n Tsar, Alexander I. He
had moments of liberalism so pronounced that Metternich called him "the
crowned _sans-culotte_."

It is curious to note that the Jewish Board of Deputies in England did
not move during the Congress. The reason is perhaps not difficult to
understand. They were always timid in regard to high politics, and, in
1783, when it was proposed to address the King on the American Peace,
they actually passed a resolution declaring that it was their duty to
avoid such "political concerns."[16] In the case of the Congress of
Vienna, however, they may well have felt that they could not touch the
question of religious liberty, and especially of Jewish emancipation,
without risking an imputation of Jacobinism. Moreover, the British
Cabinet then in power was a Coalition Cabinet of pro-Catholics and
anti-Catholics, and they could not well listen to any proposals that
they should champion Jewish emancipation in Vienna, while in Downing
Street the question of Roman Catholic emancipation could not even be
discussed.

Fortunately, these considerations did not apply to the German Jews.
Frankfurt and the Hansa towns sent deputations to Vienna to plead the
cause of Jewish emancipation. The Frankfurt deputation was headed by
Jacob Baruch, father of Ludwig Boerne. They managed to secure the
support of both Hardenberg and Metternich, and when it was found that
the Tsar was not averse from some concession to the Jews, they agreed to
propose the insertion of a clause--or rather half a clause--in the
Final Act of the Conference providing for the gradual extension of civil
rights to the Jews of Germany.

Unfortunately for a long time this concession remained a dead letter,
owing not only to the ill-will of the German Governments themselves, but
to an apparently harmless verbal amendment which was introduced into the
clause by the Redaction Committee at the last moment. In the final
_alinea_ it was stipulated that "the rights already conferred on the
Jews in the several Federated States shall be maintained." The object of
this was to secure to the Jews of Germany the liberties granted to them
by Napoleon during the French occupation. This design was frustrated by
the Redaction Committee, at whose instance the word "_by_" was
substituted for "_in_," the result being that the rights secured to the
Jews were not those of the French occupation, but only those which had
been grudgingly, and in very small measure, granted to them by