David Davis (1815 - 1886)

Born 9 Mar 1815 in Cecil, Maryland, United States

Ancestors

Died 26 Jun 1886 at age 71 in Bloomington, McLean, Illinois, United States

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Preceded by Thomas F. Bayard Preceded by Associate Justice John Archibald Campbell Preceded by John A. Logan

David Davis President pro tempore of the US Senate 1881—1883 Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court 1862—1877 US Senator (Class 2) from Illinois 1871—1877

Succeeded by George F. Edmunds Succeeded by Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan Succeeded by Shelby Moore Cullom

Biography

David Davis is Notable.

He was born to a wealthy family in Cecil County, Maryland, the son of David Davis and Ann Mercer.

He married Sarah Woodruff Walker of Lenox, Massachusetts, on October 14, 1838.^[1]

Two of their children, George and Sallie, survived to adulthood. His great-grandson was David Davis IV (1906–1978), lawyer and Illinois state senator.

He was was a United States Senator from Illinois and associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. He also served as Abraham Lincoln's campaign manager at the 1860 Republican National Convention, engineering Lincoln's nomination alongside Ward Hill Lamon and Leonard Swett.

Educated at Kenyon College and Yale University, Davis settled in Bloomington, 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. After Lincoln won the presidency, he appointed Davis to the United States Supreme Court, where he served until 1877. He wrote the majority opinion in Ex parte Milligan, limiting the government's power to try citizens in military courts. He pursued the Liberal Republican Party's nomination in the 1872 presidential election, but was defeated at the convention by Horace Greeley.

Davis was a pivotal figure in Congress's establishment of the Electoral Commission, which was charged with resolving the disputed 1876 presidential election. Davis was widely expected to serve as the key member of the Commission, but he resigned from the Supreme Court to accept election to the Senate and thus did not serve on the commission. Known for his independence, he served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate from 1881 to 1883, placing him first in the line of presidential succession due to a vacancy in the office of the Vice President of the United States. He did not seek re-election in 1882 and retired from public life in 1883. .

Upon his death in 1886, he was interred at Evergreen Cemetery in Bloomington, Illinois.

Sources

1. ↑ "Massachusetts Marriages, 1695-1910, 1921-1924", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCS5-T4R : 29 July 2021), Sarah W Walker in entry for David Davis, 1838.

See Also:

• 1850 Census
• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3555/david-davis: accessed 30 September 2022), memorial page for David Davis (9 Mar 1815–26 Jun 1886), Find a Grave Memorial ID 3555, citing Evergreen Memorial Cemetery, Bloomington, McLean County, Illinois, USA; Maintained by Find a Grave .
• David Davis on Wikipedia
• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress