It has already been mentioned in a former chapter (page 86) that there were hardly any Jews in North Carolina at the time when its representatives voted at the Constitutional Convention against the abolition of religious tests. The provision of its State Constitution of 1776, which read “That no person who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion ... shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the Civil Department within the State” was doubtless aimed primarily at Roman Catholics, though it necessarily included Jews, Quakers, Mohamedans, etc. Jews did not become directly interested in the struggle for religious liberty in that State until the first decade in the Nineteenth Century, and the description of it will be found in the following chapter. The annals of Freemasonry, which usually disclose the earliest Jewish settlers in various localities in the eighteenth century, do not contain any Jewish names in the lodges of that fraternity until its very close. Jacob Mordecai (b. in Philadelphia, 1762; d. in Richmond, 1838), the son of Moses Mordecai (b. in Bonn, Germany, 1707; d. in Philadelphia, 1781), was Master of Johnston Caswell Lodge No. 10, of Warrenton, N. C., in 1797, 1798 and 1799. He was the founder and proprietor of a female seminary in that city which enjoyed a good reputation. One of his sons, Major Alfred Mordecai (1804–87), was probably the first Jewish graduate of the United States Military Academy of West Point.[20] Zachariah Hart (also spelled Harte) was a member of David Glasgow Lodge, in Glasgow County, in 1798 and 1799. Abraham Isaacs was Senior Warden of St. Tammany Lodge No. 30, of Wilmington, in 1798. Aaron Lazarus (1777–1841), who is mentioned as one of the first Hebrews to reach Wilmington and later became one of the first directors of the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad Company, was a member of the same lodge in 1803. There were about half a dozen other Jewish Masons in the lodges of Wilmington, Newbern and of Beaufort County about that time. CHAPTER XV. THE QUESTION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN VIRGINIA AND IN NORTH CAROLINA. Little change in the basic systems of State institutions――Patrick Henry, Madison and Jefferson on religious liberty in Virginia―― The similarity between the Virginia statute and the conclusions of Moses Mendelssohn pointed out by Count Mirabeau――The first congregation of Richmond――Article 32 of the Constitution of North Carolina against Catholics, Jews, etc.――How Jacob Henry, a Jewish member of the Legislature, defended and retained his seat in 1809――Judge Gaston’s interpretation――The first congregation of Wilmington, N. C.――Final emancipation in 1868.