The “Jew Bill” became a clearly defined issue in Maryland politics, and here we see again the American peculiarity mentioned above (page 118), that those who knew the Jew best were his most ardent defenders. Several representatives from country districts, where Jews were known by name only, failed of re-election because they had voted for the repeal of Jewish disabilities: while, on the other hand, a disposition favorable to Jewish emancipation became at an early date a sine qua non of election from Baltimore. The successful effort of Jacob Henry to retain his seat in the Legislature of North Carolina, which has been described in the previous chapter, was effectively used by the friends of the Jews in Maryland. Speaking on the Jew Bill in 1818, Mr. Brackenridge alluded to the incident as follows: “In the State of North Carolina there is a memorable instance on record of an attempt to expel Mr. Henry, a Jew, from the legislative body of which he had been elected a member. The speech delivered on that occasion I hold in my hand. It is published in a collection called “The American Orator,” a book given to your children at school and containing those republican truths you wish to see earliest implanted in their minds. Mr. Henry prevailed, and it is a part of our education as Americans to love and cherish the sentiments uttered by him on that occasion.” Six years later Col. Worthington, in the course of a speech on the same subject, also recalled Henry’s triumph in glowing terms. Some of the addresses delivered on that subject were considered of sufficient importance to be republished separately after the question was settled; one collection of them entitled “Speeches on the Jew Bill in the House of Delegates in Maryland” was published in Philadelphia in 1829.