David Davis | |
|---|---|
 Portrait byMathew Brady,c. 1877 | |
| President pro tempore of the United States Senate | |
| In office October 13, 1881 – March 3, 1883 | |
| Preceded by | Thomas F. Bayard Sr. |
| Succeeded by | George F. Edmunds |
| United States Senator fromIllinois | |
| In office March 4, 1877 – March 3, 1883 | |
| Preceded by | John Logan |
| Succeeded by | Shelby Cullom |
| Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States | |
| In office December 10, 1862 – March 4, 1877 | |
| Nominated by | Abraham Lincoln |
| Preceded by | John Campbell |
| Succeeded by | John Harlan |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1815-03-09)March 9, 1815 |
| Died | June 26, 1886(1886-06-26) (aged 71) |
| Political party |
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| Spouse | Sarah Woodruff Walker (1838–1879) |
| Relations | David Davis IV (great-grandson) |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | |
| Signature | .jpg) |
David Davis (March 9, 1815 – June 26, 1886) was an American politician and jurist who was aU.S. senator fromIllinois andassociate justice of the United States Supreme Court. He also served asAbraham Lincoln's campaign manager at the1860 Republican National Convention, engineering Lincoln's successful nomination for president by that party.
Of wealthy Maryland birth, Davis was educated atKenyon College andYale University, before settling inBloomington, Illinois, in the 1830s, where he practiced law. He served in the Illinois legislature and as a delegate to the state constitutional convention before becoming a state judge in 1848. Shortly after Lincoln won the presidency he appointed the determinedly independent Davis to the United States Supreme Court, where he served until 1877. Davis wrote the majority opinion inEx parte Milligan, a significant judicial decision limiting the military's power to try civilians in its courts. After being nominated for president by the Labor Reform party in 1872 he pursued theLiberal Republican Party's nomination, but was defeated at the convention byHorace Greeley; despite this, he received one electoral vote in the1872 presidential election.
Davis was a pivotal figure inCongress's establishment of the 1876Electoral Commission charged with resolving the disputedHayes v. Tilden presidential election; he was widely expected to serve as the deciding member of the Commission, but after the Democratic-controlled Illinois State Legislature sought to influence his vote by electing him to the U.S. Senate, Davis excused himself from the Commission and resigned from the Supreme Court to take the Senate appointment. A Republican was appointed in his place, handing the election toRutherford B. Hayes.
In regard for his independence, he was electedpresident pro tempore of the United States Senate from 1881 to 1883, placing him first in theline of presidential succession due to a vacancy in the office of theVice President of the United States following the 1881 assassination ofPresident Garfield. He did not seek re-election in 1882, choosing to retire from public life at the end of his term in 1883. He is the only Senate president pro tempore to not be affiliated with any political party.
David Davis was born to a wealthy family inCecil County, Maryland, where he attended public school. After graduating fromKenyon College inGambier, Ohio, in 1832, he went on tostudy law inMassachusetts[1] and atYale University.
Upon his graduation from Yale in 1835, Davis moved toBloomington, Illinois, to practice law. Davis served as a member of theIllinois House of Representatives in 1845 and a delegate to theIllinois constitutional convention inMcLean County, 1847. From 1848 to 1862, Davis presided over the court of the Illinois EighthCircuit, the same circuit where his friend, attorneyAbraham Lincoln, was practicing.[2]
Davis was a delegate to the1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago, serving as Lincoln'scampaign manager during the1860 presidential election and, along withWard Hill Lamon andLeonard Swett, engineering Lincoln's nomination at the Convention. After President Lincoln's assassination, Judge Davis was an administrator of his estate.[1]
On October 17, 1862, Davis received arecess appointment from President Lincoln as anassociate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,[3] to succeedJohn Archibald Campbell, a Southerner, who had resigned on April 30, 1861, after the outbreak of theCivil War.[4] Formallynominated on December 1, 1862, Davis was confirmed by theUnited States Senate on December 8, 1862,[3] and took thejudicial oath of office on December 10, 1862.[5]
On the Court, Davis became famous for writing one of the most profound decisions in Supreme Court history,Ex parte Milligan (1866). In that decision, the court set aside the death sentence imposed during the Civil War by a military commission upon a civilian,Lambdin P. Milligan. Milligan had been found guilty of incitinginsurrection. The Supreme Court held that since the civil courts were operative, the trial of a civilian by a military tribunal was unconstitutional. The opinion denounced arbitrary military power, effectively becoming one of the bulwarks of held notions of American civil liberty.
InHepburn v. Griswold (1870), he dissented from the Supreme Court's decision that Congress lacked the power under the Constitution to make paper currencylegal tender for debts contracted before the Legal Tender Act of 1862.[1]
Davis is the only justice of the Supreme Court with no recorded affiliation to any religious organization.[6][when?]
After refusing calls to becomeChief Justice, Davis, a registered independent, was nominated for president by the Labor Reform Convention in February 1872 on a platform that declared, among other things, in favor of a national currency "based on the faith and resources of the nation", and interchangeable with 3.65% bonds of the government, and demanded the establishment of an eight-hour law throughout the country, and the payment of the national debt "without mortgaging the property of the people to enrich capitalists." In answer to the letter informing him of the nomination, Judge Davis said: "Be pleased to thank the convention for the unexpected honor which they have conferred upon me. The chief magistracy of the republic should neither be sought nor declined by any American citizen."[1]
He withdrew from the presidential contest when he failed to receive theLiberal Republican Party nomination, which went to editorHorace Greeley. Greeley died after the popular election and before the return of the electoral vote. One of Greeley's electoral votes went to Davis.
In 1877, Davis narrowly avoided the opportunity to be the only person ever to single-handedly select the President of the United States. In the disputedPresidential election of 1876 between the RepublicanRutherford Hayes and the DemocratSamuel Tilden, Congress created a specialElectoral Commission to decide to whom to award a total of 20electoral votes which were disputed from the states of Florida,Louisiana,South Carolina andOregon. The Commission was to be composed of 15 members: five drawn from theU.S. House of Representatives, five from the U.S. Senate, and five from the U.S. Supreme Court. The majority party in each legislative chamber would get three seats on the Commission, and the minority party would get two. Both parties agreed to this arrangement because it was understood that the Commission would have seven Republicans, seven Democrats, and Davis, who was arguably the most trusted independent in the nation.
According to one historian, "No one, perhaps not even Davis himself, knew which presidential candidate he preferred."[7] Just as the Electoral Commission Bill was passing Congress, thelegislature of Illinois elected Davis to the Senate. Democrats in the Illinois Legislature believed that they had purchased Davis's support by voting for him. However, they had made a miscalculation; instead of staying on the Supreme Court so that he could serve on the Commission, he promptly resigned as a Justice, in order to take his Senate seat. Because of this, Davis was unable to assume the spot, always intended for him, as one of the Supreme Court's members of the Commission. His replacement on the Commission was RepublicanJoseph Philo Bradley, resulting in an 8–7 majority for that party – which in turn awarded each of the 20 disputed electoral votes, and the Presidency, to Hayes by that outcome, 185 electoral votes to 184.
Davis served only a single term asU.S. Senator from Illinois (1877–1883), yet still played a meaningful role in U.S. history.
Upon the assassination of PresidentJames A. Garfield in 1881, Vice PresidentChester Arthur succeeded to the office of president. Per the terms of thePresidential Succession Act of 1792, which was still in effect, any subsequent vacancy of the office during the remaining 3½ years in Garfield's term would be filled by thePresident pro tempore of the Senate. As the Senate was evenly divided between the parties, this posed the risk of deadlock. To prevent this the independent Senator Davis was elected to preside over the Senate.[8] At the end of his term Davis did not seek re-election, instead retiring to his home in Bloomington.[1]
Davis marriedSarah Woodruff Walker ofLenox, Massachusetts, in 1838. Of seven, only two of their children, George and Sallie, survived to adulthood.[9]
On December 15, 1878, Davis slipped on a banana peel in Washington D.C., marking the 3rd recorded instance of such an event in American history.[10]
Upon his death in 1886, he was interred atEvergreen Cemetery inBloomington, Illinois. His grave can be found in section G, lot 886.[11]
His home in that city, theDavid Davis Mansion, is a state historic site. At his death, he was the largest landowner in Illinois.[12]
His great-grandson wasDavid Davis IV (1906–1978), a lawyer and Illinois state senator.[13]
He was a first cousin ofDavid Davis Walker, a second cousin once removed ofGeorge Herbert Walker, a first cousin three times removed of 41stPresident of the United StatesGeorge H. W. Bush and a first cousin four times removed ofGeorge W. Bush, the 43rd President.
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| Preceded by | Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1862–1877 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. senator (Class 2) from Illinois 1877–1883 Served alongside:Richard Oglesby,John Logan | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | President pro tempore of the United States Senate 1881–1883 | Succeeded by |
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