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] Illustration: Lewis N. Dembitz. Photo by Klauber, Louisville.