Details
BENJAMIN, JUDAH PHILIP, Attorney General, C. S. A. Autograph letter signed ("J. P. Benjamin") to J. B. Saunders, New Orleans, 26 February 1861. One page, 4to, a few light stains, two very minor fold breaks, slight crinkling at one fold.
WRITTEN THE DAY AFTER BENJAMIN'S APPOINTMENT AS ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE CONFEDERACY
Benjamin responds to a constituent who had addressed a claim to him as chairman of the Committee on Private Land Claims in the U.S. Senate. The day before, Benjamin had been appointed Attorney General of the provisional Confederate government and was preparing to travel to Montgomery, the provisional capitol: "Your different letters about your land reached Washington too late to enable me to [sic] any thing before this state seceded [Louisiana was the sixth state to secede, on 26 January 1861]. Now you will have to arrange your titles with our state officers, & I return them to you, as I am to leave to-morrow for Montgomery."
Benjamin, a citizen of New Orleans and the first openly Jewish member of the U.S. Senate, had been one of the first Southern Senators to encourage secession, and his eloquence in defending this position and overall brilliance as a lawyer made him an obvious choice for the post of Attorney General in the new Confederate government. The close personal ties between Jefferson Davis and Benjamin (which had ironically originated in an altercation so bitter that Benjamin had demanded a duel, but Davis had quickly recanted his harsh words) were perhaps however the deciding factor in the Confederate President's choice of Benjamin, whom he transferred only eight months later to the War Department. Benjamin's service in the Confederate cabinet (he later became Secretary of State), earned him increasing unpopularity in the South.
WRITTEN THE DAY AFTER BENJAMIN'S APPOINTMENT AS ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE CONFEDERACY
Benjamin responds to a constituent who had addressed a claim to him as chairman of the Committee on Private Land Claims in the U.S. Senate. The day before, Benjamin had been appointed Attorney General of the provisional Confederate government and was preparing to travel to Montgomery, the provisional capitol: "Your different letters about your land reached Washington too late to enable me to [sic] any thing before this state seceded [Louisiana was the sixth state to secede, on 26 January 1861]. Now you will have to arrange your titles with our state officers, & I return them to you, as I am to leave to-morrow for Montgomery."
Benjamin, a citizen of New Orleans and the first openly Jewish member of the U.S. Senate, had been one of the first Southern Senators to encourage secession, and his eloquence in defending this position and overall brilliance as a lawyer made him an obvious choice for the post of Attorney General in the new Confederate government. The close personal ties between Jefferson Davis and Benjamin (which had ironically originated in an altercation so bitter that Benjamin had demanded a duel, but Davis had quickly recanted his harsh words) were perhaps however the deciding factor in the Confederate President's choice of Benjamin, whom he transferred only eight months later to the War Department. Benjamin's service in the Confederate cabinet (he later became Secretary of State), earned him increasing unpopularity in the South.