Mr. Deputy Senfft: As a sign of his participation in this motion and, at the same time, to give some of the gentlemen the opportunity to become better acquainted with the history and literature of this matter, Pastor Dr. Haas of Dickschied, Magistracy of Langenschwalbach, instructed me to offer as a gift to every member of the two Estates Divisions as well as to the Gentleman Commissioners of the duke's government a copy of his publication "The citizenship of the Jews illustrated from the standpoint of domestic policy". After I have carried out this directive, I shall remark in relation to the proposed motion itself only in general, since the same [motion] tends to deserve our complete attention and more careful consideration. Here it is a matter not merely of a more just and favorable regulation of the civic conditions of the Jews, but also of our own honor and our own welfare, for it is unquestionable that we [must] promote and elevate them if we are going to regulate their condition in the way that is urgently demanded by our ethical human nature and the irrefutable law of justice and humanity that is deeply rooted in the spirit of Christianity. In that, blinded by prejudice, one has failed to do this for centuries, in that one has withheld from the Jews the most natural rights and made them into objects of the most unnatural restrictions and oppressions, one has also nourished particularism in this people, one has forced it into a hostile isolation and maintained it in a state of emergency which, however, has sometimes affected the state in a disadvantageous, often ruinous manner. The more one has gotten away from these stereotypes in modern time and granted the Jews a dignified and more favorable position in society, the more palpably has a drive toward reformation been in evidence among them; the more unmistakably has their spirit and character taken a generally better direction, and I am convinced that this will happen more and more, that the Jews will be joining and assimilating to the life of the state ever more completely, that the name Jew, as in France, Holland, Belgium etc., will completely lose its defamatory meaning among us as well and simply persist as an historic name, if we practice complete justice on this people, which indisputably carries inside itself the seed of intelligence and goodness, and with whom a great deal of good can be accomplished, and if we win them over to our side through the straightforward and open declaration: to us you are welcome as fellow citizens with the same rights we enjoy, so long as you cease holding yourselves back in any way through your religious principles and ceremonial laws from fulfilling all political-civil rights, like us. Mr. Deputy Haas: I too am of the view that it is time to arrange the civic relations of the Jews in their favor and therefore approve of the motion of the honorable member, in that I refer to the considerations already emphasized arguing in its favor. The honorable chamber of deputies may therefore facilitate having the government move in the direction of a usage where, by way of legislation, complete equality for the Jews with the Christian subjects of the Duchy, in a civic and political regard, be granted, as has already happened in France, Bavaria, Holland, in the Kingdom of Württemberg and Electoral Hesse.
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