_Resolved_, By the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled, that the rights of the citizens of the United States should not be impaired at home or abroad because of religious belief; and that if existing treaties between the United States and Russia be found, as is alleged, to discriminate in this or any other particular, as to any other classes of our citizens, the President is requested to take immediate action, to have the treaties so amended as to remedy this grievance. After a debate, in which the fact that English Jews were permitted to own land in Russia, was brought out, this Resolution passed the House of Representatives June 10, 1879, and as far as known was not heard of again. In the diplomatic correspondence which followed, the American Government insisted on its rights under the treaty and urged its minister to claim absolutely equal treatment for all American citizens alike, Jews as well as others. The arguments and the mode of procedure which are now familiar to every one who is interested in the question, were all used thirty years ago, though the only effective remedy, suggested by the first resolution, “to take immediate steps to have the treaties amended,” had not been resorted to. But the question of former Russian subjects who return to Russia as American citizens, in which the principle of expatriation and right of naturalization is involved, is not touched upon in these early disputes. There is even a clear intimation that the Russian Government’s chief objection was against naturalized Jews from Germany. Mr. Foster, who was then our representative in St. Petersburg, in a dispatch dated December 30, 1880, reports an interview which he had with M. de Giers, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and says: So far as concerned Jews who are bona fide American citizens (not disguised German Jews), he would assure me of the most liberal treatment, as he knew it was the desire of the Emperor to show all possible consideration to American citizens. If such came to St. Petersburg and encountered any trouble, if I would merely send him an unofficial note, he would give them all the time I might ask for them to remain here to attend to their business.... The same dispatch reports also a conversation with the Minister of Worship, who “listened with much interest to my presentation of the subject. He said that a commission was now engaged in studying the question of reform in these laws,” and “frankly recognized that the laws were not fully in accordance with the spirit of the age.” But in the end of this document Mr. Foster acknowledges his failure to obtain what he wanted and says that “the Russian Government was disposed to grant what we desired only as a favor when my government asked it as a right” (quoting Loris Melikov).