Finally, in 1822, a bill to the desired effect passed both houses of the General Assembly; but the Constitution of Maryland required that any act amendatory thereto must be passed at one session and published and confirmed at the succeeding session of the Legislature. Accordingly, recourse was necessary to the session of 1823–24, in which a confirmatory bill was introduced accompanied by a petition from the Jews of Maryland. The bill was confirmed by the Senate, but defeated in the House of Delegates after a stirring debate, and all formal legislation hitherto enacted was rendered nugatory. But the time was ripe for this act of justice, and on the last day of the following session of the Legislature (Feb. 26, 1825) an act “for the relief of the Jews of Maryland,” which had already received the sanction of the Senate, was passed by the House of Delegates by a vote of twenty-six to twenty-five. The bill provided that “every citizen of this State professing the Jewish religion” who shall be appointed to any office of profit or trust shall, in addition to the required oaths, make and subscribe a declaration of his belief in a future state of rewards and punishments, instead of the declaration now required by the government of the State. In the following year a brief confirmatory act was passed and the battle for Jewish emancipation was won. Theoretically there still remained a discrimination, which was not eliminated until many years afterwards; but practically there was no formal disability. Solomon Etting and Jacob I. Cohen, both of whom had been throughout the moving spirits of the legislative struggle, were promptly elected in Baltimore (Oct., 1826) as members of the City Council, and the former ultimately became president of that body. A number of Jews later occupied and still occupy important political positions in Maryland commensurate with their individual ability and with the prominence of Jews in the business and professional life of the State. CHAPTER XVII. MORDECAI MANUEL NOAH AND HIS TERRITORIALIST-ZIONISTIC PLANS. Noah’s family; his youth and his early successes as journalist and as dramatist――His appointment as Consul in Tunis and his recall――His insistence that the United States is not a Christian nation――Editor and playwright, High-Sheriff and Surveyor of the Port of New York――His invitation to the Jews of the world to settle in the City of Refuge which he was to found on Grand Island――Impressive ceremonies in Buffalo which were the beginning and the end of “Ararat”――His “Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews”――Short career on the bench――Jewish activities.