will only stimulate their national aloofness.

3. The complete civil and political emancipation of the Jews is at
variance with the Polish Constitution which vouchsafes special
privileges to the professors of the dominant religion.

In the plenary session of the Polish Council of State the debate about
Novosiltzev's project was exceedingly stormy. The Polish members of the
Council scented in the project "political aims in opposition to the
national element of the country." They emphasized the danger which the
immediate emancipation of the Jews would entail for Poland. "Let the
Jews first become real Poles," exclaimed the referee Kozhmyan, "then
will it be possible to look upon them as citizens." When the same
gentleman declared that it was impossible to accord citizenship to
hordes of people who first had to be accustomed to cleanliness and cured
from "leprosy and similar diseases," Zayonchek burst out laughing and
shouted: "Hear, hear! These sluts won't get rid of their scab so
easily." After such elevating "criticism," Novosiltzev's project was
voted down. The Council inclined to the belief that "the psychological
moment" for bringing about a radical reorganization of the inner life of
the Jews had not yet arrived, and, therefore, resolved to limit itself
to isolated measures, principally of a "correctional" and repressive
character.

2. POLITICAL REACTION AND LITERARY ANTI-SEMITISM

Such "measures" were not long in coming. The only restriction the
Government of Warsaw failed to carry through was the enforcement of the
law of 1812 forbidding the Jews to deal in liquor. This drastic measure
was vetoed by Alexander I., owing to the representations of the Jewish
deputies in St. Petersburg, and in 1816 the Polish viceroy was compelled
to announce the suspension of this cruel law which had hung like the
sword of Damocles over the heads of hundreds of thousands of Jews.

On the other hand, the Polish Government managed in the course of a few
years (1816-1823) to put into operation a number of other restrictive
laws. Several cities which boasted of the ancient right _de non
tolerandis Judaeis_[1] secured the confirmation of this shameful
privilege, with the result that the Jews who had settled there during
the existence of the duchy of Warsaw were either expelled or confined to
separate districts. In Warsaw a number of streets were closed to Jewish
residents, and all Jewish visitors to the capital were forced to