Life's Second Chances

I might never have known of Judah P. Benjamin if my wife had not taken to using my encyclopedias as paper weights.  But she did, and one sleepless night I took up the paper weight and started reading random articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 1, A-Bib.  It is an eye-opening experience to discover how much information I do not know. Like why Judah P. Benjamin has his very own article. 

Mr. Benjamin ended his life as a famous barrister in England, to the point of being appointed queen’s counsel in 1872. His fame-earning work included writing a treatise on property law that was used widely in Britain and the United States.  That work was published in 1868, which in notable because he didn’t arrive in England until 1866, where he was quickly recognized as something of a genius.  So, why should you care?

You may recall that the 1860s are a time when the United States almost became a divided land during the American Civil War. You will recall that the Confederacy formed in reaction to the policies of one President Abraham Lincoln.  What you may not recall is that the Attorney General, then Secretary of War, then Secretary of State, and confidant of President Jefferson Davis was, you guessed it,  Judah P. Benjamin.  Secretary Benjamin came to the post after having served as the first-professing Jew in the United States Senate as the Senator from Louisiana. He was a successful lawyer, business-owner, farmer and slave-owner. A slave-owner who proposed that the slaves be armed to fight for the Confederacy and emancipated.  His idea, if adopted earlier, might have changed the course of history.

How do you assess a life like that of Judah P. Benjamin, Queens Counsel?  I say this: life does not offer “do-overs”, even to geniuses, like Mr. Benjamin.  The decisions he made, the positions he advocated, the work he did, he could not take back. However, life does offer “second chances.”  The stories of Mr. Benjamin’s escape from the United States would make a great television movie (see Wikipedia’s article), and he found a way to, not so much “start over”, as he did to “continue anew”.  Is there some part of your life that you would like to escape from? You cannot pretend your past didn’t happen. But you can, with work, escape it. And then you can continue anew. Why wait?