[Footnote 1:  See above, p. 49.]

[Footnote 2:  On the meaning of Manifesto see later, p. 246, n. 1.]

  Prompted by the desire—­the Manifesto reads—­of making it easier for
  the Jews to discharge their military duty and of averting the
  inconveniences attached thereto, we command as follows: 

1.  Recruits from among the Jews are to be drafted in the same way as from among the other estates, primarily from among those unsettled and not engaged in productive labor. [1] Only in default of able-bodied men among these, the shortage is to be made up from among the category of Jews who by reason of their engaging in productive labor are recognized as useful.

  2.  The drafting of recruits from among other estates and of those
  under age is to be repealed.

  3.  In regard to the making up of the shortage of recruits, the
  general laws are to be applied, and the exaction of recruits from
  Jewish communities as a penalty for arrears is to be repealed.

4.  The temporary rules, enacted by way of experiment in 1853, granting Jewish communities and Jewish individuals the right of presenting as recruits in their own stead coreligionists seized without passports [2] are to be repealed.

[Footnote 1:  See on these designations pp. 64 and 142.]

[Footnote 2:  See above, p. 148 et seq.]

The abolition of juvenile conscription followed automatically upon the annulment, by virtue of the same Coronation Manifesto, of the general Russian institution of “cantonists” and “soldier children,” who were now ordered to be returned to their parents and relatives.  Only in the case of the Jews a rider was attached to the effect that those Jewish children who had embraced Christianity during their term of military service should not be allowed to go back to their parents and relatives, if the latter remained in their old faith, and should be placed exclusively in Christian families.

The Coronation Manifesto of 1856 marks the end of the recruiting inquisition, which had lasted for nearly thirty years, adding a unique page to the annals of Jewish martyrdom.  In the matter of conscription, at least, the Jews were, in a certain measure, granted equal rights.  The operation of the general statute concerning military service was extended to them, with a few limitations which were the heritage of the past.  The old plan of the “assortment of the Jews” is reflected in the clause of the Manifesto, providing for increased conscription from among “those unsettled and not engaged in productive labor,” i.e., of the mass of the proletariat, as distinct from the more or less well-to-do classes.  Nor was the old historic crime made good:  the Jewish cantonists who had been forcibly converted to the Greek-Orthodox faith were not allowed to return to their kindred.  As heretofore, baptism remained a conditio sine qua non for the advancement of a Jewish soldier, and only in 1861 was permission given to promote a Jewish private to the rank of a sergeant for general merit, without special distinction on the battlefield which had been formerly required.  Beyond this rank no Jew could hope to advance.