The small Jewish Congregation of Wilmington, N. C., which was organized in 1852 for burial purposes, began about four years later to circulate a petition for the removal of the existing disability. A bill to that effect was introduced in the Legislature in the same year (1858), but the committee to which it was referred reported that while it considered the objectionable clause “a relic of bigotry and intolerance unfit to be associated in our fundamental law with the enlightened principle of representative government ... it is highly inexpedient to alter or amend the Constitution by legislative enactment in any particular whatsoever.”
When the Constitution of North Carolina was again changed by the Convention of 1861, which voted for secession and joined the Confederacy, the article in question was changed in phraseology only. The word “Christian” was omitted, but the clause still debarred from holding office a “person who shall deny the being of God or the Divine Authority of both the Old and the New Testament.” The convention of the period of reconstruction, which met in 1865, afforded no relief, but the Constitution which it framed was rejected by the people at the polls in the following year, though on other grounds. It was not until the Constitutional Convention of 1868 that Jewish emancipation was accomplished in North Carolina. The time was ripe for the abolition of all religious tests, and there appears to have been no debate on that point. Only “persons who shall deny the being of Almighty God” were, and still are, debarred from holding office in that State, as no change has been made in this regard since 1868.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE WAR OF 1812 AND THE REMOVAL OF JEWISH DISABILITIES IN MARYLAND.
The Jewish community almost at a standstill between the Revolution and the War of 1812—Stoppage of immigration and losses through emigration and assimilation—No Jews in the newly admitted States—The small number of Jews who fought in the second war with England included Judah Touro, the philanthropist—The Jewish disabilities in Maryland—A Jew appointed by Jefferson as United States Marshal for that State—The “Jew Bill” as an issue in Maryland politics—Removal of the disabilities in 1826.
The hopes of the Jews of western Europe were raised by the French Revolution, which gave the Jews of France full citizenship. The Napoleonic wars brought liberty and Jewish emancipation in the countries and principalities which were conquered by the great Corsican, and even where this was not achieved it became a probability for the near future. The disturbed state of Europe made foreign travel, and especially emigration over sea, hazardous, and there were hardly any new arrivals of Jews from the Old World during the quarter century following the establishment of the United States Government. There were, on the other hand, numerous departures of Jews for England and its American colonies, especially Jamaica, during and after the Revolution, and the losses through baptism and mixed marriages, which account for the disappearance of a large number of colonial Jewish families, retarded the natural growth of the communities. As a result it is doubtful whether there were as many Jews in the United States at the time of the outbreak of the second war with England, in 1812, as there were in the Revolutionary period. Neither had their wealth or importance increased in those times; it seems that there was even some deterioration in both, caused no doubt by the lack of new blood which is indispensable to small communities.
There were hardly any Jews in the three new States which were admitted to the Union in the eight years of Washington’s administration. In Vermont, which came in in 1791, there was no Jewish Congregation until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Kentucky (1792) and Tennessee (1796) had very few Jews until a later period, and the stray Jewish sounding names which are met with in various records in the first half century of their existence as States are not safe material for the foundation of a history of the Jews in these Commonwealths. Ohio, which was admitted in 1803, had very few Jews at that time, and the immense territory of Louisiana, which was purchased from Napoleon in the same year, had practically none, as Jews never thrived in the French possessions in the New World, except in colonies like Martinique,[24] where there was a Jewish community prior to it being occupied by the French (1635).
The number of Jews who took part in the War of 1812 was therefore smaller than that of the participants in the War of Independence, and the disproportionately large percentage of officers shows that they still belonged mostly to the wealthier classes. In the list which is enumerated in the valuable work of Mr. Simon Wolf, which was mentioned above, there are mentioned thirteen officers, of whom one, Nathan Moses of Pennsylvania, achieved the rank of Colonel, and two, Mayer Moses of South Carolina and Mordecai Myers of Pennsylvania, were captains. (General Joseph Bloomfield of New Jersey, who is included in the list, was not a Jew, see “Publications,” XI. p. 190.) The balance comprises three lieutenants, one adjutant, one ensign, two sergeants, three corporals and twenty-seven privates. Among the latter were Jacob Hays, and Benjamin Hays of New York, father and son; and Judah Touro, the philanthropist, who was dangerously wounded at the battle of New Orleans in January, 1815.
The War of 1812 gave the impetus to a renewal of the agitation for the removal of the disabilities of the Jews of Maryland, the only State which had a considerable Jewish community in such a disadvantageous position. The church establishment in Maryland terminated with the fall of the proprietary rule and the emergence into statehood. With it fell, too, the force of the legislation which for a century and a half had declared the profession of Jewish faith a capital offence, as was already mentioned in a previous chapter ([page 77]).[25] But part of the old spirit remained under the new conditions, and the new State Constitution of 1776, which granted free exercise of religion, provided for “a declaration of belief in the Christian religion” as a necessary qualification for holding public office. But this did not prevent a gradual influx of Jews during and after the Revolutionary War, which is to be attributed to the commercial and industrial advantages of Baltimore. The first formal effort to effect the removal of the disability was made in December, 1797, when Solomon Etting (b. in York, Pa., 1764; d. in Baltimore, 1847), Bernard Gratz (b. in York, Pa., 1764; d. in Baltimore, 1801) and others presented a petition to the General Assembly at Annapolis in which they averred “that they are a sect of people called Jews, and thereby deprived of many of the valuable rights of citizenship, and pray to be placed upon the same footing with other good citizens.” The committee to whom this petition was referred reported the same day that they “have taken the same into consideration and conceive the prayer of the petition is reasonable, but as it involves a constitutional question of considerable importance they submit to the House the propriety of taking the same into consideration at this advanced stage of the session.” This disposition of the petition put a quietus upon further agitation for the next five years. In the meantime (1801) Reuben Etting (b. in York, Pa., 1762; d. in Philadelphia, 1848), a brother of the above-mentioned Solomon, was appointed by President Jefferson United States Marshal for Maryland, which presented the anomalous condition of a man who could not be chosen constable under the State laws, holding a highly responsible Federal office. A second petition with the same object in view as the first was presented to the General Assembly in November, 1802, and this time it came to a vote, but it was refused, thirty-eight voting against it and only seventeen in its favor. The attempt was renewed in 1803 and in 1804, when it was again defeated by a vote of thirty-nine to twenty-four. This fourth defeat disheartened the few determined spirits upon whom the brunt of the struggle had thus far fallen, and the formal agitation ceased for a time.