An Act for the Relief of the Jews of Maryland ... [printed within:] Laws Made and Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Maryland, at a Session begun and held at the City of Annapolis, on Monday the Sixth Day of December, Eighteen Hundred and Twenty-four

Annapolis: J. Hughes, 1825. 167, [1]pp. The Jew Bill appearing on pages 154-155. [With:] Laws made and passed by the General Assembly of the State of Maryland, at the Session begun and held at the City of Annapolis, on Monday the Twenty-sixth Day of December, 1825 [which includes the enactment of the Jew Bill on page 21]. 2 vols. 8vo. Later tan cloth. Association of the New York Bar (inked stamps and blindstamps). 167, [1]pp. The Jew Bill appearing on pages 154-155. [With:] Laws made and passed by the General Assembly of the State of Maryland, at the Session begun and held at the City of Annapolis, on Monday the Twenty-sixth Day of December, 1825 [which (truncated) includes the enactment of the Jew Bill on page 21]. 2 vols. 8vo. Although Article VI of the Constitution of the United States declares that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States" at the federal level, many states continued to prevent Jews, Catholics, and Quakers from occupying public offices. Beginning as early as 1797, Jewish citizens of Maryland, led by Jewish leaders Solomon Etting and Jacob Cohen, had regularly, but unsuccessfully petitioned the legislature for equal status. The “Jew Bill,” as it came to be known, was defeated in 1802, 1804, 1819 and 1823. In 1824, led by Irish Catholic Thomas Kennedy and with a Democrat majority in the legislature, the Jew Bill was once again brought before the legislature, passing at the beginning of 1826.

The present volumes recording the laws passed by the General Assembly at those sessions include both the proposed law – that "every citizen of this state professing the Jewish religion ... appointed to any office of public trust [shall] make and subscribe a declaration of his belief in a future state of rewards and punishments, in the stead of the declaration now required..." – and the final vote of passage on January 5, 1826, ensuring to Jews the same rights and privileges as Christians in the state.

An important record of a seminal moment in Jewish American history. (Inventory #: 338079)