[5] A frequent guest was Gottfried Keller who fell in love with Lina's sister Betty Tendering, and later featured her, renamed as Dorothea Schönfund, in his semi-autobiographical novel, "Grüne Heinrich".

Franz and Lina Duncker's marriage would also give rise to one recorded child, their daughter Marie, born in 1856.

Thwarted revolution in 1848 was followed by political repression in Prussia, but the ideas of liberalism and nationalism that had underpinned 1848 never completely disappeared, and Duncker was supportive of both aspirations.

[2] In 1863 he was a member of the "Committee of 36" that convened in Frankfurt am Main in the context of concern on the part of liberals that the German Confederation was increasingly dominated by its two largest member-states, Prussia and Austria, neither of which was seen as a natural ally in the search for a liberal-nationalist future that preoccupied progressive thinkers at the time.

[9] During the 1861 Constitutional Conflict he was strongly opposed to militia (Landwehr) reforms because he feared they would lead to a weakening of citizen spirit which till that time had been a unique corrective against resurgent militarism.

[11] Together with Max Hirsch and Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch he established the Hirsch-Dunckersche Gewerkvereine, which was a form of liberal trades union movement, founded in 1868.