Burkhard Wilhelm Pfeiffer

It was during this period of intense publication that Pfeiffer and von Savigny fell out over politics, with Pfeiffer’s liberal views placing him at odds with Savigny as they worked with Thibaut to help reform and restructure the outdated laws and civil codes that plagued all of the German states at this time.[5][6] After the defeat of Napoleon and the reestablishment of the Electorate of Hesse, Pfeiffer again took offices as a government councilor and legal advisor. In 1817, he was made a senior appellate judge at the Electoral Court of Appeals in Hesse, whose law-code he revised from its previous 1771 version. He was offered a position on the court of appeals in Berlin, but his attachment to his homeland saw him decline the offer.[7] In 1820, Pfeiffer came into direct conflict with the Elector William, over an expert opinion drawn up to the disadvantage of the Elector on the legality of debt repayments to the war chest during the Napoleonic period.[8] This decision, and the subsequent backlash from the court, prompted him to leave his position, move to Lübeck, and take up a position on the newly formed Oberappellationsgericht der vier Freien Städte, or “High Court of Appeal of the Four Free Cities,” which held jurisdiction over the free imperial cities of Lübeck, Bremen, Frankfurt and Hamburg.[9]

Pfeiffer's patron, William II, Elector of Hesse

William I, Elector of Hesse died in 1821, and Pfeiffer was quickly summoned back to court by the new Elector, William II.[10] Among his duties at court was to oversee the legal and political education of William’s son Frederick William, who would go on to be the third and final Elector of Hesse. in 1824, Pfeiffer received an offer from Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach to take up a teaching position at the University of Jena, as well as a senior role in the court of appeals there, but yet again, he declined the offer. In a letter to his son, he recorded his internal turmoil: "Even if there are many, many things I would wish otherwise, it would not be any better if I selfishly avoided them. I would also have to recognize myself guilty of ingratitude against the prince to whom I owe my honorable return to my sorely missed fatherland, if I wanted to leave it again without any cause for displeasure with my situation here."[note 1][11] Despite his high position at court, Pfeiffer’s liberal views were well-known and over the next decades, he published an assortment of essays and treatises outlining all that was wrong with the German political system and how it needed to change. Among other things, he proposed the establishment of a German Supreme Court, and severe controls on sovereign powers wielded by the rulers of constituent states. Chief among his published works was his eight-volume magnum opus Praktische Ausführungen aus allen Teilen der Rechtswissenschaften, Mit Erkenntnissen des Oberappellationsgerichts zu Kassel or "Practical Explanations from all Parts of Jurisprudence, with Findings of the High Court of Appeal in Kassel," which was published between 1825 and 1846. It contains 98 essays, drawing from Pfeiffer’s decades of experience in the legal profession, and addresses problems with laws in all of the German states. The immense size of the work earned Pfeiffer the nickname der praktische Pfeiffer, or "the Practical Pfeiffer" for the rest of his life.[12]

Pfeiffer's political nemesis, Ludwig Hassenpflug

In 1830, Pfeiffer's lifelong dedication to Hesse and its people was rewarded when the Elector, William II, invested him as a Commander, 2nd Class in the House Order of the Golden Lion.[13] Pfeiffer’s aforementioned gratitude to both the Elector and his family forced him to accept the honor, but he deeply wished to decline, fearing that this recognition by the State would, in his own words, cause him “to lose the confidence of the estates, which he had earned so far, and thus to be disturbed in his desired participation in the great constitutional work.”[note 2][13] At his request, the announcement of his investment was left out of the official government circular, allowing him to continue his political career for the time being. In 1831, he took part in the conference that drafted the new constitution for the Electorate of Hesse, which was later described by Karl Marx as "the most liberal constitution [...] that has ever been promulgated in Europe."[14] The new Elector was not pleased with the liberal stance of the new constitution, particularly the controls on his powers, but he nevertheless appointed Pfeiffer as president of the Landtag of Hesse. Concerned with Pfeiffer’s perceived closeness to the electoral family and court, despite his liberal credentials, the other members of the Landtag declared the election invalid, which led to a conflict with Ludwig Hassenpflug that would last the rest of his life.[1][15] The next decade consisted largely of political maneuvering on Pfeiffer and Hassenpflug's parts, each working to outwit the other. In 1834, Hassenpflug's manipulation led to Pfeiffer being passed over for the role Landtag President, despite having held the position provisionally for over a year, in favor of a younger and less qualified colleague.[16] In the wake of this derailment of his political career, and feeling his own age, he submitted a formal request to retire in 1842, but was refused by the Landtag with two simple words: nicht genehmigt (not authorized).[17] After a year of hearing cases in absentia due to his ill health, Pfeiffer was permitted to retire in 1843. He continued to publish until 1851, but his influence and position in Hessian politics was finished.[18][19]

Karl Pfeiffer's life was a short one, but in that short life he accomplished much, and left behind an unexpected legacy. His professional life was that of an assessor, or magistrate's assistant, but he was also something of a firebrand, publishing articles in the liberal political newspaper Der Verfassungsfreund alongside Karl Bernhardi and Ludwig Schwarzenberg.[21] Karl also served in the Kassel Bürgergarde, or municipal watch, whose members financed his tombstone and organized his funeral.[2] Karl Pfeiffer's private life proved just as interesting as his public one. By all accounts an accomplished poet, singer, and songwriter, Pfeiffer was particularly known during his life for composing Polenlieder, that is, songs in support and celebration of Polish freedom, which was a hot-button issue at the time.[22] He maintained close friendships with Kassel's rising musical stars, including Friedrich Curschmann and Louis Spohr.[23] The latter was the Hofkapellmeister at the Electoral court, with whom he both worked and performed, alongside his younger brother Louis, a talented lyric baritone in his own right.[2] Their first collaboration was on an operatic retelling of Ludwig Tieck's novel Pietro von Abano. Originally, Pfeiffer had planned to compose the opera himself, but upon realizing the breadth and labor involved, asked his friend Spohr to take over he remaining musical composition aspect of the project, to great acclaim.[24] One of Pfeiffer's poems, entitled Die Weihe der Töne, meaning "The Consecration of Sound," was Spohr's avowed favorite, and after Karl's death, the composer took the text of the poem and used it to create his Symphony No. 4. The poem was later translated into English as The Power of Sound by the Gresham Professor of Music Edward Taylor.[25] Karl Pfeiffer's untimely death took a great toll on the artistic and political communities in Kassel; the pages of Der Verfassungfreund were edged in mourning black and the Bürgergarde wore black armbands. The dirge for his funeral service was composed by Spohr, who also arranged a version of Selig sind die Toten to be sung by Kassel's St. Cecilia Society at the dedication of Pfeiffer's memorial.[24] The inscription thereon was composed by his friend Karl Bernhardi, and reads as follows:

Soon after Pfeiffer's death, at the insistence of his friends who survived him, his father and sisters published a volume of his poetry entitled simply Gedichte, or Poems.[26] Spohr would remain close with his family, connected as they were by grief and love of the deceased and his poetic legacy. Eventually, in 1836, after the death of his first wife, Spohr would marry Pfeiffer's younger sister Marianne, who would be instrumental in sustaining Spohr's legacy as a composer for generations to follow.[27]