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Judah Benjamin was a Jew. Before the war he was resented and hated by many in the senate, while the people of Louisiana were damned for electing a Jew as a US Senator. "Once on the floor of the US Senate, Ben Wade of Ohio charged Benjamin with being an "Israelite in Egyptian clothing. " With characteristic eloquence, Benjamin replied, "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." (fn 1)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He later valiantly served the Confederacy in three capacities, attorney general, secretary of state and secretary of war, Benjamin was the only man Davis trusted explicitly without question. Nothing of consequence was ever plotted or carried out by the Confederate government that was not guided or counseled by Benjamin. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "He wanted freedom granted to any slave that would take up arms in the defense of the south, he propose this to an audience of 10,000 persons in Richmond in 1864, his remarks lit a firestorm." (fn 2) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- During the war Lincoln's people damned Benjamin as the brains of the Confederacy, and having done more than any other single man to keep the south sustained so as to continue the war. If I remember right he was going to charged in the complicity of Lincoln's assassination and had a death penalty awaiting him if captured. When the war ended he had an harrowing escape to England where he later wrote a much acclaimed classic legal text on the sale of personal property.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Perhaps the best-known posthumous caricature of Benjamin appears in the epic poem John Brown’s Body, by Stephen Vincent Benet. Describing him as a "dark prince," Benet depicts Judah Benjamin as "other" in Confederate inner circles:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judah P. Benjamin, the dapper Jew, Seal-sleek, black-eyed, lawyer and epicure, Able, well-hated, face alive with life, Looked round the council-chamber with the slight Perpetual smile he held before himself continually like a silk-ribbed fan. . . . [His] quick, shrewd fluid mind Weighed Gentiles in an old balance . . . The eyes stared, searching. "I am a Jew. What am I doing here?" (fn 3)----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (fn 1,fn 2 & fn 3 sourced from American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) at, ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jewish Virtual Library