Davis, David, 1815–86, American jurist, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1862–77), b. Cecil co., Md., grad. Kenyon College, 1832; cousin of Henry Winter Davis. In 1836 he settled as a lawyer in Bloomington, Ill., his home thereafter. From 1848 to 1862 Davis presided over the eighth judicial circuit in Illinois, famous because Abraham Lincoln practiced in its courts. An intimate of Lincoln (the tall, spare Lincoln and the corpulent Davis often bunked together in traveling the circuit), he successfully managed his friend's campaign to secure the Republican nomination for the presidency at Chicago in 1860. Davis and Leonard Swett, another lawyer from the eighth circuit active in Lincoln's cause, gave several political assurances without Lincoln's knowledge (notably one to Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania), which Lincoln reluctantly honored. Lincoln appointed (1862) Davis to the U.S. Supreme Court. Not especially learned in the law, he nevertheless wrote one of the most important opinions in the history of the court in Ex parte Milligan (1866). The decision, denouncing arbitrary military power, became famous as one of the bulwarks of civil liberty in the United States. Davis, who did not allow his judicial position to interfere with his political ambitions, was nominated for President by the Labor Reform Convention at Columbus, Ohio, in 1872, but withdrew when he failed to win the nomination of the Liberal Republican party Liberal Republican party, in U.S. history, organization formed in 1872 by Republicans discontented at the political corruption and the policies of President Grant's first administration. Other disaffected elements were drawn into the party.
..... Click the link for more information. as well. In 1877 he resigned from the court to serve (1877–83) as U.S. Senator from Illinois.

Bibliography

See biography by W. L. King (1960).

Davis, David

(born March 9, 1815, Cecil county, Md., U.S.—died June 26, 1886, Bloomington, Ill.) U.S. jurist. He earned a law degree from Yale in 1835 and established a law practice in Bloomington the following year. He was elected to the Illinois legislature in 1844. As a state circuit-court judge (1848–62) he became a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, and he worked assiduously for Lincoln's election as president in 1860. In 1862 Lincoln appointed him to the Supreme Court of the United States (1862–77). He resigned his seat on the court to accept election to the U.S. Senate (1877–83).

Davis, David (1815–86) Supreme Court justice; born in Cecil County, Md. A close friend to Abraham Lincoln, he served as a circuit court judge in Illinois (1848–62) until President Lincoln named him to the U.S. Supreme Court (1862–77). A presidential hopeful in 1872, he stepped down from the court to serve the U.S. Senate (Dem., Ill.; 1876–83).