David Davis (Supreme Court justice)

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David Davis (March 9, 1815 – June 26, 1886) was an American politician and jurist who was a U.S. 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 successful nomination for president by that party. Of wealthy Maryland birth, Davis was educated at Kenyon College and Yale University, before settling 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. 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 in Ex 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...

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