and Vansittart are more particularly meant.” These were Chancellors
between 1810 and 1830.
[6] Gatton (Surrey) and Old Sarum (Wilts) were “pocket boroughs without
inhabitants,” and, like the corrupt borough of Penryn (Cornwall), were
disfranchised by the Reform Act. Macaulay was far from implying that
Jews actually did own any corrupt boroughs. His argument is based on
the fact that nothing in the then state of the law could prevent such
ownership.
[7] “Henry Pelham Francis Pelham Clinton, fourth Duke of Newcastle,
1785-1851, a high Tory, ejected some of his tenants at Newark for
having voted on the Whig side in the general election of 1830”
(Professor Montague).
[8] This refers to Daniel O’Connell—who, it may be remembered, was a
consistent friend of the Jewish claims.
[9] William Laud (1573-1645), Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633,
was one of the principal advisers of Charles I. in his repression of
the Puritans and the enforcement of episcopacy upon Scotland. He was
attainted in January 1645, and was executed on Tower Hill.
[10] In the _Edinburgh Review_ these sentences follow: “It is to put
the effect before the cause. It is to vindicate oppression by pointing
to the depravation which oppression has caused.” Macaulay felt,
no doubt, that the word “depravation” was unjust, and conveyed an
unintended stigma.
[11] Gaspard de Coligni was a Huguenot victim of the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, in 1572.
Sir Henry Vane was a leader in the Opposition against Charles I., and
was executed in 1662.
[12] The answer given by the lay barons at the Parliament of Merton
in 1236 to the proposal of the prelates to make the English law of
legitimacy correspond with that of other countries. Sir James H.
Ramsay, _The Dawn of the Constitution_, pp. 77, 78, following the text
of the Statutes of the Realm, reads _mutare_ in the active, instead of
_mutari_ in the passive.
[13] The argument is lengthily and moderately stated in a _Times_
leader for May 3, 1830.
[14] This passage confirms what is said in the Introduction as to
Macaulay’s personal familiarity with synagogue usages.
[15] Matthew xxvi. 24.
[16] Deuteronomy xxviii. 48, 66, 32.
[17] Luke x. 29. “Love thy neighbour as thyself” is from Leviticus xix.
18.
[18] In its issue of April 3, 1830, the newspaper _John Bull_ (which
bore on its title-page the legend, “For God, the King, and the People”)
published a violent attack on Mr. Grant’s Bill. The article took the
form of a sarcastic plea for the emancipation of the gipsies. There
was a further attack on April 25, and on May 23 the same paper, while
rejoicing at the rejection of Mr. Grant’s “romantic and un-Christian
Bill,” expressed its dissatisfaction with the speeches of the opponents
of Jewish emancipation. They were altogether too conciliatory and
tolerant to please _John Bull_.
[19] Sir Robert Inglis (1786-1855) entered Parliament in 1824.
He opposed the various Catholic Relief Bills and the repeal of
the Test and Corporation Acts. Sir Robert Peel had supported the
Catholic claims, and Inglis thereupon successfully opposed him
(1829) as candidate for the University of Oxford. Inglis continued
to represent the University until his withdrawal from parliamentary
life. He persistently opposed the Jewish emancipation. “Inglis was an
old-fashioned Tory, a strong Churchman, with many prejudices and no
great ability” (_Dictionary of National Biography_).
[20] Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832) supported Grant’s first
resolution in 1830; in the interim he had died. Mackintosh, who
entered the House in 1813, enjoyed much reputation as a philosopher.
[21] The Member for Oldham was the noted William Cobbett (1762-1835),
who, after an extraordinary career in England and America, entered the
first Reformed Parliament. Cobbett was very violent in his opposition
to Jewish liberties. See note 24.
[22] The Albigenses, who took their name from one of their strongholds,
the town of Albi on the Tarn, were an anti-sacerdotal sect in the South
of France during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, infected with
Manichæan heresy. They suffered the most horrible cruelties in the
crusade carried on against them from 1209 to 1218 under the command of
Simon de Montfort, the father of the Simon de Montfort so well known in
English history. See T. F. Tout, “The Empire and the Papacy,” pp. 216,
401.
[23] See note 6.
[24] On March 1, 1833, Mr. Hill presented a petition by Unitarians
in favour of the “removal of all Religious Disqualifications still
existing, and especially for the removal of the Disabilities affecting
the Jews.” It was on this occasion that Cobbett raised the objection to
which Macaulay’s argument is the reply. The reference to Paine’s “Age
of Reason” is also a covert hit at Cobbett, who reprinted Paine’s work.
[25] Macaulay here overstates the case. The synagogue has at various
times been reluctant to receive and unwilling to seek proselytes. But
it does not reject them.
[26] Lord George Gordon (1751-1793), the third son of Cosmo George,
Duke of Gordon, was charged with high treason for having in 1780 headed
terrible riots in London directed against the removal of certain Roman
Catholic disabilities. He was acquitted on the ground that he had no
treasonable intentions. He afterwards embraced the Jewish faith, and
was received into the covenant of Abraham in Birmingham, but without
the sanction of the Jewish ecclesiastical authorities in London. A
vivid description of the “No Popery” riots of 1780 will be found in
Dickens’ “Barnaby Rudge,” which also contains a reference to Lord
George’s change of religion.
[27] In the report of Grant’s speech in the _Times_ of April 18, 1833,
occurs this passage:—
“Now with respect to the supposed anti-social principles of the Jews,
the most sacred of their books had told them to ‘Seek the peace of
the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and
pray unto the Lord for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have
peace’ [Jeremiah xxix. 7]. This principle was fully recognised by the
Jews under Napoleon, who asked whether they held themselves bound, as
citizens of the State in which they resided, by the laws and customs
of that State? The Sanhedrin replied that every Jew, regarded as a
citizen by the State, must obey the laws of the country which protected
them and conform to the regulations of the civil code; in short, that
Israelites were bound to consider such countries as their own, and
serve and defend them to the utmost. In a catechism of the elements of
the Jewish faith, intended for the use of Hebrew youths, it was stated
that the Messiah not having come, the king under whose protection they
lived must be considered as a King of Israel, and that the country in
which they enjoyed such protection was to be looked upon in the same
light as the land of their forefathers.”
Grant followed this up by a masterly survey of the relations of Jews
to various States in the past and present, and cited evidence of
the patriotism and good citizenship of Jews wherever they had been
permitted an opportunity of displaying those qualities.
[28] In Hansard’s report (col. 236) Macaulay finished the paragraph
with the words: “Why not try the same experiment which has been tried
in France and Prussia, and which was now trying in the United States of
America?” In the same debate (col. 342), in the report of Mr. Joseph
Hume’s speech, occurs the passage: “He had a letter in his hand, though
he would not trouble the House by reading it, from Mr. Quincy Adams,
the late President of the United States, stating that there were
no better citizens than the Jews, and expressing the hope that ere
long the whole of Europe would see the justice and wisdom of freely
conceding to them the fullest political privileges.”
_FOREIGN EDITIONS_
[The numbers in square brackets at the end of the entries indicate the
press-marks of the copies in the British Museum.]
(_a_) MACAULAY’S ESSAY
(1) [French]. _Essais politiques et philosophiques par Lord Macaulay,
Traduits par M. Guillaume Guizot._ Paris, 1862. Pp. 380-398. [12273 k
3.]
(2) [Dutch]. _Historische en letterkundige Schetsen door Lord Macaulay.
In het Hollandsch overgebragt door Dr. A. Pierson._ Haarlem, 1865. I.
105-120. [12272 aa 23.]
(3) [Italian]. _Saggi biografici e critici di Tommaso Babington
Macaulay. Versione dall’ Inglese con note di Cesare Rovighi._ Torino,
1859-1866. V. 288-302. [12273 aa 3.]
(4) [English text, with Introduction and Notes in German]. _Civil
Disabilities of the Jews. Eine 1831 veröffentlichte Abhandlung von
Thomas Babington Macaulay. Herausgegeben und mit Anmerkungen versehen
von Dr. F. Fischer._ Berlin, 1882. [4033 f 32 (10).]
(5) [Roumanian]. The son of Prince John Ghica (for some time Roumanian
minister at the Court of St. James’), who was educated in England,
translated Macaulay’s Essay on the “Civil Disabilities of the Jews”
into Roumanian. The translation appeared as a small pamphlet in
Bucharest. Political exigencies and the rise of anti-Jewish feeling in
Roumania demanded the suppression of the translation, to avoid awkward
questions and to remove a possible bar to the young man’s career.
The pamphlet has in consequence almost completely disappeared. A few
copies, however, have been saved, and one of them is in the library of
the Rev. Dr. M. Gaster.
(_b_) MACAULAY’S SPEECH
(1) A German translation of Macaulay’s Speech on “Jewish Disabilities”
was published in 1881, in reply to the anti-Semitic campaign of Stöcker
and Henrici. The full title is Macaulay’s _Rede für die Emancipation
der Juden gehalten im Englischen Unterhaus, am 17 April 1833_.
_Übersetzt von A. E._ Frankfurt a. Main, 1881. [4033 f 31 (12).]
(2) A Spanish translation will be found on pp. 109-122 of _Discursos
Parlamentarios de Lord Macaulay, Traducidos del Inglés por Daniel
López_. Madrid, 1885. [8139 aa 66.]
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
Edinburgh & London