BAUMGARTNER, GALLUS JAKOB

BAUMGARTNER, GALLUS JAKOB. - Swiss politician, b. at Altstätten on 15 Oct. 1797, d. at St. Gallen on 12 July 1869. After the July Revolution in France, he carried on active propaganda for the revision of the cantonal constitution, and the new St. Gall constitution of 1831 was largely his work. A radical, at the conference of Baden (Jan. 1834), to which seven cantons adhered, he took the initiative in subjecting the Church to state authority, a measure condemned by Gregory XVI in the encyclical of 17 May 1835. The secularization of the convents in Aargau in 1841 was disapproved by B. Two years later, he was at the head of the Catholic party. In 1861 he spoke in favour of the Jesuits. In 1842 he founded the Schweizer Zeitung, the first Catholic daily in Switzerland.