Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Judah Benjamin

A reader sent me the information about this interesting gentleman and politician. Judah Philip Benjamin was the first person of Jewish descent to be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court as well as the first to serve in a North American presidential cabinet. He was the second Jew in history to serve as a U.S. Senator. He held several posts in the cabinet of Jefferson Davis, and after the fall of the Confederacy, he had a second career as a barrister in England. He is buried in Paris at the famous Père Lachaise cemetery. According to Wikipedia:

He quickly gained a reputation as one of the great orators of the Senate, and in 1854 Franklin Pierce offered him nomination to a seat on the Supreme Court, which he declined. He was a noted advocate of the interests of the South, and his most famous exchange on the Senate floor was related to both his religion and the issue of slavery: Benjamin Wade of Ohio accused him of being an "Israelite in Egyptian clothing," and he replied that, "It is true that I am a Jew, and when my ancestors were receiving their Ten Commandments from the immediate Deity, amidst the thundering and lightnings of Mt. Sinai, the ancestors of my opponent were herding swine in the forests of Great Britain."

While we certainly would not agree with all that he stood for, Benjamin remains an intriguing character who played a part in the shaping of American history.
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1 comment:

elena maria vidal said...

The comments were closed by accident again! Sorry!