Benjamin, Judah P. Speech of Hon. J. P. Benjamin, of Louisiana, Delivered in the Senate of the United States, May 22, 1860. Defence of the National Democracy Against the Attack of Judge Douglas--Constitutional Rights of the States.

In this address on the floor of the Senate, Judah P. Benjamin, the Democratic senator from Louisiana, argues that it is unconstitutional for the North to interfere with Southern rights and the system of slavery and cites the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court. In March 1857 the Supreme Court ruled that a black slave named Dred Scott was disallowed from suing for his freedom as he was not a citizen. Furthermore, the Supreme Court stipulated that the Federal Government could not interfere in the states’ right to determine the local laws of slavery. After the secession of the South from the Union, Judah P. Benjamin became Attorney General, later Secretary of War, and finally, Vice President of the Confederacy. “Benjamin was undoubtedly the most prominent nineteenth-century American Jew.” EJ, Vol. IV, col. 528.