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Lewis Charles Levin (November 10, 1808 – March 14, 1860) was a Jewish American politician, Know Nothing, and anti-Catholic social activist of the 1840s and 1850s. He served three terms in the United States Congress (U.S. House of Representatives, 1845–51), representing Pennsylvania's 1st District. Levin is considered to have been the first Jewish Congressman〔(First Jewish Congressman - Jewish Virtual Library )〕〔David Levy (later David Levy Yulee) entered Congress as Senator from the new state of Florida in 1845. Levy had previously served four years in Congress as a delegate from the Florida Territory.()〕 although David Levy Yulee served as a territorial representative from Florida prior to Levin's entering Congress. Lewis Charles Levin was born in Charleston, South Carolina and graduated from South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina) in 1828. He then briefly taught school in Woodville, Mississippi, but had to quit town after being wounded in a duel.〔''The Jews of Philadelphia'', Henry Samuel Morais, 1894. It is elsewhere reported that Levin's second in the duel was Jefferson Davis (), whose family owned plantations near Woodville.〕 Levin then practiced law in Maryland and Kentucky. ==Philadelphia Riots and Election to Congress== By 1838 Levin was in Philadelphia and giving public lectures on the evils of alcohol. He founded and edited a journal called the ''Temperance Advocate''. In 1842 he staged an immense public "bonfire of booze" to draw attention to his campaign against taverns and for local control of liquor licensing.〔"The Shuttle and the Cross," by David Montgomery, in the ''Journal of Social History'', 1972.〕 Levin's anti-alcohol crusade proved to be excellent preparation for his next cause, a campaign against Catholic political power, which he carried on in two papers, the ''Native American'' and ''The Daily Sun''. Initially the main political issue was an 1843 public school ruling permitting Catholic children to be excused from Bible-reading class (because the Protestant King James Version was being used). Levin became the leader and chief spokesman for a start-up political movement calling itself the American Republican Party (later the Native American Party). On May 3, 1844 Levin attempted to give a speech in the center of the Irish-Catholic neighborhood of Kensington. The locals ended up chasing all of the protesters out of the neighborhood. The following Monday, May 6, Levin returned with 3000 protesters. The ensuing fighting led to dozens of people killed, hundreds injured, and hundreds more left homeless as most of the neighborhood homes were burned by rioters. In addition the Catholic Churches St. Michael and St. Augustine were demolished completely by fire.〔http://unlearnedhistory.blogspot.com/2015/09/philadelphia-bible-riots-of-1844.html〕 New riots broke out in Southwark in July of that same year when a group of protesters threatened to destroy (St. Philip Neri Catholic Church ) in the Southwark District. This time Levin used his influence to prevent the mob from burning the Church. Following the July riots, Levin and his colleague Samuel R. Kramer (publisher of the ''Native American'') were arrested for "exciting to riot and treason" in inciting locals to invade and burn several Catholic churches and a convent.〔(The Pennsylvania Freeman, 1844 )〕 However, the case never went to trial.〔http://www.nytimes.com/1860/03/17/news/obituary.html〕 Shortly after the 1844 Philadelphia riots, Levin ran for Congress and was elected on his party's platform: (1) to extend the period of naturalization to twenty-one years; (2) to elect only native born to all offices; (3) to reject foreign interference in all institutions, social, religious, and political. Levin was returned to Congress in 1846 and 1848. He served as chairman of the United States House Committee on Engraving during the Thirtieth Congress, 1847-48. (As a side note, it was this Thirtieth Congress that saw a young Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln serve his one and only term in the House.) 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lewis Charles Levin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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