In the spring of 1808 the Government of the Duchy was forced to pay attention to the Jewish question, in consequence of a petition for civil rights presented by the Jews, and in connection with the impending elections to the Diet. The Council of Ministers, which had already been informed of Napoleon's decree, clutched at it as an anchor of salvation. A report was submitted to Duke Frederick Augustus, in which it was pointed out that "a somber future would be in store for the Duchy if the Israelitish nation, which is to be found here in vast numbers, were suddenly to be allowed to enjoy civil rights," the reason being that this people "cherishes a national spirit alien to the country," and engages in unproductive occupations. The Council of Ministers pointed to Napoleon's decree suspending the Jewish question for a time as a convenient means of evading the clause of the Constitution granting equal rights to all citizens.
To make sure of Napoleon's approval in this matter, the Government of Warsaw conducted negotiations with its agents in France and with the French minister Champagny, who was a Jew-hater. Napoleon's sympathetic attitude towards this anti-Jewish policy having been ascertained, the Duke promulgated on October 17, 1808, a decree to the following effect:
The inhabitants of our Varsovian Duchy professing the Mosaic religion shall be barred for ten years from enjoying the political rights they were about to receive, in the hope that during this interval they may eradicate their distinguishing characteristics, which mark them off so strongly from the rest of the population. The foregoing decision, however, will not prevent us from allowing individual members of that persuasion to enjoy political rights even before the expiration of said term, provided they will prove themselves worthy of our high favor, and will comply with the conditions which will be set forth by us in a special edict concerning the professors of the Mosaic religion.
In this way the Government of Warsaw in politely couched terms, phrased after the modern French pattern, managed to rob all the "professors of the Mosaic religion" of the rights of citizenship which the Constitution had granted them. It is true that the decree uses the words "political rights," but in reality the Jews were divested by it of their elementary civil rights. In November, 1808, they were forbidden to acquire patrimonial estates belonging to the Shlakhta. The humiliating restrictions attaching to the right of domicile in Warsaw were restored, and were embodied in a decree issued in 1809 which ordered the Jews to remove within six months from the main streets of the capital, except a few individuals, such as bankers, large merchants, physicians, and artists. There was a general tendency to return to the anti-Jewish traditions of the Old Polish and Prussian legislation.
The Jewish community became alarmed. By that time Warsaw already possessed a goodly number of "advanced" Jews, who had acquired the new culture of Berlin, and had divested themselves of the distinguishing marks in dress and outward appearance for which the Jews were penalized with the loss of rights. Relying upon the second clause of the ducal decree, which provided for the exceptional treatment of those who shall have "eradicated their distinguishing characteristics," a group of seventeen Jews of this type made representations to the Minister of Justice in January, 1809, to the effect that, "having endeavored for a long time, by their moral conduct and modern dress, to come into closer touch with the rest of the population, they are now certain that they have ceased to be unworthy of civil rights." To this flunkeyish petition the Minister of Justice, Lubenski—one of the "constitutional" ministers who managed to promote the interests of despotism under the cloak of liberalism—retorted with coarse sophistry, that constitutional equality before the law did not yet make a man a citizen, for only those could claim to be citizens who were loyal to the sovereign, and looked upon this country as their only fatherland. "Can those"—added Lubenski—"who profess the laws of Moses look upon this country as their fatherland? Do they not wish to return to the land of their fathers?... Do they not regard themselves as a separate nation?... The mere change of dress is not yet sufficient." The Polish minister had, it would seem, made a thorough study of Napoleon's catechism on the Jews.
Aside from the representatives of this sartorial culture, who looked after their own personal advantage, there were among the Jews of Warsaw followers of the Berlin "enlightenment," who considered it their duty to make a stand for the rights of their people. On March 17, 1809, five representatives of the Jewish community of Warsaw submitted a memorandum to the ducal Senate, in which not only the note of entreaty but also the undertone of indignation could be discerned.
Thousands of members of the Polish nation of the Mosaic persuasion, who, by virtue of having dwelt in this country for many centuries, have acquired the same right to consider it their fatherland as the other inhabitants, have hitherto, without any fault of theirs, to the damage of society and as an insult to mankind, for reasons that no one knows, been doomed to humiliation, and are groaning under the load of daily oppressions.
Contrary to the enlightened spirit of the age and "the wisdom of the laws of Napoleon the Great"—the petitioners go on complaining—the Jews are denied civil rights, have no one to defend them in the Diet or the Senate, and sorrowfully anticipate that even "their children and descendants will not live to see happier times."