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Title: Judah Benjamin: 1811-1884
Source:
Jewish Virtual Library
URL Source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Benjamin.html
Published: Jan 1, 2006
Author: AICE
Post Date: 2009-05-19 21:08:13 by Deasy
Keywords: Yale, Davis, Sephardic, Confederate
Views: 168
Comments: 10
One of the most misunderstood figures in American Jewish history is Judah P. Benjamin, whom some historians have called “the brains of the Confederacy,” even as others tried to blame him for the South’s defeat. Born in the West Indies in 1811 to observant Jewish parents, Benjamin was raised in Charleston, South Carolina. A brilliant child, at age 14 he attended Yale Law School and, on graduation, practiced law in New Orleans. A founder of the Illinois Central Railroad, a state legislator, a planter who owned 140 slaves until he sold his plantation in 1850, Judah Benjamin was elected to the United States Senate from Louisiana in 1852. When the slave states seceded in 1861, Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed Benjamin as Attorney-General, making him the first Jew to hold a Cabinet-level office in an American government and the only Confederate Cabinet member who did not own slaves. Benjamin later served as the Confederacy’s Secretary of War, and then Secretary of State. For an individual of such prominence, Benjamin’s kept his personal life and views somewhat hidden. In her autobiography, Jefferson Davis’s wife, Varina, informs us that Benjamin spent twelve hours each day at her husband’s side, tirelessly shaping every important Confederate strategy and tactic. Yet, Benjamin never spoke publicly or wrote about his role and burned his personal papers before his death, allowing both his contemporaries and later historians to interpret Benjamin as they wished, usually unsympathetically. During the Civil War itself, many Southerners blamed Benjamin for their nation’s misfortunes. The Confederacy lacked the men and materials to match the Union armies and, when President Davis decided in 1862 to let Roanoke Island fall into Union hands without mounting a defense rather than letting the Union know the true weakness of Southern forces, Benjamin, as Davis’s loyal Secretary of War, took the blame and resigned. Anti-Semitism was a fact of life – North and South – during the Civil War years and Benjamin was falsely defamed as having weakened the Confederacy by transferring its funds to personal bank accounts in Europe. After Benjamin resigned as Confederate Secretary of War, Davis appointed him Secretary of State. Eli Evans, Benjamin’s most perceptive biographer, observed that “Benjamin served Davis as his Sephardic ancestors had served the kings of Europe for hundreds of years, as a kind of court Jew to the Confederacy. An insecure President [Davis] was able to trust him completely because, among other things, no Jew could ever challenge him for leadership of the Confederacy.” Near the end of the war, Benjamin privately persuaded Robert E. Lee and other Confederate military leaders that the South’s best chance was to emancipate any slave who volunteered to fight for the Confederacy. When Benjamin repeated this proposal to an audience of 10,000 persons in Richmond in 1864, his remarks lit a firestorm. Georgian Howell Cobb observed, “If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong.” Benjamin’s idea, however valuable, was rejected as politically impossible. As Evans observes, “The South chose [instead] to go down in defeat with the institution of slavery intact.” When John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln in 1865, Davis and Benjamin were suspected of having plotted the event and, as the martyred Lincoln was compared to Christ in the Northern press, Benjamin was pilloried as Judas. When the South was defeated, Benjamin -fearing that he could never receive a fair trial if charged with Lincoln’s murder, fled to England, where he lived out his life as a barrister, publishing a classic legal text on the sale of personal property. Evans speculates that, had Benjamin been captured by Union troops, the United States might have had its own Dreyfus Trial. A solitary man, estranged from his wife, Benjamin died alone in England, and his daughter arranged to have him buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Until 1938, when the Paris chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy provided an inscription with his American name, his simple tombstone was engraved with the name “Philippe Benjamin.” While Judah Benjamin preferred such obscurity, his prominence as a Jew assured that he would come under harsh scrutiny, both during and after his life. For example, on the floor of the 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.” 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:[Benjamin photo 1]
of America picturing Judah Benjamin.
Hebraic Section
Authorized by an Act of Congress, C.S.A., August 18, 1861.
Printed sheet with coupons.
Manuscript Division 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?”
![[Judah photo]](http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/People/judahb.jpg){kind=link}
![[Benjamin photo 1]](http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/People/benjamin1.jpg){kind=link}
![[Benjamin photo 2]](http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/People/benjamin2.jpg){kind=link}
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#1. To: Deasy (#0)
I wondered why there was nothing about Benjamin stealing the South's gold until I went back and read that the source was a Jewish library.
The Truth of 911 Shall Set You Free From The Lie
When the South lost, Benjamin deserted his former country and fled to England. He was also the largest slaveholder in the South. Vermin.
Substitute the name Benjamin for House and you have President Wilson being managed by a Jew. Roosevelt had several and now Obama has Emanuel. History repeats itself, over and over. Benjamin ran to England because he feared the Yankees would give him a hemp party.
This "court Jew" notion seems to be an unwritten contract between STATE puppets and the bankers that own them. It's as if the bankers require a hands on manager / informant (spy) within any administration they fund. This guy appears to me to be like a Jack Abramoff. Current trends in government appear to be following this tradition. The U.S. Govt. is flooded with Jew managers. After they drive a government into submission it appears they have the ability to hide their misdeeds from history, otherwise after having been expelled from 100s of countries over time they would be ostracized permanently. Instead they have convinced the brain dead that they are the ones being persecuted for their religious beliefs. To think that 100s of nations that offered asylum to these people would suddenly become religious bigots is pure Jewish bullshit. Looking back on the early days of America it was another Jew named Haym Solomon that advanced the funding for Washington. This Jew is portrayed as a "patriot" when he and his ilk have been war profiteers since before Christ was a corporal ! [And I'm not so sure we haven't been repaying this loan in one way or another ever since]. Some things never change ... NEVER !
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces. De La Boétie
I've noticed.
Most people are beginning to see the obvious ... however evangelicals, neo- cons and RADIO TALK SHOW HOSTS are impaired.
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces. De La Boétie
Americans today are products of 100 years of war propaganda. It's to be expected. It most often lacks any conspiratorial element.
While I agree with you in part with regards to propaganda, I have to say that the real problem is that Americans have stopped being strictly liable for their own actions. So, the "it's to be expected" notion strikes me as irresponsible and almost says "IT'S TO BE ACCEPTED" ... and I say that's exactly what has us in our current predicament. Americans have learned how to avoid personal responsibility and choose to leave it to others such as government or insurance companies, etc ... to such an extent that even their own children are being raised by government. Some want to spread their personal responsibility across the social spectrum (in their own mind) ... but that's another SOCIALIST CONCEPT that tags along with all of the other SOCIALIST HORSESHIT ... which stems primarily from MAJORITY RULES / SOCIALISM ... thinking that taking a vote on something makes it OK is nonsense that you are correct in pointing out results from the last 100 years of propaganda ... However, this type of thinking results from laziness, lethargy, apathy, and then easy acceptance of the (bullshit) propaganda that is indoctrinated into our education system like a vaccine preventing personal responsiblity. If there's a judgment day (and there will be in one form or another) the individual will be judged soley upon his/her actions alone ... without a vote.
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces. De La Boétie
Most Americans live in a hermetically sealed environment replete with consistent media sources and consensus-reinforcing social contacts. Norms are established and maintained. Generations pass these values down, sometimes with unexpected results. A few of us open our eyes and see beyond the invisible boundaries. Our reward is seldom profitable. What's worse, someday future generations will look back on our resistance and complain that we were not stalwart enough.
All I can say without being picked up by the Gestapo is that the fat lady ain't sang yet !
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces. De La Boétie
#2. To: Deasy (#0)
Dancing Turtles and Bouncing Boobs
...that's Turtle Island.
#3. To: Deasy (#0)
Varina, informs us that Benjamin spent twelve hours each day at her husband’s side, tirelessly shaping every important Confederate strategy and tactic.
#4. To: Deasy (#0)
Eli Evans, Benjamin’s most perceptive biographer, observed that “Benjamin served Davis as his Sephardic ancestors had served the kings of Europe for hundreds of years, as a kind of court Jew to the Confederacy.
#5. To: Cynicom, noone222 (#4)
Substitute the name Benjamin for House and you have President Wilson being managed by a Jew. Roosevelt had several and now Obama has Emanuel.
#6. To: Deasy (#5)
I've noticed.
#7. To: noone222 (#6)
#8. To: Deasy (#7)
Americans today are products of 100 years of war propaganda. It's to be expected. It most often lacks any conspiratorial element.
#9. To: noone222 (#8)
However, this type of thinking results from laziness, lethargy, apathy, and then easy acceptance of the (bullshit) propaganda that is indoctrinated into our education system like a vaccine preventing personal responsiblity.
#10. To: Deasy (#9)
What's worse, someday future generations will look back on our resistance and complain that we were not stalwart enough.
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