Judah Philip Benjamin

Judah Philip Benjamin (1811-1884)

Judah Philip Benjamin (born August 6, 1811 in Saint Croix , then a Danish colony , now part of the US Virgin Islands , † May 6, 1884 in Paris , France ) was an American politician and during the Civil War in the Confederate Government of America first attorney general , then war minister, and finally foreign minister . He was the first Jewish minister in North America, and the second US Jewish Senator. He is considered to be one of the most complex and capable people in the Confederate States. After the war he became a respected Crown Attorney in England.

Origin and career

He was the son of Philip and Rebecca (de Mendes) Benjamin. Although he was born in the Danish West Indies , he was an English citizen through his parents. In his childhood, his family immigrated to the United States via Savannah , Georgia . He grew up in North and South Carolina , where he attended a general school. He studied from 1825 to 1827 at the Fayetteville Academy and then at the law faculty at Yale University , which he left without a degree. In 1831 he moved to New Orleans , Louisiana , where he taught at the same time as a teacher and continued his law studies. After graduating, he was admitted to the Louisiana bar in 1832 and opened a law firm specializing in business law in New Orleans . The following year on February 16, 1833, he married Natalie St. Martin, who came from a prominent Creole family. Although the marriage did not seem to be a happy one, his daughter Ninette was born in 1842. The wife later left the United States with their daughter and moved to Paris , where they lived the rest of their lives.

Benjamin became a slave owner and built a sugar cane plantation near Belle Chasse , Louisiana. He - a self-made man - was successful not only as a lawyer but also as a planter, and was valued for both his wits and his considerable wealth. After a flood destroyed his plantation , he sold it with his 180 slaves in 1850 and has owned no slaves since.

Political career

Benjamin began his political career in 1842 when he was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives. In 1845 he was a delegate to the Constituent Assembly of the State of Louisiana. He became a member of the US Senate , first in 1853 for the Whigs and then from 1859 to 1861 for the Democrats . There he represented the interests of the south. Because of his reputation as a lawyer, Millard Fillmore offered him the nomination for a judge's post at the US Supreme Court . Benjamin's success would have been certain since not only the Presidential Party, the Whig, but the Democrats would have voted for him, but Benjamin refused.

During his first tenure as a US Senator, he challenged another newly elected Senator, Jefferson Davis , for an apparent insult in the hallways of the Senate to a duel. Davis refused, however, and later became a close friend of Benjamin. He quickly gained the reputation of a great speaker in the US Senate, so that Franklin Pierce again offered him a position as one of the Supreme Court Justice, but this time Benjamin turned it down. Following the election of Abraham Lincoln , he advocated secession and resigned as a senator on February 4, 1861.

Judah Philip Benjamin

Secession period

Minister of Justice

On February 25, 1861, CS President Jefferson Davis appointed Benjamin Attorney General . He was chosen by the President for his intellectual ability, systematic way of working and hard work. He filled the office with great responsibility, achieved the stability of this ministry and turned out to be a good manager. In the CS cabinet he was President Davis's closest associate. Although the ministry had less weight in the CS cabinet than other ministries, it was officially on an equal footing with the others because of Benjamin's work.

Minister of War

Davis named Benjamin on September 17, 1861, to succeed Leroy Pope Walker as Secretary of War . However, Benjamin was completely inexperienced in military affairs, so that he was unsuccessful in his second cabinet post. He limited the bureaucratic “official mold” in this ministry and signed the censorship approved by the CS Congress , which was to be issued after several military setbacks. The intention was to prevent the public from learning of the fall of forts Henry on February 6, 1862 and Donelson on February 16, 1862 (both in Tennessee ) and of the fort on the Island of Roanoke, North Carolina on February 8, 1862, the latter Defeat occurred even without any resistance from the Confederate Army .

Foreign minister

President Davis then named Benjamin Secretary of State on March 18, 1862 , which the CS Congress took as an insult. But he did not take office until March 24, 1862, after he had resigned as Minister of War. He was rejected and criticized by many Confederate leaders, but the President assured him that he was the most respected and loyal friend to him. He was responsible for many European bonds for the Confederates. However, he was never able to coordinate the Confederate diplomatic efforts successfully, which was one reason why the Confederates were hardly recognized by any European state. His aim was to have Britain on his side in the war with the North. He even asked the president to end slavery in order to ensure that Britain and France might even support the Confederates militarily. Benjamin advocated arming the slaves after they were freed. At the end of the war, he suggested to President Davis that each Confederate state should negotiate for itself when to reintegrate into the Union. He also initiated the Hampton Roads Conference .

Escape

During the escape from Richmond, Virginia, he left the refugee group around President Davis on May 2, 1865, because it was too big and obvious for him. Because it was clear to Benjamin that his current clothing was too flashy, he disguised himself as a farmer and pretended on his trip that he was looking for land in Florida . He also changed his name. In addition, he procured a horse with a saddle and bridle and rode on little-used roads into northern central Florida. When he got to the coast of the state, he procured a boat and hired two men to take him south down the west coast of Florida. The three men left the bay on June 23, 1865. During the tour, they narrowly escaped a US gunboat. On July 15, 1865, she reached British territory with the Bimini Islands , a group of islands in the Bahamas . After Benjamin had booked a passage on a sloop to Nassau, Bahamas , he now felt perfectly safe, but the ship sank in a shipwreck. A British ship rescued him from the water and brought him back to Bimini. The sea voyage to Nassau lasted only six days in a more seaworthy vessel that he had chartered. From there it was relatively easy to get to England via Cuba by ship. Benjamin never returned to the United States. His property left behind was confiscated by the US government. Incidentally, there was also a rumor that he was allegedly involved in the murder of Abraham Lincoln through his secret service.

post war period

Benjamin resumed his law studies at Lincoln's Inn in England. In June 1866 he was admitted to the bar. He now began his second career as a barrister in Liverpool and also became wealthy again through trading in cotton. He wrote a book on the Law of Sale of Personal Property ( Treatise on the Law of Sale of Personal Property ), which is one of the classics of English legal literature. The successor work Benjamin on Sale of Goods , which is written by a group of authors and is currently in its 6th edition (from 2002), is the leading handbook on English sales law. In 1872 Benjamin was appointed Queen's Counsel and thereafter practiced until 1882. He acquired a residence in Paris for himself and his family, where he died on May 8, 1884. Benjamin was buried as Philippe Benjamin in the Père Lachaise cemetery. His wife died in 1891 and his daughter Ninette, who had married the French captain Henri de Bousignac, in 1898. Their marriage appears to have been childless.

swell

Books

• Jon L. Wakelyn: Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge ISBN 0-8071-0092-7
• The Civil War Almanac World Almanac Publications, New York, NY ISBN 0-911818-36-7
• Rembert W. Patrick: Jefferson Davis and his cabinet Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1944

Web links

• Judah Philip Benjamin in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• http://www.americanjewisharchives.org/aja/FAJF/results.php?pg=18
• http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=736&letter=B

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2970-benjamin-judah-philip

predecessor	Office	successor
No predecessor	Minister of Justice of the Confederate 25 February 1861-17. September 1861	Wade Keyes
Leroy Pope Walker	Confederate War Minister September 17, 1861–24. March 1862	George Wythe Randolph
William Montague Browne	Confederate Foreign Minister March 18, 1862 – May 1865	No successor