14. A CENTURY OF EMANCIPA TION. Up to the close of the 18th century the Jews had' no political or civil rights anywhere. The only serious attempt at remedying this state of affairs before that time was made in England in 1753, when Parliament passed the Jews' Emancipation Bill, but so great was the outcry raised throughout the country that it was immediately repealed. In Germany a kind lier spirit had arisen in the latter half of the 18th century, the era of enlightenment, notably through the influence of Moses Mendelssohn (q.v.). Lessing's friendship had resulted in (Nathan the Wise,' and another friend of the "Jewish Socrates," Christian Wilhelm von Dohm, made the first extended plea for the political emancipation of the Jews in his work On the Civil Improvement of the Jews' (1781). In 1782 the Emperor Joseph of Aus tria issued the famous Toleration Edict; its object was not the political but rather the edu cational emancipation of the Jews; schools were established in which other branches than the Hebrew, the only subject Of instruction then offered to Jewish children, were taught. After Mendelssohn's death the French orator and statesman Miraheau (q.v.) published a book entitled (Moses Mendelssohn and Political Reform' (London 1787), in which he urged the cause of the Jews.
France.— The country in which these seeds first bore fruit was France. A year before the French Revolution the Royal Society of Sci ences and Arts of Metz offered a prize for the best essay on the subject °What are the best means to make the Jews happier and more use ful in France?" Nine were offered in competi tion for the prize which was awarded jointly to three contestants, one of whom was the Abbe Gregoire, to whose efforts as a member of the National Assembly the passing of the bill on 27 Sept. 1791, granting full rights of citizenship to the Jews of France, was largely due. Some time earlier (23 Jan. 1790) the assembly had voted rights of citizenship to the so-called Por tuguese Jews. The status of the Jews also en gaged the attention of Napoleon L In 1807 he convened in Paris an assembly of Jewish nota bles from the various sections of France and Italy, known as the French Sanhedrin, to which he propounded a number of questions, the sixth of Which was "Do the Jews who are natives of France, and are treated as French citizens by the law, look upon France as their fatherland? Do they consider themselves in duty bound to defend it? Are they obliged to obey the laws and satisfy all the demands of the civil code?' These questions were answered with a decided affirmative; the emperor was assured that the Jews looked upon other Frenchman as their, brethren and upon France as their native coun try. The final step which placed the Jews for once and all on 'terms of absolute equality with all citizens of other faiths was taken on 13 Nov. 1830, when the Minister of Education offered a bill providing for the payment of the salaries of the rabbis from the public treasury as was the case with Catholic priests and the Protestant clergy. This became a law 8 Feb. 1831. The
last vestige of mediaeval discrimination against the Jews disappeared when the Supreme Court abolished the oath "More Judaico" in 1846.
In the national convention of the Batavian Republic a bill was passed on 2 Sept. 1796, which declared that "No Jew shall he excluded from rights or advantages which are associated with citizenship in the Batavian Republic and which he may desire to enjoy." Since then the Jews of Holland have had all political rights; how absolutely their equal standing with other citizens is assured appears from the adoption of a resolution by the legis lature in 1845 giving the widows of rabbis the same pensions as the widows of the Protestant clergy.
Germany.— In none of the many German states was political emancipation definitely granted to the Jews before 1848. True, the Prussian edict of 11 March 1812, issued by Frederick William III at the instance of his liberal-minded Prime Minister, Hardenberg, did declare the Jews to be natives and granted them citizenship on the condition of their taking fam ily names and using the German or any other living language in place of the German-Jewish jargon. They were given permission to settle anywhere and to acquire real estate; all special Jew taxes were abolished; in return they had to assume all the obligations of citizenship, nota bly the payment of taxes and military service. After the Congress of Vienna and the fall of Napoleon a spirit of reaction set in and this edict remained practically a dead letter. Not till 1848 was definite political emancipation granted the Jews of Prussia. Paragraph 4 of the law of 5 Dec. 1848 declared that °All Prussians are equal before the law. Class privi leges are not recognized. Public offices are open to all who are capable of filling them," and paragraph 11 stated that The enjoyment of political rights is independent of religions con fession and of membership in any religious as sociation." In that same year the delegates from the various German states in Parliament assembled at Frankfort-on-the-Main formulated a statement of the fundamental rights of the German people. Paragraph 13 was to the effect that The enjoyment of civil and political rights is to be neither conditioned nor limited by re ligious belief; neither are political duties to be interfered with by it." The chief champion of the cause of Jewish emancipation in Germany was Gabriel Riesser (1806-63). Notably dur ing the fourth and fifth decades of the 19th century when this question was prominently before the legislatures of the various German states was he active. In each one of these states the Jewish question had a varied course, but in time one after the other removed the civil disabilities of the Jews, Hanover and Nassau in 1848, Wurttemburg in 1861, Baden in 1862, Saxony in 1868, and Bavaria last of all in 1869.