Essay and speech on Jewish disabilitiesMacaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
Religion
Essay and speech on Jewish disabilities
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
Jews -- Great Britain
It would be impious to let a Jew sit in Parliament. But a Jew may make
money; and money may make Members of Parliament. Gatton and Old Sarum
may be the property of a Hebrew. An elector of Penryn will take ten
pounds from Shylock rather than nine pounds nineteen shillings and
elevenpence three farthings from Antonio.[6] To this no objection is
made. That a Jew should possess the substance of legislative power,
that he should command eight votes on every division as if he were the
great Duke of Newcastle[7] himself, is exactly as it should be. But
that he should pass the bar and sit down on those mysterious cushions
of green leather, that he should cry “hear” and “order,” and talk about
being on his legs, and being, for one, free to say this and to say
that, would be a profanation sufficient to bring ruin on the country.
That a Jew should be privy councillor to a Christian king would
be an eternal disgrace to the nation. But the Jew may govern the
money-market, and the money-market may govern the world. The minister
may be in doubt as to his scheme of finance till he has been closeted
with a Jew. A congress of sovereigns may be forced to summon the Jew to
their assistance. The scrawl of the Jew on the back of a piece of paper
may be worth more than the royal word of three kings, or the national
faith of three new American republics. But that he should put Right
Honourable before his name would be the most frightful of national
calamities.
It was in this way that some of our politicians reasoned about the
Irish Catholics. The Catholics ought to have no political power. The
sun of England is set for ever if the Catholics exercise political
power. Give the Catholics everything else; but keep political power
from them. These wise men did not see that, when everything else had
been given, political power had been given. They continued to repeat
their cuckoo song, when it was no longer a question whether Catholics
should have political power or not, when a Catholic Association
bearded the Parliament, when a Catholic agitator exercised infinitely
more authority than the Lord Lieutenant.[8]
If it is our duty as Christians to exclude the Jews from political
power, it must be our duty to treat them as our ancestors treated them,
to murder them, and banish them, and rob them. For in that way, and in
that way alone, can we really deprive them of political power. If we do
not adopt this course, we may take away the shadow, but we must leave
them the substance. We may do enough to pain and irritate them; but we
shall not do enough to secure ourselves from danger, if danger really
exists. Where wealth is, there power must inevitably be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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