Editing David Levy Yulee (section)

==Political career==
Levy (still going by that surname) was elected in 1841 as the [[Delegate (United States Congress)|delegate]] from the Florida Territory to the [[United States House of Representatives]] and served four years.  He was seated after his election,<ref>{{cite news |date=August 5, 1841 |title=House of Representatives: Mr. Levy introduced a bill making further provision for the suppression of hostilities in Florida... |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/64522301/ |work=Hillsborough Recorder |location=Hillsborough, NC |url-access=subscription  |page=3}}</ref> but his position was disputed, as opponents argued that he was not a citizen.<ref>{{cite news |date=September 8, 1841 |title=Twenty-Seventh Congress: The resolution of the Committee on Elections in reference to Mr. Levy was taken up as follows: Resolved, that David Levy, Esq., is not a citizen of the United States... |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/40141242/ |work=Public Ledger |location=Philadelphia, PA |url-access=subscription  |page=1}}</ref> Levy agreed to suspend his legislative activities pending resolution of this issue in the next Congressional session.<ref>{{cite news |date=September 13, 1841 |title=The resolution postponing the case of David Levy sitting delegate from Florida till the next session was adopted: Yeas 123, Nays 44 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/264308030/ |work=Commercial Advertiser and Journal |location=Buffalo, NY |url-access=subscription  |page=2}}</ref>  By late March 1842 the associated investigations, committee votes, and attempts to bring the issue to a vote in the full House, which included a defense by Levy and testimony from witnesses favorable to him, had not produced a definitive opinion of the House.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bartlett |first=D. W. |date=1865 |title=Cases of Contested Elections in Congress from 1834 to 1865, Inclusive |url=https://archive.org/details/casescontestede01bartgoog |location=Washington, DC |publisher=US Government Printing Office |page=[https://archive.org/details/casescontestede01bartgoog/page/n51 47] |ref={{sfnRef|''Cases of Contested Elections in Congress from 1834 to 1865, Inclusive''}}}}</ref> Levy was allowed to take his seat, and no further attempts were made to contest his claim to it.{{sfn|''Cases of Contested Elections in Congress from 1834 to 1865, Inclusive''|page=47}} Once seated in the House, Levy worked to gain statehood for the territory and to protect the expansion of slavery in other newly admitted states.

In 1845, after Florida was admitted as a state, the legislature elected Levy as a [[History of the United States Democratic Party|Democrat]] to the United States Senate, the first Jew in the United States to win a seat in the Senate. He served until 1851 (during which period he began using Yulee as his surname).<ref name=great>{{cite web|url=http://www.flheritage.com/services/sites/floridians/?section=h |title=Great Floridians 2000 Program: Judah Philip Benjamin |publisher=Florida Department of State, Florida Heritage |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930184612/http://www.flheritage.com/services/sites/floridians/?section=h |archive-date=2007-09-30 }}</ref> During his first Senate term, he served as chairman of the [[United States Senate Committee on Private Land Claims]] (1845–1849) and the [[United States Senate Committee on Naval Affairs]] (1849–1851).

In 1855 Yulee was again elected by the Florida legislature to the Senate. He served until resigning in 1861 to support the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]] at the start of the [[American Civil War]].

Yulee's inflammatory pro-slavery rhetoric in the Senate earned him the nickname "Florida [[Fire-Eaters|Fire-Eater]]".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/12/us/politics/republican-jews-alarmed-at-the-prospect-of-a-void-in-the-house-and-senate-.html |first=Jason |last=Horowitz |title=Republican Jews Alarmed at the Prospect of a Void in the House and Senate |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=12 July 2014 |access-date=13 July 2014}}</ref> Although he frequently denied that he favored secession, Yulee and his colleague, Senator [[Stephen Mallory]], jointly requested from the [[United States Department of War|War Department]] a statement of munitions and equipment in Florida forts on January 2, 1860. He wrote to a friend in the state, "the immediately important thing to be done is the occupation of the forts and arsenals in Florida."<ref name="Federal Writers' Project 1939 348"/>