David Davis

DAVIS, DAVID

David Davis served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1862 to 1877. An Illinois attorney and judge, Davis acted as Abraham Lincoln’s campaign manager in the 1860 election, working tirelessly to win the REPUBLICAN PARTY nomination and the general election for Lincoln.

Davis was born in Sassafras Neck,Maryland, on March 9, 1815. He attended Kenyon College at the age of thirteen. Following graduation he read the law in a Massachusetts law firm, before attending New Haven Law School for less than a year. In 1835 he moved to Illinois and was
admitted to the bar, and opened a law firm in Pekin. In 1836 he purchased a law practice in Bloomington, Illinois, where he remained a resident the rest of his life.

He was soon drawn into politics. After losing
a bid for a seat in the Illinois Senate in 1840, he
was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives
in 1844. He participated in the Illinois
Constitutional Convention, which convened in
1847. A force for judicial reform, Davis was
elected to Illinois’s Eighth Judicial Circuit, where
he served as presiding judge until 1862.
During his years as a practicing attorney and
judge, Davis became a close friend and adviser
to ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Ignoring the traditional
concept of judicial neutrality concerning politics,
Davis acted as Lincoln’s campaign manager
during the 1860 election. His actions have been
credited with securing the Republican party
nomination for Lincoln.

In 1862 Lincoln rewarded his friend with an
appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Davis’s
tenure encompassed both the Civil War and
Reconstruction. He is best remembered for his
1866 majority opinion in EX PARTE MILLIGAN,
71 U.S. 2, 18 L. Ed. 281. In 1864 Lamdin Milligan
was arrested and tried for TREASON by a military
commission established by order of President
Lincoln. He was convicted and sentenced to
death, but the sentence was not carried out.
In his majority opinion, Davis noted that the
civilian courts were open and operating in Indiana
when Milligan was arrested and tried by the
military. In ordering Milligan’s release, Davis
condemned Lincoln’s directive establishing military
jurisdiction over civilians outside of the
immediate war area. He strongly affirmed the
fundamental right of a civilian to be tried in a
regular court of law, with all the required procedural
safeguards.

In 1872 Davis was nominated for president by the National Labor Reform party, but he turned down the opportunity. However, political ambition led him to resign from the Supreme Court in 1877 and run for the Senate, representing Illinois. He was elected as an independent and served one six-year term. From 1881 to 1883, he served as president pro tempore of the Senate.

Davis died June 26, 1886, in Bloomington, Illinois.