Francis Lieber

Born in Berlin in 1800, Francis Lieber fought as a young man in the Napoleonic Wars and later faced political pressure in Prussia because of his liberal views. After time in Europe and England, he emigrated to the United States in 1827 and built a wide-ranging career as a writer, editor, and teacher.

Lieber helped edit the Encyclopaedia Americana and went on to teach history and political economy in South Carolina before joining Columbia College in New York, where he became a professor of history and political science. His books and essays explored civil liberty, constitutional government, and public life, and they helped establish political science as a serious field of study in America.

His most lasting public contribution came during the Civil War, when he drafted the 1863 instructions for Union armies that became known as the Lieber Code. That work tried to set practical limits on warfare while still recognizing military necessity, and it went on to influence later international laws of war. He died in 1872, leaving behind a body of work that connected scholarship directly to urgent public questions.