The Jewish community became alarmed. By that time Warsaw already possessed a goodly number of "advanced" Jews, who had acquired the new culture of Berlin, and had divested themselves of the distinguishing marks in dress and outward appearance for which the Jews were penalized with the loss of rights. Relying upon the second clause of the ducal decree, which provided for the exceptional treatment of those who shall have "eradicated their distinguishing characteristics," a group of seventeen Jews of this type made representations to the Minister of Justice in January, 1809, to the effect that, "having endeavored for a long time, by their moral conduct and modern dress, to come into closer touch with the rest of the population, they are now certain that they have ceased to be unworthy of civil rights." To this flunkeyish petition the Minister of Justice, Lubenski--one of the "constitutional" ministers who managed to promote the interests of despotism under the cloak of liberalism--retorted with coarse sophistry, that constitutional equality before the law did not yet make a man a citizen, for only those could claim to be citizens who were loyal to the sovereign, and looked upon this country as their only fatherland. "Can those"--added Lubenski--"who profess the laws of Moses look upon this country as their fatherland? Do they not wish to return to the land of their fathers?... Do they not regard themselves as a separate nation?... The mere change of dress is not yet sufficient." The Polish minister had, it would seem, made a thorough study of Napoleon's catechism on the Jews. Aside from the representatives of this sartorial culture, who looked after their own personal advantage, there were among the Jews of Warsaw followers of the Berlin "enlightenment," who considered it their duty to make a stand for the rights of their people. On March 17, 1809, five representatives of the Jewish community of Warsaw submitted a memorandum to the ducal Senate, in which not only the note of entreaty but also the undertone of indignation could be discerned. Thousands of _members of the Polish nation of the Mosaic persuasion_, who, by virtue of having dwelt in this country for many centuries, have acquired the same right to consider it their fatherland as the other inhabitants, have hitherto, without any fault of theirs, to the damage of society and as an insult to mankind, for reasons that no one knows, been doomed to humiliation, and are groaning under the load of daily oppressions. Contrary to the enlightened spirit of the age and "the wisdom of the laws of Napoleon the Great"--the petitioners go on complaining--the Jews are denied civil rights, have no one to defend them in the Diet or the Senate, and sorrowfully anticipate that even "their children and descendants will not live to see happier times."