The Ely miner., 1930-07-25

Photographs of Carter and Shields, courtesy
Army Information Service.
Orleans, but finding that port block
AIDED by British fleet it sailed away
to the West Indies. Among its pas
Sengers, who landed on the island of
st. CroiX, was an English Jew. named
Benjamin, and his wife On August
IL a son was born to Mrs. Benjamin
and given the name of Judah. AL
though Judah +. Benjamin was de-
MED the right of being born on Amer
ican soil, he was destined to become
an important figure in American his
tory.
Benjamin's boyhood was spent in
Wilmington, n. c., until 1925, when
he entered Yale. After three years
he left that institution without getting
degree and went to New Orleans,
where he studied law in a notarys
Office He was admitted to the bar
in 1882 and spent the next few years
practicing that profession with a short
interim of school teaching.
Politics was next to engage his at
tention and he allied himself to the
Whg party. In 1916 he was mem
Der of the convention which met to
revise the constitution of Louisiana,
and it is noteworthy that this foreign
born citizen of Louisiana was respOn-
sible for placing in the new code
provision that the governor of that
state must be citizen born in the
United States.
In 1S4S Louisiana elected Benja-
min as presidential elector at large,
and four years later sent him to the
United States senate, returning him
there in 1857. He took prominent
part, in the slavery dispute of those
times, and during one of the exciting
debates in the senate dispute with
Jefferson Davis, the senator from Mis-
sissippi, brought the two men to the
verge of duel which was averted
only when Davis apologized.
Although Davis had disagreed vio-
lently with Benjamin in the senate he
recognized the worth of the man, and
when the former was chosen as Pres
ident of the Confederate States of
,, America he selected Benjamin as at
torney general in his cabinet. In Au-
gust, 1861. Benjamin was transferred
to the War department, where his con-
duct of the war aroused such bitter
hostility, even including charges of in
competency and neglect of his duty.
that he resigned But Davis. to whose
stubborn refusal to accept advice
some historians ascribe large share
Of the responsibility for the downfall
of the Confederacy, again flew in the
face Of public opinion. and immediate
ly offered Benjamin his third cabinet
position, that of secretary of state.
When Richmond fell in 1865, Ben
jamin fed with the rest of the Con
federate government. Making his way
to the coast of Florida he escaped in
an open boat to the Bahamas, and in
September, 1865, reached Liverpool.
After living quietly in retirement for
a year in England he took up the study
of English law, and in 1866 he was
admitted to the bar. He failed to re-
peat his American success as an at
torney, however, and he next took up
Journalism. But after his publication
of a Treatise on the Law of Sale of
Personal Property" in 1868, book
which is still accepted as an authority
in English law. his legal genius was
recognized and his practice grew rap
dily. In 1872 he was made queens
counsel and he became one of the rich
est lawyers in the land. even though
he appeared only before the house of
lords and the privy council.
In 1883, after his health had failed.
Benjamin retired from active practice,
and on June 30 of that year he was
guest of honor at a farewell banquet
given to him in the Inner temple in
London by the highest legal luminaries
in England. He then went to Paris
to make his home and there he died
on May s, 1884.
Ii Benjamins career in America was
remarkable one, even more unusual
was that of another immigrant boy,