Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Benjamin, Judah Philip
BENJAMIN, Judah Philip, Q.C., was born in St. Croix, a Danish West India Island, in 1811, of English parents of the Jewish faith, who emigrated in 1816 to Wilmington, North Carolina, where his father became naturalised as an American citizen, the son remaining a native born subject of England. He entered Yale College in 1825, but left without graduating in 1828, when he went to New Orleans, and was admitted to the bar in 1832. He entered prominently into politics, originally as a Whig, but on the merger of that party into the "Know Nothing," or Native American party, he attached himself to the Democratic party. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1852, and re-elected in 1858. On Dec. 31, 1860, in a speech to the Senate, he avowed his adhesion to the State of Louisiana, which had seceded from the Union, and he at once withdrew from the Senate and returned to New Orleans. He was then called by Jefferson Davis, who had just been elected President of the Southern Confederacy, to join the Cabinet as Attorney-General. To the duties of this office were added those of Acting-Secretary of War during a temporary vacancy in that office. On the appointment of a permanent Secretary of War, the Cabinet was reorganised, and Mr. Benjamin was made Secretary of State, retaining that office and the confidence of the President until the overthrow of the Confederacy. He then escaped the pursuit of the Northern troops, and succeeded in reaching Nassau, New Providence, whence he sailed for England, where he arrived in Sept. 1865. Mr. Benjamin had been in reality the soul of the rebellion. His entire property was confiscated, and it is an interesting fact that his law library was bought in by public subscription and presented to him. He came to England in Sept., 1865, and through the personal influence of Lord Cairns was called to the bar in 1866, after keeping his terms for one year only. He at once acquired a large practice at Liverpool, where the principal firms of solicitors have intimate relations with the leading legal houses of New Orleans. He received a silk gown in 1872, and from that date was engaged in almost every case of importance. Among his many arguments, the one most generally known is that which he delivered before the Court for Crown Cases Reserved on behalf of the captain of the Franconia. His last great Nisi Prius case was that of Anson and others against the London and North-Western Railway. After this he entirely refused any briefs except upon Appeal, and was only to be seen in the House of Lords and the Privy Council. In the latter his knowledge of general jurisprudence gave him a great advantage. He was, indeed, in the widest sense of the term, an international lawyer. Mr. Benjamin retired from practice in Feb., 1883. In 1868 he published the 1st, and in 1873 the 2nd edition of a "Treatise on the Law of Sale of Personal Property."