The 55 year old Sonia Sotomayor won confirmation Thursday afternoon as the nation's 111th Supreme Court justice and the first ever of Latino descent, a historic moment for the nation's fastest-growing minority group.

On a 68 to 31 vote, the Senate confirmed Sotomayor after roughly 18 hours of official debate spread across three days this week. The show of support included nine Republican 'aye' votes and 59 from the Democratic side of the aisle. All 31 votes against Sotomayor came from Republicans.

Despite the split by party line vote, both sides agreed her credentials for the court are impeccable. Democrats focused on her historic role as the first Latina jurist to reach the nation's high court, a story of rising from a single parent childhood in the Bronx, New York projects to the highest levels of the nation's legal corridors. Republicans questioned her ability to uphold the law in an unbiased fashion, pointing to a series of speeches she gave while serving as a federal judge that trumpeted the benefits of being a "wise Latina" on the bench.

Sotomayor becomes the third woman to serve on the Supreme Court, following Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Sotomayor will take her seat in early September.