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Show JUDAH P. BENJAMIN. On August 12 the people of Louisiana celebrated celebrat-ed the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Judah P. Benjamin, and aome eastern journals are wondering why hia centennial ia especially honored. We suspect it waa more on account of hia race than anything else. He served in the senate of the United Unit-ed Statea, then in the cabinet of Jefferson Davis. He waa a wonderful lawyer but never a great ita teaman. He was not a lovable man in hia intercourse inter-course with bis peers; he never originated a measure meas-ure throug!. which he can be remembered ; but he had tbe tenartiy of his race, and could he have been in the British parliament-when Disraeli waa premier he would have been the premier's right I hand, though he never had the imagination of Disrseli aod could never in words express himself with hia grace. But he represented the extreme southern view. He believed in the justice of slavery and that any means to strengthen and perpetuate it were justifiable. justi-fiable. 1 So fierce- was he in his beliefs and in hia hste of the north thst when the lost csuse went into eclipse he expatriated himself and made hia home in England Eng-land for tlu rest of his life. But hr waa not great in any sense except as a lawyer. Ib the handling of a rase he waa subtle aa a serpent. In bis profession he waa the peer of the foremost lawyers in the United States; when he went to London and opened an office he was the peer of the best lawyers in England. While other southern men after the war picked np the raveled ends of their fortunes and aecppted th result if the wsr aa final and construed the result aa imposing impos-ing a duty upon them, to do what they eould toward to-ward wiping away the scars of the war, Benjamin would have none of H ; he went away in anger and in hate and Pf-nd both aa long as be lived. He made a great nanve as a lawyer; he did nothing else for which his memory deserves especial honor. |