Portal:American Civil War/Selected biography/48

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Judah Philip Benjamin (August 6, 1811 – May 6, 1884) was an American politician and lawyer, who served as a representative in the Louisiana state legislature, as U.S. Senator for Louisiana, in three successive Cabinet posts in the government of the Confederate States of America, and as a distinguished barrister and Queen's Counsel in England. He was the second Jew (after David Levy Yulee of Florida) to serve as a U.S. Senator and the first in the Cabinet of a North American government, and had the opportunity to be the first Jewish nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, though he declined the position.