellent attention directed at the concern for the befitting education of our children to the art education of the selfsame. " From 1821 to 1823 Charles studied Leiningen law at the University of Göttingen with Karl Friedrich Eichhorn. During these years he spent his vacation in England with her mother, who was there married in second marriage with the Duke of Kent, and his half-sister Victoria. When his mother and later in the British court his interest in art was aroused and encouraged by local artist and court painter.
During the years 1823-1842 he was confined mainly to the management of the Principality of Leiningen and took care of, inter alia, the construction of his new residence Waldleiningen. Since 1831 he was represented as a hereditary member of the Bavarian Imperial Council, since 1820 also in the First Chamber of the Estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse and since 1818 in the First Chamber of the States General of the Grand Duchy of Baden, where he held the rank of Grand-Ducal major general.
On April 20, 1842, he was one of the 21 founders of the Mainz Adel Association, the promotion of German emigration to Texas (USA) made itself the task. In the Constituent Assembly he was elected chairman, however, did not care very active around the shops of the noble association. When he got into trouble and was eventually converted into a corporation in 1844, Karl took Leiningen already in 1843 the office of President of the Bavarian Empire Council on. A post he held until 1848, simultaneously with the rank of lieutenant general Bavarian là a suite of cavalry and a regiment, and traveled regularly between Amorbach and Munich, back and forth. During this time, several German settlements in Texas, one of them on the north bank of the Llano River ( Llano County) was created in 1847 to honor him as president of the Mainz Adel Association named Leiningen.
Due to its various reforms as president of the Bavarian Imperial Council chamber and some political writings had Leiningen in the revolutionary year of 1848 a reputation as a liberal reformer and progressive free thinker. He had pleaded for the introduction of parliamentarism, and the abolition of the privileges of the nobility. As a result, he was appointed on 15 July 1848, the first Prime Minister of the set up by the Frankfurt National Assembly provisional central power under Regent John of Austria. With the evangelical Prime Minister and the Catholic Regent a balanced proportional representation had been created. By Karl to Leiningens close ties to the British royal family was hoped that the recognition of the German central authority in Frankfurt by the United Kingdom and a British mediation in Schleswig -Holstein conflict.
The Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, however, closed on the outside political pressure especially Russia without consultation with the central government are set down in the Treaty of Malmö armistice with Denmark. As the Prussian troops formally acted as army, Prussia snubbed so that the central government and the National Assembly. The Paul Church Parliament rejected the contract with contempt. As the Prince of Leiningen was no real position of power over Prussia and was thus able to enforce the will of Parliament impossible remained to him on September 5, 1848, only the resignation. Leiningen then retired from political life back in the conviction that his efforts in the unification of Germany were in vain. His successor as Prime Minister was Anton Schmerling ( 1805-1893 ).
In February 1851 he finally resigned also from his post as Chairman of the noble association. As his successor, Prince Hermann of Wied was chosen on 12 May 1851.