Carl Theodor Welcker

Carl Theodor Welcker
Welcker in 1848. Lithograph after a drawing by Valentin Schertle.

Carl Theodor Welcker (29 March 1790, in Oberofleiden – 10 March 1869, in Neuenheim bei Heidelberg) was a German law professor, politician and journalist.

He studied at the universities of Giessen and Heidelberg and qualified as a lecturer in 1813 at Giessen. A work on the philosophy of law that he published that year brought about his appointment as extraordinary professor. But after a short time, in 1814, he left his alma mater to follow a call from Kiel, where along with his academic duties he edited the Kieler Blätter, which appeared for the first time in the middle of 1815. Called in 1817 to Heidelberg, he stayed there only until 1819, in which year he followed a call to Bonn. Here his work was hindered because of an 1817 petition to the diet (German: Landesversammlung) he had signed which had asked for a provincial constitution. An inquiry against him which this provoked remained fruitless: he defended himself against collusion in demagogic activity with a complete disclosure.

Under these circumstances, he gladly followed a call from the Grand Duchy of Baden to the University of Freiburg, where he lectured on pandects and constitutional law. He attracted a following among the students, who he introduced to the depths of his knowledge and sought to develop their enthusiasm for the problems it presented, while his colleagues contented themselves in their presentations with only exercising their memories. The all-encompassing character of his presentations is best comprehended by consulting the encyclopedic work he undertook in the 1820s called The inner and outer system of practical, natural and Roman-Christian-Germanic precepts of law, statecraft and lawmaking (German: Das innere und äußere System der praktischen, natürlichen und römisch-christlich-germanischen Rechts-, Staats- und Gesetzgebungslehre), of which a first volume appeared, though no more followed.