As almost all the early Jewish settlers in America belonged to the wealthy classes, and most of them were in everything, except as to their faith, aristocratic Spaniards or Portuguese, it was natural for them to accept the institution of slavery as they found it, and to derive as much benefit from it as other affluent men. There were numerous Jewish slave holders in various parts of the New World, including the West Indies, New York and New England, long before and down to the American Revolution. There are several early references even to American-Jewish slave dealers. The growth of democracy and changed economic conditions had gradually put an end to slavery in the north soon after the beginning of the nineteenth century; but in the South slavery remained common, among Jews as well as among others. Public opinion in the South not only sanctioned slavery, but considered it the basis of its prosperity and predominance; and the prominent Jew of that part of the country was simply acting and feeling like his non-Jewish neighbors and fellow-citizens when he owned slaves or defended the institution at every possible opportunity. And those Jews who attained high political or social position in the South were by force of circumstances pro-slavery men. There was no lack of individual instances of Jews who evinced special tenderness for the black man, and even went so far as to liberate the negroes of whom they were the owners. It is thus related of the philanthropist Judah Touro “that the negroes who waited upon him in the house of the Shepards—with whom he lived for forty years—were all emancipated by his aid and supplied with the means of establishing themselves; and the only slave he personally possessed he trained to business, then emancipated, furnishing him with money and valuable advice.” The American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, in its report in 1853, noted that some Jews in the Southern States “have refused to have any right of property in man, or even to have any slaves about them” and that the cruel persecutions they themselves were subjected to tended to make them friends of universal freedom.[37] But these were exceptional, not typical cases, and not more common among Jews than among gentiles.
It was therefore natural to find in a man like David Yulee (originally David Levy, b. in St. Thomas, W. I., 1811; d. in New York City, 1886), who after studying at Richmond, Va., became a planter in Florida, a stanch supporter and defender of slavery. He was a Delegate to Congress from the Territory of Florida from 1841 to 1845, bearing the name of Levy. When Florida was admitted as a state in 1845, Levy, who had then assumed the name of Yulee, was elected a United States Senator from that state, being the first Jew who was elected to the upper house of the American Congress. He served a full term and later he was elected for another term, beginning in 1855 which he did not finish, because he retired in January, 1861, to join the Confederacy, later serving as a member of the Confederate Congress. We find even a resident of the far West, Judge Samuel Heydenfeldt, of California—mentioned in a former part—who, as a native of the South, was a strong partisan of the Confederacy, going so far as to withdraw from a lucrative practice in the courts, because he felt that he could not subscribe to the “iron clad” oath of loyalty required by law as a condition precedent to argument in every case (see Friedenberg, in “Publications,” X, p. 138).
In the religious controversies which went on at the time when the question of slavery began to absorb the attention of the American people, the Jews also took part on both sides. It has already been mentioned that Dr. Einhorn was forced to quit Baltimore on account of the strong stand against slavery which he took in his sermons and in his German monthly “Sinai.” Rabbi Sabato Morais found in Philadelphia, and so did Rabbis Bernhard Felsenthal and Liebman Adler in Chicago, more congenial surroundings for their work against slavery. Rabbi Morris J. Raphall, of New York, came out in 1860 with a strong sermon, which later appeared in a pamphlet, entitled “Bible View on Slavery,” in which he attempted to prove that since the Bible, which is the highest law, sanctioned slavery, it was futile to invoke an alleged “higher law” against it. There was, of course, no lack of replies and refutations to this argument, but none was so strong or attracted so much attention as one that came from the pen of a scholar who represented the very latest class of Jewish immigrants to the United States.
Michael Heilprin.
This man was Michael Heilprin (b. in Piotrkow, Russian-Poland, 1823; d. in Summit, N. J., 1888), the son of Pinhas Mendel Heilprin (b. in Lublin, Russian-Poland, 1801; d. in Washington, D. C., 1863). His father, who was a scholarly merchant of the old Polish-Jewish type and the author of several works in Hebrew, was his only teacher, and brought him up in that spirit of enlightened Orthodoxy which was not antagonistic to the acquisition of secular learning. Michael’s almost phenomenal memory and diligence helped him to master many languages and to become proficient in numerous sciences, which enabled him later to become one of the associate editors and an important contributor to Appleton’s New American Cyclopaedia. The Heilprins removed to Northern Hungary about 1843, where Michael established himself as a bookseller in Miskolcz. He soon mastered the Hungarian language, and his articles and poems in the cause of liberty attracted much attention during the stormy days of 1848 and 1849. He became the friend and confidant of Louis Kossuth (1802–94) and other leaders, and when the short-lived independent Hungarian government was established, he became secretary of the literary bureau which was attached to its ministry of the interior. After the suppression of the Revolution he spent some time in Cracow and in France, but returned to Hungary in 1850, and settled as a teacher in Satoralja-Ujhely, where his second son, the well-known American naturalist, Angelo Heilprin, was born in 1853 (d. in New York, 1907); the elder son, Louis, the encyclopedist (b. in Miskolcz, 1851), died in New York in 1912.
Michael Heilprin came to the United States in 1856 and settled in Philadelphia, where for two years he taught in the schools of the Hebrew Education Society. He “saw but one struggle here and in Hungary,” and his sympathies were actively engaged in the anti-slavery movement. In 1858 he settled in Brooklyn, where he resided until 1863, when he removed to Washington, returning to New York in 1865. On January 16, 1861, he contributed a fiery denunciation and an exhaustive scholarly refutation of Raphall’s views to the New York Tribune which commanded wide attention; and owing to this vehement but convincing repudiation of alleged Jewish pro-slavery views, Heilprin succeeded in arousing the public in a more marked degree than any other Jewish anti-slavery champion.
The bulk of the Jewish immigrants who came from Germany in the forty years preceding the Civil War were almost unanimous against slavery, because they were under the influence of the liberal movements of the Old World. These immigrants were intensely interested in the anti-slavery movement and were among the first and the most enthusiastic members of the newly formed Republican party. The two Jews who were chosen delegates to the National Convention of that party in 1860, which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency, and the Jewish member of the Electoral College which ratified the choice of the people in that year, were all natives of Germany. The oldest among them was Sigismund Kaufman (b. in Darmstadt, 1824; d. in Berlin, 1889), who participated in the German Revolution of 1848–49, and coming to America, became a representative of the German Republican element in the United States. He took an active part in the leadership of German social and fraternal organizations in New York, was a director of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, and held the position of Commissioner of Immigration. He addressed anti-slavery meetings in English, German and French, and was considered one of the influential politicians of New York in his time. He was chosen a Presidential Elector for the State of New York in 1860.
Moritz Pinner (b. in Germany about 1828), one of the members of the Republican State Convention which was held in St. Louis on February 12, 1860, was elected a delegate to the National Republican Convention to be held in Chicago the following May. He was opposed to the Presidential candidate who was put forward by that convention, and when it adopted the unit rule, thereby forcing him to vote against his own favorite candidate (Seward), he offered his resignation; but the convention adjourned without taking action on it. He was at the Chicago Convention as a delegate, but abstained from voting, on account of his declination to be bound by the decree of the State Convention, which is one of the reasons why his name does not appear on the official roll of the Missouri delegates. Pinner, who later removed to Elizabeth, N. J., was actively engaged for a number of years before the outbreak of the war in circulating anti-slavery literature in Missouri, and was for some time the editor of a German periodical devoted to the same cause.[38]
