He then studied law, political science and iron metallurgy in Bonn and Berlin until 1858, when he spent a year in the military with the Rhine Provinces Uhlan Regiment, No.

Without completing his degree, he returned to the Saar region in 1858 and took over the management of the Neunkirchen ironworks, which his uncle Karl Böcking had run since his father's suicide in 1848.

He sat on the supervisory board of Dillinger Hüttenwerke AG and played a decisive role in its development due to the family's dominant shareholding.

As one of the leading parliamentarians of the Free Conservatives (also known as the German Reich Party), he acted against an expansion of parliament's powers and supported Bismarck's fight against Social Democrats and his Anti-Socialist Laws and proposals to abolish passive voting rights.

[6] Together with the center, Stumm brought down the state subsidy for the accident insurance in the Reichstag in 1881, which meant that, as the social policy spokesman for the Free Conservatives, he came into conflict with Bismarck and his own faction.

Since the government refused to support him in his fight against social democracy and the liberal press in the Saar district in 1881, he resigned his seat in 1881, but was transferred to Prussia in 1882.

[8] The neo-Gothic Schloss Halberg and the nearby Stumm Church were built based on designs by the Hanoverian architects Edwin Oppler and Ferdinand Schorbach [de].