11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A pearl of great price...., June 7, 2007
This review is from: Judah P. Benjamin: Confederate Statesman (Paperback)
Judah Benjamin's story has fascinated me since I was a child. Here was a man who lived by a masterful combination of brains and charm, who overcame great adversity, and, when The Cause was lost, picked himself up and moved on. Benjamin was a biographer's nightmare...he never kept correspondence, burned all his papers before evacuating Richmond [and did the same shortly before he died], and never wrote, or spoke, of the Civil War once it was over. He became the richest lawyer in Louisiana at a young age, lost everything in the war, and, starting over in England in his 50's, became the richest lawyyer there. Who was the first Jew in the U.S. Senate? Who was the first Jew nominated to the Supreme Court? Who was the first American Jew to hold a Cabinet position. Who was the first Jew [and man born outside England] to be a Queen's Counsel in England? Benjamin is the answer to ALL those trivia questions. [David Yulee had served in the Senate earlier, but he had long since converted to Presbyterian; Benjamin turned down President Fillmore's nomination because the Court didn't pay enough] Judah Benjamin held three different jobs in President Davis' Cabinet,[despite an earlier near duel with Davis in the Senate] and was, in many ways, Davis' right hand man, accessory brain, and designated "nice guy", soothing the feathers that Davis ruffled. The story of Benjamin's escape to England at the end of the war is, alone, worth the price of the book. Benjamin's marriage gets plenty of space; in many ways, it was the match made in Hell. Natalie was a piece of work, yet the Benjamins were, on some level, quite devoted to each other, and stayed more or less together for over 50 years.
Judah Benjamin is a problem for some Jews, and northern liberals...here was a Jew, educated at Yale, who owned slaves, and was probably the most articulate defender of slavery. Then, he was one of the central figures in the Confederacy for four years. History does not always fit neatly; try making Thomas Jefferson fit anything. The number of Jews in the Confederacy was around 2000 [see Robert Rosen's "The Jewish Confederates"], and, as for slavery, not only did rich Jews own slaves, so did rich Indians, Mexicans, and free Blacks.
Dr. Robert Meade published this great masterpiece in 1943. It is one of the very finest pieces of biography about anybody, anytime. There are three other Benjamin biographies that I know about, and own. Two of them are even worth reading. But, there is no real comparison. This is up there with Dr. Freeman's "R.E. Lee". High praise, I know, and not made lightly. {If you can find Meade's two volume study of Patrick Henry, get it. Good luck} LSU press deserves a big "THANK YOU" for making this great book available.
ADDENDUM: There is now a fifth volume available...the 1933 "Judah P. Benjamin-Statesman of the Lost Cause" by Rollin Osterweis can be had from Amazon. See my review of it; this volume remains definitive.
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