Assistant Professor of Government, Harvard University
Ferdinand Lassalle was born on April 11, 1825, at Breslau, of Jewish parents. The father, Hyman Lassal, was a prosperous business man, ambitious for his son, able to give him the best education the times afforded, and willing to let him choose his own career. The life of the Lassal family seems to have been like that of any well-to-do Jewish family in the kingdom of Prussia during the early nineteenth century. Of a quiet and peaceable behavior, they were devoted mainly to money-making and their domestic affairs.
The young Lassalle gave early indications of his unusual character. While still a boy in the local grammar school, his proud and independent disposition won him the displeasure of his teachers. Especially the oppression of his own race filled his soul with wrath. "O could I only give myself up to my boyish day-dreams," he wrote in his note-book at this time, "how I would put myself at the head of the Jews, weapons in hand, and make them independent!" Eventually he abandoned in disgust the attempt to gain a classical education in the schools of his native city and entered the commercial high school in Leipzig. Here again his fiery temperament could not brook the restraints imposed upon him and he presently returned to his father's house.
The problem of a career was not easy to solve. The father's success enabled the son to choose his course in life without regard to financial considerations. Business and mere money-making were in fact distasteful to him.
[Illustration: FERDINAND LASSALLE]
The learned professions were more to his liking. The father recommended medicine or the law, but the son aspired to some less hackneyed career. Jews were not then admitted to the service of the state in Prussia and the absence of popular institutions of government rendered an independent political career for the time being out of the question. The son chose, therefore, to make his mark as a man of learning. He would be a great philosopher or scientist. Doubtless he kept in mind the possibility of engaging in journalism, should the times change, and becoming a tribune of the people. Such bold ideas are the birthright of all boys of spirit.
Ferdinand Lassale finished his education with his destiny consciously before him. He studied philology and philosophy at the universities of Breslau and Berlin and in the winter of 1845-46 made his first visit to Paris as a traveling scholar. Here he first adorned his family name with the final le, and here, also, he met the chief of the heroes of his youth, Heinrich Heine. Heine has given us a vivid pen-picture of Lassalle, as he saw him in those student days. "My friend, Mr. Lassalle … is a most highly gifted young man, uniting the widest knowledge with the greatest astuteness. I have been astounded at his energy of will, vigor of intellect, and promptness of action…. Lassalle is a true child of modern times, wishing to know nothing of the humility and renunciation which have characterized our own lives. This new race means to enjoy, to assert itself…. We were, however, perhaps happier in our idealism than these stern gladiators who go forth so proudly to mortal combats."
Returning to Berlin in the spring of 1846, Lassalle signalized the attainment of his majority by espousing the cause of the Countess von Hatzfeld, then in the midst of her suits for divorce and for an accounting of her property. It was a characteristic act. The Countess' troubles arose through no fault of his. He had little to gain by engaging in the affair and much to lose—not only time and money, but friends, reputation, and his very career. Yet he plunged into the thick of the fray and made the cause of the unhappy lady his own. For eight long years he fought her enemies from law-court to law-court, through thirty-six of them in all, to final victory. From it all he gained a good working knowledge of the law, a splendid training in forensic address, and a taste of the joys of combat against bitter odds. These things were later to stand him in good stead. But he had touched smut and was himself besmirched.
Meanwhile the famous year, 1848, had come and gone. Men like Lassalle are made for just such years. His friends all played their parts, each in his own way, in the struggle for German liberty and union. Lassalle alone was absent from the field. He was defending himself against a charge of criminal conspiracy to commit larceny, an incident in the case of the Countess von Hatzfeld. He disposed of this charge in season to join the editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, and in the spring of 1849 he completed his apprenticeship as a revolutionist with a term in jail. At the expiration of his sentence he returned to the cause of the Countess, but he was required by the Prussian government to keep away from Berlin. Not until 1857, through the intervention of A. von Humboldt, did he receive permission to resume his residence in the capital. Then, with his friend, the Countess, he settled down once more to the realization of his youthful dreams, and the long-deferred career was taken up in earnest.
Lassalle's career as a scholar and man of learning was short, but productive. It was opened in 1857 with the publication of his work, the Philosophy of Heraclitus, projected more than ten years before, and it was concluded in 1861, as the event proved, by the publication of his System of the Acquired Rights. Midway between the two appeared a dramatic composition, Franz von Sickingen, which served both as an intellectual diversion from the more serious studies in philosophy and law and as a personal confession of faith on the part of the author. None of these works can be pronounced an unqualified success. The philosophy of Heraclitus was too obscure to exert any great influence upon contemporary thought, even when expounded by a Lassalle, and the philosophy of Lassalle himself was too closely modeled upon that of his master, Hegel, to obtain much notice on its own account. The treatise on the acquired rights of man was too technical to attract popular attention and too unorthodox to receive the general approval of professional students of the law. The Franz von Sickingen was too deficient in dramatic action to be presented on the stage and too artificial in literary form to be read in the library. The three productions secured for Lassalle a position among scholars but brought him no general recognition.