Rights at Home and Abroad
In 1776, the year the Declaration of Independence
proclaimed that "all men are created equal," Maryland
adopted a constitution which provided that "all persons
professing the Christian religion are equally entitled to protection
in their religious liberty," and required that any person
appointed or elected to a public office would have to take an
"oath of support and fidelity to the state ... and a declaration
of belief in the Christian religion."The new nation established, the Constitution
adopted and the Bill of Rights enacted, Solomon Etting, head of a
pioneer Jewish family of Baltimore, "and others" petitioned
the Maryland Assembly in 1797 "to be placed on the same footing
as other good citizens." The petition was termed
"reasonable," but was not acted upon, a fate which annually
befell subsequent petitions. In 1804, the struggle lapsed, not to be
taken up again for fourteen years. In 1818, a champion arose in the
person of Thomas Kennedy, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates
who-together with Ebenezer S. Thomas, Colonel William G. D.
Worthington, Judge Henry M. Brackenridge, and others-waged an
eight-year, often acrimonious battle. In Speeches on the Jew Bill by
H. M. Brackenridge, Philadelphia, 1829, the author adds a footnote to
his speech of 1818:
This speech was published in a pamphlet form by
the Jews of Baltimore, and widely circulated. The bill had been
lost, but public attention was awakened to the subject, both in
Maryland and other states, and the matter was afterwards brought
before the legislature, at each succeeding session. It gained
strength, and after a struggle of six or seven years, prevailed. In
Baltimore, it became a sine qua non of the election of the
delegate, to avow himself in favor of it. The speeches of Mr.
Worthington, and of Mr. Tyson .. are published in this volume. I
regret I have not the speech of Mr. Kennedy... the first mover, and
indefatigable supporter of the bill.
The pro-Jew Bill
speeches of H.M. Brackenridge, W.G.D. Worthington and John Tyson
are included in this volume of Brackenridge speeches. The note by
the author on his address states that it was at the time, in
1818, “published by the Jews of Baltimore, and widely
circulated.” This is the most direct statement we have of the
involvement of the Maryland Jewish community in the promotion of
the Jew Bill, which began in 1818 and was successfully concluded
after eight years of persistent advocacy in 1826.
H.M. Brackenridge, Speeches on the Jew Bill, Philadelphia 1829.
General Collections
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Fortunately, the Library does have a copy of the
Kennedy speech in pamphlet form, Civil and Religious Privileges (Baltimore),
1823. We cite one passage:
What does our test law say to the Hebrews: It
tells them that they shall perform all the duties, and bear all the
burthens of citizens without enjoying common privileges ... We tell
them your son may be all that is wise and good, he may take the
first honors at school ... let him be as wise and patriotic as
Washington, he never can represent the people in the legislature,
or command them in the militia.... This bill ought to pass even if
it was only to do justice to the long oppressed Hebrew; but it is
not for their benefit alone; it is establishing a general principle
... sanctioned by reason, by religion and by common sense ...
approved by the patriots of the revolution, sanctioned by wisdom
and virtue and tested by experience ... Let us pass this bill ...
even on a dying pillow it will comfort us to think that we have
done at least one good act in our lives ... establishing religious
freedom in Maryland ...
Lay old
superstition low
Let the oppressed people go,
To the Bill none say no,
Aye! unanimously.
An enfranchising bill was passed in 1825 and
confirmed a year later. In that year, 1826, three decades after
framing the original petition, Solomon Etting was elected to the City
Council and eventually rose to be its president.In 1840, the head of a Franciscan monastery in
Damascus disappeared. Thirteen Jews, including three rabbis, were
accused of murdering the monk to use his blood for ritual purposes.
Sixty-three Jewish children were taken hostage to force confessions,
which were extracted under torture and later recanted by those
tortured. Eventually, through the exertions of British and French
Jewry, led by Sir Moses Montefiore and Adolphe Cremieux, the
surviving accused-two had died under torture-were acquitted and
released.
When news of this outrage reached American Jewry,
it sprang into action. Meetings to protest the "Damascus
Affair" were held in every Jewish community of size, and
petitions were sent to the U.S. government urging the use of its good
offices to effect the release of the accused undergoing torture. A
full account of the meeting held at the Synagogue Mikveh Israel,
Philadelphia, was published in a pamphlet, Persecution of the Jews
in the East, Philadelphia, 1840. Reverend Isaac
Leeser, the main speaker, proclaimed that "the Israelite is
ever alive to the welfare of his distant brother, and sorrows with
his sorrows." Abraham Hart, at thirty already a prominent
publisher and communal leader, offered a resolution: "That we
invite our brethren of Damascus to leave the land of persecution and
torture and seek asylum in this free and happy land." Three
leading Christian ministers in the City of Brotherly Love were
present to express sympathy and pledge support.
A reprint in
pamphlet form of an account of a meeting held a the Mikveh Israel
Congregation, Philadelphia, on August 27, 1840, to protest the
persecution - imprisonment, torture and execution - visited upon
the Jewish community of Damascus, Syria, to which the Pennsylvania
Inquirer and the Daily Courier had devoted two-thirds
of their news pages. The cause of the atrocities was the medieval
blood libel accusation, which, after erupting over the centuries
in England and Europe, now revived in the Near East. The
intervention of the U.S. government marked one of its earliest
involvements in the cause of human rights outside its borders.
Persecution of the Jews in the East. Philadelphia, 1840.
General Collection
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The pamphlet concludes with copies of
correspondence from the Jewish communities of Philadelphia and New
York to President Martin Van Buren and the answering letters from the
Secretary of State. The Jewish communities respectfully requested the
president to instruct the American minister to Turkey and the
consular officials accredited to the Pasha of Egypt "to
co-operate with the Ambassadors and consuls of other powers, to
procure for our accused brethren at Damascus and elsewhere an
impartial trial ... [and] to prohibit the use of torture." The
State Department had already sent such instructions, and those of
Secretary of State John Forsyth to David Porter, American Minister to
Turkey, sent August 17, 1840, are significant:
the President has directed me to instruct you to
do everything in your power with ... the Sultan ... to prevent and
mitigate these horrors.... The President is of the opinion that
from no one can such generous endeavors proceed with so much
propriety and effect, as from the Representative of a friendly
power, whose institutions, political and civil, place on the same
footing, the worshippers of God, of every faith and form,
acknowledging no distinction between the Mahomedan, the Jew and the
Christian.
Sources: Abraham J. Karp, From
the Ends of the Earth: Judaic Treasures of the Library of Congress,
(DC: Library of Congress,
1991).
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