5. THE CODIFICATION OF JEWISH DISABILITIES
No sooner had the conscription ukase been issued than the bureaucrats of St. Petersburg began to apply themselves in the hidden recesses of their chancelleries to a new civil code for the Jews, which was to supersede the antiquated Statute of 1804. The work passed through a number of departments. The projected enactment was framed by the "Jewish Committee," which had been established in 1823 for the purpose of bringing about "a reduction of the number of Jews in the monarchy," and consisted of cabinet ministers and the chiefs of departments. [1] Originally the department chiefs had elaborated a draft covering 1230 clauses, a gigantic code of disabilities; evidently founded on the principle that in the case of Jews everything is forbidden which, is not permitted by special legislation. The dimensions of the draft were such that even the Government was appalled and decided to turn it over to the ministerial members of the Committee.
[Footnote 1: See Vol. I, p. 407 et seq.]
Modified in shape and reduced in size, the code was submitted in 1834 to the Department of Laws forming part of the Council of State, and after careful discussion by the Department of Laws was brought up at the plenary sessions of the Council. The "ministerial" draft, though smaller in bulk, was marked by such severity that the Department of Laws found it necessary to tone it down. The ministers, with the exception of the Minister of Finance, had proposed to transfer all Jews, within a period of three years, from the villages to the towns and townlets. The Department of Laws considered this measure too risky, pointing to the White Russian expulsion of 1823, which had failed to produce the expected results, and, "while it has ruined the Jews, it does not in the least seem to have improved the condition of the villagers." [1] The plenum of the Council agreed with the Department of Laws that "the proposed expulsion of the Jews (from the villages), being extremely difficult of execution and being of problematic benefit, should be eliminated from the Statute and should be stopped even there where it had been decreed but not carried into effect."
[Footnote 1: Compare Vol. I, p. 407.]
The report was laid before the Tzar, who attached to it the following "resolution": [1] "Where this measure (of expulsion) has been started, it is inconvenient to repeal it; but it shall be postponed for the time being in the governments in which no steps towards it have as yet been made." For a number of years this "resolution" hung like the sword of Damocles over the heads of rural Jewry.
[Footnote 1: See on the meaning of the term "resolution" Vol. I, p. 253, n. 1.]
Less yielding was the Tzar's attitude on the question of the partial enlargement of the Pale of Settlement. The Department of Laws had suggested to grant the merchants of the first guild the right of residence in the Russian interior in the interest of the exchequer and big business. At the general meeting of the Council of State only a minority (thirteen) voted for the proposal. The majority (twenty-two) argued that they had no right to violate the time-honored tradition, "dating from the time of Peter the Great," which bars the Jews from the Russian interior; that to admit them "would produce a very unpleasant impression upon our people, which, on account of its religious notions and its general estimate of the moral peculiarities of the Jews, has become accustomed to keep aloof from them and to despise them;" that the countries of Western Europe, which had accorded fall citizenship to the Jews, "cannot serve as an example for Russia, partly because of the incomparably larger number of Jews living here, partly because our Government and people, with all their well-known tolerance, are yet far from that indifference with which certain other nations look upon religious matters." After marking his approval of the last words by the marginal exclamation "Thank God!", the Tzar disposed of the whole matter in the following brief resolution: "This question has been determined by Peter the Great. I dare not change it; I completely share the opinion of the twenty-two members."
While on this occasion the Tzar endorsed the opinion of the Council as represented by its majority, in cases in which it proved favorable to the Jews he did not hesitate to set it aside. Thus the Department of Laws, as part of the Council of State, and, following in its wake, the Council itself had timidly suggested to Nicholas to comply in part with the plea of the Jews for a mitigation of the rigors of conscription, [1] but the imperial verdict read: "To be left as heretofore." Nicholas remained equally firm on the question of the expulsions from Kiev. The Department of Laws, guided by the previously-mentioned representations of the local governor, favored the postponement of the expulsion, and fourteen members of the plenary Council agreed with the suggestion of the Department, and resolved to recommend it to the "benevolent consideration of his Majesty," in other words to request the Tzar to revoke the baneful ukase. But fifteen, members rejected all such propositions on the ground that, as far as that question was concerned, the imperial will was unmistakable, the Tzar having decided the matter in a sense unfavorable to the Jews. In a similar manner, numerous other decisions of the Council of State were dictated not so much by inner conviction as by fear of the clearly manifested imperial will, which no one dared to cross.
[Footnote 1: The Kahal of Vilna, in a memorandum submitted in 1835, pleaded for the abolition of the dreadful institution of cantonists, and begged that the age limit of Jewish recruits be raised from 12-15 to 20-35.]