He was born at Reutlingen, Württemberg. Unwilling to follow the occupation of his father, who was a prosperous tanner, he became a clerk in the public service, and by 1816 had risen to the post of ministerial under-secretary. In 1817, he was appointed professor of administration and politics at the University of Tübingen, but the fall of the ministry in 1819 compelled him to resign. As a deputy to the Württemberg chamber, he was active in advocating administrative reforms. He was eventually expelled from the chamber and in April 1822 sentenced to ten months' imprisonment with hard labor in the fortress of Asperg. He escaped to Alsace, and after visiting France and England returned in 1824 to finish his sentence, and was released on undertaking to emigrate to America. There he resided from 1825 to 1832, first engaging in farming and afterwards in journalism.
It was in America that he gathered from a study of Alexander Hamilton's work the inspiration which made him an economist of his pronounced "National System" views which found realization in Henry Clay's American System. The discovery of coal on some land which he had acquired made him financially independent. In 1832, he became United States consul at Leipzig. He strongly advocated the extension of the railway system in Germany, and the establishment of the Zollverein (German customs union), which unified Germany economically, was due largely to his enthusiasm and ardour. In 1841, "List was offered the post of Editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, a new liberal paper which was being established in Cologne. But he declared that ill-health prevented him from accepting the post — which eventually went to Karl Marx."[3] His latter days were darkened by many misfortunes; he lost much of his American property in a financial crisis, ill-health also overtook him, and killed himself on the 30th of November, 1846.[4]
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