Denmark.— When the deliberative assem blies were established in the various provinces of Denmark by the laws of 28 May 1831 and 15 May 1834, the Jews were granted the right to vote hut they were not permitted to stand for election to Parliament; the Constitution adopted 5 June 1849 granted them full political rights and removed all restrictions.
Belgium.— The Jews were emancipated po litically in 1815.
Italy.— When Italy passed into the domin ion of Napoleon I the Jews of that country secured the advantages of the liberal French legislation. With the fall of Napoleon and the reinstatement of Pius VII, the Jews were deprived of the liberties they enjoyed under French rule and the old mediaeval legislation was re-enforced. This continued till 1848, the revolutionary year, when as everywhere else a brighter day dawned for the Jews of Italy; however, in the reaction which followed they were again forced into mediaeval conditions. This continued till 1859 when with the achieve ment of Italian unity the Jews received full political rights; in Rome alone were those withheld but there, too, they were granted upon the downfall of the papacy as a temporal power (September 1870).
United The first amendment to the Constitution announces unequivocally the sepa ration of church and state; all men are equal before the law whatever their religious creed; however a number of the 13 original States which adopted State constitutions before the Constitution of the United States was framed demanded religious tests of a character to ex clude all but believing Christians from holding office. The constitution of Delaware of 1776 had such a test which was abolished in the amended constitution of 1792. The constitu tion of Massachusetts which had a similar pro vision was not amended till 1822. According to a constitutional provision of New Jersey only Protestants could hold office; not till 1844 was this article amended; the article of the constitution of Pennsylvania which posted a belief in the Old and New Testaments aspre requisite for office-holders was amended in 1790 to the effect that belief in God and the future state should be the condition; Vermont repealed the religious test of the constitution of 1777 in 1793; Rhode Island, Connecticut, Virginia and Georgia required no religious tests in their original constitutions. In Maryland a long struggle was necessary before the provi sion of the constitution of 1778 requiring belief in the Christian religion as a condition for office-holders was abolished. The Jew bill in troduced in the legislature in 1818, whose ob ject was to remove the civil disability of the Jewish citizens of the State, was not passed till 1826. The new constitution adopted in 1851 still contained the original clause accompanied, however, by a special provision for the Jews; the constitution of 1867 definitely removed all religious tests excepting the belief in the ex istence of God. The constitution of North
Carolina of 1776 made a belief in the Protes tant religion a condition for holding any office of trust or profit; in 1835 the words °Christian religion)) were substituted for °Protestant re ligion)); this emancipated Catholics, but not Jews; not till 1868 was this remedied, when only such were declared as being disqualified for office who °shall deny the existence of Almighty In 1878 the representatives of the powers of Europe assembled at the Con gress of Berlin made the political and civil emancipation of the Jews one of the conditions of the independence of Rumania. These rights have not been granted, and alone among European powers Rumania refuses to grant her Jewish citizens the rights of men. There have been reports now and then, however, since the Russian Revolution that Rumania will emancipate the Jews within her borders.
after emancipation had come to the Jews of western Europe, repressive laws of the most extreme character continued in force against them in the land which contained over half the Jews in the world. Protests by leading statesmen and citizens of all faiths in the free lands of Europe and America were of no avail. The United States had gone so far as to refuse to renew its commercial treaty with Russia because American Jews were not permitted to enter Russia though holding the American passport. Then burst upon a startled world the Russian revolution. March 15, 1917, became one of the epochal days in the world's history. The oppressed classes in Russia were freed. Among them the Jews. On 5 April the provisional government abolished all limitations on rights of Russian citizens and friendly aliens based on race and religion. On 20 April all words offensive to Judaism were stricken out of the official oath taken by Jews. Joy reigned in the Russian Jewries, in truth among Jews and all lovers of freedom throughout the world. The Jews in the two chief cities of Russia de cided to commemorate the emancipation of Russian Jewry in striking ways, the Jewish community in Petrograd by establishing a Temple of Equality in connection with an in ternational institute for the study of national problems, and the Jewish community of Mos cow by establishing a special fund. To be come really effective as the law of the land the decrees issued by the various cabinets that have been in power since the revolution must be ratified by the Constituent Assembly. The Constituent Assembly whose duly elected dele gates met on 18 Jan. 1918 and organized by elec mg a presiding officer unwelcome to the Bolshe viki and extreme social radicals is being blocked from further assembling by these extremists. No one can tell what the future may bring forth. But for the present Russian Jewry is free .