Frederick Muhlenberg

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Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg (January 1 1750 – June 4 1801), was an American minister and politician who was the first Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. A Delegate and a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania and a Lutheran pastor by profession, Muhlenberg was born in Trappe, Pennsylvania.

[edit] Education and ministerial career

He attended the University of Halle, Germany, where he studied theology, and was ordained by the Pennsylvania Ministerium as a minister of the Lutheran Church on October 25 1770. He preached in Stouchsburg, Pennsylvania, and Lebanon, Pennsylvania, from 1770 - 1774, and in New York City from 1774 - 1776. When the British entered New York at the onset of the American Revolutionary War, he felt obliged to leave, and returned to Trappe. He moved to New Hanover Township, Pennsylvania, and was pastor there and in Oley and New Goshenhoppen until August 1779.

[edit] Political career

Muhlenberg was a member of the Continental Congress in 1779 and 1780, and served in the State house of representatives from 1780-1783 and was elected speaker November 3 1780. He was a delegate to and president of the State constitutional convention in 1787 called to ratify the Federal Constitution. He was the first signer of the "Bill of Rights".

Elected to the First and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4 1789–March 4 1797), Muhlenberg was the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives for the First Congress (1789-1791) and Third Congress (1793-1795). He did not seek renomination in 1796.

Muhlenberg was also president of the council of censors of Pennsylvania, and was appointed receiver general of the Pennsylvania Land Office on January 8 1800, and served until his death in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on June 4, 1801. He was interred in Woodward Hill Cemetery there. After his death, the Township of Muhlenberg, Pennsylvania, was named for him.

In World War II the United States liberty ship SS F. A. C. Muhlenberg was named in his honor.

[edit] Family

His father, Henry Muhlenberg, an immigrant from Germany, is considered the founder of the Lutheran Church in America. His brother, Peter, was a General in the Continental Army.

[edit] Muhlenberg legend

There is an urban legend that because of Muhlenberg, German didn't become the second official language of the United States. At the heart of this legend is a vote in the United States House of Representatives from 1794, where a group of German immigrants asked for the translation of some laws into German. This petition was rejected by a 42-41 vote and Muhlenberg was later quoted as having said "the faster the Germans become Americans, the better it will be".

[edit] See also

• German in the United States

[edit] External links

• Frederick Muhlenberg at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Willi Paul Adams: The German Americans. Chapter 7: German or English
• Bastian Sick: German as the official language of the USA?
• Biography and portrait at the University of Pennsylvania

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