When a distinguished Roman Catholic, William Gaston (1778‒1844), was chosen Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina (1834) a doubt arose, even in his own mind, whether he could accept the office. But he resorted to an even more ingenious interpretation of the Constitution, which was subsequently followed in other cases as well. He argued that the word “deny” implied an overt act, and that “the Constitution does not prescribe the faith which entitles to or excludes from civil office, but demands from all those who hold office, that decent respect of the prevalent religion of the country which forbids them to impugn it, to declare it false, to arraign it as an imposition upon the credulity of the people.” While the acceptance of this decision made it possible for every one to hold office, the efforts to abolish the religious test altogether did not cease. The question was again thoroughly debated at the Convention which came together in 1835 to amend the State Constitution. There were practically no Jews in the State even then, but some of the distinguished members of the Convention championed the cause of absolute religious liberty and worked for the abolition of the entire article which prescribed the test. Their efforts, however, were not successful, and the change which was adopted emancipated only the Catholics, by substituting the word “Christian” for “Protestant.” The small Jewish Congregation of Wilmington, N. C., which was organized in 1852 for burial purposes, began about four years later to circulate a petition for the removal of the existing disability. A bill to that effect was introduced in the Legislature in the same year (1858), but the committee to which it was referred reported that while it considered the objectionable clause “a relic of bigotry and intolerance unfit to be associated in our fundamental law with the enlightened principle of representative government ... it is highly inexpedient to alter or amend the Constitution by legislative enactment in any particular whatsoever.”