The American political scientist Francis Lieber (1798-1872) is regarded as the first practitioner of political science as a separate academic discipline in the United States and as America's first academic political philosopher.

Francis Lieber was born in Berlin on March 18, 1798. His adolescence and early manhood were spent against a background of various revolutionary upheavals and wars in Europe. In 1815 he volunteered for the Prussian army, fought in the battles of Ligny and Waterloo, was seriously wounded in the assault on Namur, contracted typhus, and nearly died. Out of these early experiences he emerged with decidedly liberal views, to the extent that he dreamed of assassinating Napoleon III.

Upon his return to Germany, Lieber became a member of the Turnverein movement, an organization of gymnastic associations founded to build strength and fellowship. They later developed as centers for fostering nationalism and German unification. Suspect for his liberalism during the...