The Damascus Affair of 1840 marks the real beginning of the diplomatic or international phase in the history of American Jews (though a reference to the services which Mordecai M. Noah rendered his country as consul at Tunis (1813–16) should not be omitted). The persecutions and tortures to which some of the most prominent Jews of Damascus had been subjected were reported to the Department of State at Washington, D.C. by the United States consul at Damascus. Immediate instructions, under date of 14 August 1840, were thereupon issued to John Gliddon, the United States consul at Alexandria, Egypt, by Secretary of State John Forsyth, in which he directed that all good offices and efforts be employed to display the active sympathy of the United States in the attempts that the governments of Europe were making to mitigate the horrors of these persecutions. Three days later David Porter, the United States minister to the Ottoman Empire, was instructed by Forsyth to do everything in his power at the Porte to alleviate the condition of the unfortunates. In both these communications the reasons for the intervention of the United States are based upon sentiments of justice and humanity, no American citizens being involved; in the communication to Minister Porter stress was laid upon the peculiar propriety and right of the intervention of the United States, because its political and civil institutions make no distinction in favor of individuals by reason of race or creed, but treat all with absolute equality.
Damascus Affair
Though it would appear that this action of the United States was taken without the solicitation of any Jews of the US, measures were already on foot to display the feeling of the Jews at this time. Public meetings were held in August and September 1840, in New York City, Philadelphia, and Richmond, participated in by both Christians and Jews, at which resolutions were passed asking the United States to intervene to procure justice for the accused and the mitigation of their hardships. Among the leaders who were instrumental in calling these meetings were Jacob Ezekiel of Richmond, J. B. Kurscheedt and Theodore J. Seixas of New York, and Isaac Leeser and John Moss of Philadelphia. Considerable correspondence passed between these leaders and the Department of State, in which the humanitarian attitude of the government and the nature of its intervention are fully disclosed."Publ. Am. Jew. Hist. Soc." No. 8, p. 141; No. 9, p. 155; No. 10, p. 119.
Ten years later the Jews of the US were concerned in the diplomatic relations with Switzerland. Almost simultaneously the negotiations assumed two phases: (a) respecting the ratification of a treaty in which lurked the possibility that American citizens who were not Christians might be discriminated against, and (b) concerning the actual discrimination in Switzerland against American citizens, on the ground that they belonged to the Jewish faith.
Swiss disabilities
In November 1850, A. Dudley Mann, the American representative, negotiated a treaty with the Swiss Confederation, which was transmitted to the United States Senate on 13 February 1851, by President Millard Fillmore. At the same time the president sent a message in which he took exception to a part of the first article of the treaty, which specifically provided that Christians alone were to be entitled to the privileges guaranteed. An agitation against the ratification of the treaty was started by the Jews as soon as its existence was learned of, and Daniel Webster, then secretary of state, and Senator Henry Clay at once (February 1851) went on record as opposed to the objectionable clause of the treaty. The principal agents in stirring up the opposition were Isaac Leeser, David Einhorn, J. M. Cardozo of Charleston, South Carolina, and Capt. Jonas Phillips Levy of New York. A movement was set on foot in the US shortly thereafter (1852–53) to procure religious toleration abroad for American citizens generally; this was quite distinct from any movement started by the Jews, but greatly aided the latter. As a result of this combined opposition the Senate declined to ratify the treaty. Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan figured largely in the opposition to it. He corresponded with Rev. Isaac Leeser and Captain Levy respecting it, delivered several notable speeches in the Senate against it in 1854, and presented a petition on April 19, 1854, which had been signed by Jews of the United States at the instance of a committee of New York Jews, of which Alexander J. Kursheedt was chairman. As a result, the treaty was amended by the Senate, and in its amended form was ratified and proclaimed 9 November 1855. But the amendment, though less objectionable in phraseology, retained the same connotation and rendered it possible, under its terms, for the Swiss cantons to discriminate against Jews in the manner they had adopted in 1851. Though unsuccessful in preventing the ratification of the treaty, the agitation against it did not cease. Notwithstanding the treaty was proclaimed at the end of 1855, it would appear that this was not generally known until 1857. Attention was drawn to it by the fact that one A. H. Gootman, an American citizen and a Jew, had received notice in 1856 to leave La Chaux-de-Fonds, in Neuchâtel, where he had transacted business for five years. Public meetings of protest were held during 1857, in Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Easton, Pa., Charleston, Baltimore, and elsewhere, and a vigorous opposition was voiced by Isaac M. Wise in his paper, "The Israelite", by David Einhorn in "Sinai", and by Isaac Leeser in "The Occident". A convention of Jews met in Baltimore in October, and a delegation appointed by this convention waited on President James Buchanan in the same month to protest against the treaty and request its abrogation; the president promised to take steps to accede to their request so far as lay in his power. Numerous memorials were also transmitted to the president and the Senate. That this agitation attracted general attention is manifested by the fact that the newspapers throughout the country expressed vigorous opinions against the treaty.
Though sporadic efforts to procure an alteration in the treaty and the establishment of the rights not only of American Jews but of the Jews of all nations in Switzerland continued to be made in the United States, the principal scene of negotiations shifted to the former country, and the principal actor was Theodore Fay, the American minister. Beginning in August 1853,("U. S. Ex. Doc." xii. 3) when an American citizen, the same Gootman referred to above, received orders from the authorities of La Chaux-de-Fonds, canton of Neuchâtel, to leave that canton on the ground that he was a Jew, Fay, though at first disinclined to take any very energetic stand, finally became much interested in the subject of Swiss discrimination against Jews and kept up an active agitation until his recall in 1860. He succeeded in procuring permission for Gootman to remain, but only as an act of grace, not by right. The obstacle Fay had to attempt to overcome lay in the nature of the Swiss Confederation, which left to the cantons the regulation of the rights of domicil, the Federal Council having no control over the cantons in this respect. Fay was ably supported in his contentions by the secretaries of state Marcy and Lewis Cass, especially the latter. In the course of his negotiations Fay made an elaborate study of the Jewish question as it affected Switzerland, and in June 1859, transmitted what he called his "Israelite Note" to the Federal Council. This is an extensive treatise explaining the American contention with much force, and embodying besides a general defense of the Jews. It was translated into German and French, was offered for sale by the Federal Council, received much notice in the Swiss newspapers, and caused the restrictions against Jews to be abolished in several cantons. In 1860 the executive committee of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, of which Myer S. Isaacs was secretary, took steps to continue the agitation in America. Henry I. Hart, the president of the above-mentioned board, took up the matter with Secretary Seward shortly after he assumed office in 1861, and the secretary issued specific instructions to the new minister to Switzerland, George G. Fogg, to be no less active in his endeavor to establish the rights of American Jews than was his predecessor. The restrictions in the cantons were gradually abolished, and full civil rights were finally guaranteed to all Jews by the new Swiss Constitution of 1874. It may be added, however, that the treaty of 1855 is still in force (1905; "Publ. Am. Jew. Hist. Soc." No. 11, pp. 7 et seq.).
Serbia and Palestine
In 1867 Myer S. Isaacs, on behalf of the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, endeavored unsuccessfully to have the government take some steps to alleviate the condition of the Jews in Serbia. In 1882 Gen. Lew Wallace, United States minister to the Ottoman Empire, moved by the hardships suffered by Russian refugees whom he found starving in the streets of Constantinople, called at the Foreign Office and received a communication from the minister of foreign affairs in which the statement was made that Jews would be made welcome anywhere in the Ottoman Empire, except in Ottoman Palestine. In 1884 he took vigorous action against the threatened expulsion from Jerusalem of sundry naturalized American Jews. In 1887 and 1888 attempts were made by the Ottoman government to limit the sojourn of American Jews in Jerusalem to one month—later extended to three months. This was earnestly opposed by the American minister, Oscar S. Straus, ably supported by Secretary Bayard, who contended that the United States, by reason of its Constitution, could not recognize any distinction between American citizens in respect to their religion. By his exertions Straus successfully halted any steps to expel American citizens who happened to be Jews ("U.S. For. Rel." 1887, 1888, 1889). Secretaries Blaine, Gresham, and Hay repeatedly took a similar stand, and it would appear that rights of American citizens who are Jews have been carefully guarded in the Ottoman Empire ("U.S. For. Rel." 1894, 1898, 1901).
Morocco
In 1863 atrocities perpetrated upon the Jews of Morocco led the Board of Delegates to ask the intervention of the United States. Secretary Seward instructed the United States consul at Tangier to use his good offices to further the mission of Sir Moses Montefiore, basing his act on the ground of common humanity. For two years the consul exerted himself to carry out his instructions and met with some slight success. In 1878 the Board of Delegates renewed its endeavors to have the government use its good offices in Morocco, and the consul at Tangier, F. A. Matthews, took earnest steps to alleviate the condition of the Jews whenever the opportunity arose during this and succeeding years. Adolph Sanger, on behalf of the Board of Delegates, in 1880 sent out an agent, L. A. Cohen, to Morocco to report on conditions there. In March 1881, the United States minister at Madrid, Lucius Fairchild, proceeded to Morocco to investigate the condition of the Jews. He made a sympathetic and valuable report to the secretary of state, Blaine, in which he displayed an acute interest in the unfortunate conditions in that country, and did his utmost to alleviate them.
Romanian disabilities