462 



MECKLENBURG. 



tention to devote himself very assiduously to 

 its practice. He, however, for a time engaged 

 in his profession, but very soon was elected to 

 the State Legislature, and was for a number of 

 years State Senator from his district. In 1851 

 he was appointed by the Governor United 

 States Senator, and served for a few months. 

 In 1853 he was elected Governor of Mississippi, 

 and held that position from 1854 to 1858. At 

 the expiration of his gubernatorial term, he was 

 elected to Congress to serve out the remainder 

 of General Quitman's term, the general having 

 died in July, 1858. In 1859 he was reflected to 

 the Thirty-sixth Congress, and throughout that 

 Congress was a member of the Committee on 

 Military Affairs. At the commencement of the 

 war, in 1861, he avowed his sympathy with 

 the Confederate leaders, but never became 

 prominent. His health had begun to decline 

 before the close of the war, and continuing to 

 be infirm, he had sailed in May, 1868, for Ba- 

 lize, in the hope of benefit from the change, but 

 died in less than a week after his arrival there. 

 MECKLENBURG, the name of two grand- 

 duchies in the North-German Confederation. 

 I. Meclderiburg-ScJiwerin. Grand-duke, Fried- 

 rich Franz II., born February 28, 1823 ; suc- 

 ceeded his father Paul Friedrich, on March 5, 

 1842 ; married on July 3, 1868, to Mary, Prin- 

 cess of Schwarzburg - Rudolstadt, his third 

 wife. Area of the grand-duchy, 4,834 English 

 square miles; population, according to the 

 census returns, published on May 2, 1868, 

 560,123 inhabitants an increase of 7,938 since 

 the year 1864. The population of the largest 

 cities in the grand -duchy, according to the 

 same census returns, is as follows: Rostock, 

 29,211 ; Schwerin, 24,715 ; Wismar, 17,315 ; 

 Gustrow, 9,414. There are, besides, three cit- 

 ies with a population of upward of 5,000 in- 

 habitants, and twenty-two towns whose popu- 

 lation exceeds 2,000 inhabitants. Annual ex- 

 penditures of the grand-ducal government in 



1867, 5,137,493 thalers. Public debt, in 1868, 

 8,150,600 thalers. The standing army, in 1868, 

 consisted of 5,601 men. Mecklenberg-Schwe- 

 rin possessed, in 1868, 445 merchant- vessels ; 

 among them, 11 steamers. II. Mecldenburg- 

 Strelitz. Grand-duke, Friedrich Wilhelm I., born 

 October 17, 1819 ; succeeded his father Sep- 

 tember 6, 1860. Area, 997. English square 

 miles. Population, according to the census of 



1868, 98,255. New Strelitz, the capital, with 

 8,115 inhabitants, is the largest town in the 

 grand-duchy. The army, when on a peace foot- 

 ing, consists of 982 men; on a war footing 

 it is 1,912 strong. Public expenditures, in 

 1867, 1,591,312 thalers. Public debt, in 1868, 

 1,685,000 thalers. 



The year 1868, in a political and economical 

 point of view, was the most important and 

 eventful in the history of the two grand-duch- 

 ies of Mecklenburg, since the Revolution of 

 1848. The curious mediae val institutions, 

 which the aristocracy of the two states, with 

 the active cooperation of the governments, had 



succeeded in reestablishing after the overthrow 

 of the liberal constitution adopted by the Con- 

 stituent Assembly of 1848, were rudely shaken 

 by the new laws of the North-German Con- 

 federation, which were promulgated and be- 

 came valid in Mecklenburg in the course of 

 1868. The joint Diet (Landtag} of the two 

 grand-duchies, composed of the so-called Rit- 

 tersehaft (owners of the old feudal estates), 

 the Landschaft (commoners), and the mayors 

 and delegates of the cities and towns, held 

 two sessions (in January and May), for the 

 purpose of harmonizing the laws of Mecklen- 

 burg with the bills passed by the North-Ger- 

 man Reichstag. "While a majority of the 

 members of the Diet readily consented to the 

 heavy appropriations necessitated by the in- 

 troduction of the Prussian landwehr system, 

 and the virtual incorporation of the military 

 forces of the two grand-duchies into the Prus- 

 sian army, it tried, by a number of clauses at- 

 tached to the enabling acts, to prevent other 

 laws of the North-German Confederation from 

 obtaining full validity in Mecklenburg. Espe- 

 cially was this the case with the important 

 North-German Freizugiglceitsgesetz, by virtue 

 of which every citizen of the North-German 

 Confederation was to be at liberty to choose 

 his domicil at any place in the Confederation, 

 without needing to obtain the consent of the 

 local and municipal authorities. This law was 

 in conflict with the ancient statutes of Meck- 

 lenburg, by which no one was permitted to 

 settle anywhere outside the parish where he 

 was born, except with the consent of the au- 

 thorities. Besides, the Jews of Mecklenburg, 

 who, up to this time, had been excluded from 

 several of the larger cities, were now, by vir- 

 tue of the laws of the North-German Confed- 

 eration, admitted to them ; but the Mecklen- 

 burg Diet passed a bill depriving the Jews of 

 Mecklenburg of the right to hold real estate in 

 the rural districts. Appeals against the con- 

 stitutionality of this act were made to the ex- 

 ecutive of the North-German Confederation, 

 but have hitherto remained fruitless. The 

 first Jews settled in Rostock and Wismar, on 

 the 1st of July, 1868. Considerable dissatis- 

 faction arose in the early part of summer from 

 the disastrous effects which the new North- 

 German tonnage law exercised upon the ship- 

 ping interests of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Still 

 greater was the discontent caused in all parts 

 of the two grand-duchies by the somewhat ab- 

 rupt manner in which they were incorporated, 

 in August, into the Zollverein, after being 

 governed for several centuries by a sort of free- 

 trade policy. Both the Government and the 

 Diet were severely censured for having neg- 

 lected to render more gradual the transition 

 from the old economical system to the new 

 one. The effects of this sudden transition 

 were felt the more sensibly, as it took place at 

 the very time when both the agricultural and 

 mercantile interests of the country, owing to a 

 number of accidental causes, were greatly 



