David Davis (politician, 1815)

David Davis

David Davis (born March 9, 1815 in Cecilton , Cecil County , Maryland , † June 26, 1886 in Bloomington , Illinois ) was an American lawyer and politician . He was a Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1862 to 1877 and later a non-party member of the United States Senate from 1877 to 1883 .

Life

Davis first attended public schools in Maryland and graduated from Kenyon College in Ohio in 1832 . This was followed by law studies in Lenox ( Massachusetts ) and finally in Yale .

In 1835 he settled as a lawyer in Pekin, Illinois , but moved to Bloomington in 1836. Davis was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1844 and served on the State Constituent Assembly in 1847. From 1848 to 1862 he served as a judge in Illinois. He organized Abraham Lincoln's presidential campaign . In 1862, Lincoln called him to the Supreme Court. He resigned from the court in 1877 in favor of his further political career as a senator.

Already for the presidential election in 1872 he had run for the presidency within the Liberal Republican Party , but could not prevail within the party against Horace Greeley , who became a presidential candidate. In 1877 he was elected as an independent candidate to the US Senate. He served as senator from March 4, 1877 to March 3, 1883 and was temporarily President of the Senate pro tempore . In 1882 he did not stand for re-election and withdrew from the public after serving as a senator.

Davis died in June 1886. His cousin Henry Winter Davis was also politically active and sat for Maryland in the United States House of Representatives . Davis' home in Bloomington was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the David Davis Mansion in 1972 and has been a National Historic Landmark since 1975 .

Web links

• David Davis in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)