Note 27 — A SPEECH
Reading edition
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.