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Senator David Davis of Illinois had been a key figure in national politics for
twenty years. In 1860, he served as Abraham Lincoln's campaign manager, then was
appointed by President Lincoln to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1862. His high court
tenure is best remembered for his authorship of the majority opinion in Ex Parte
Milligan (1866), which ruled that the military trial and conviction of a
civilian outside of the theater of war, where the civil courts were functioning,
violated the Constitution. Like his judicial colleague, Chief Justice Salmon
Chase, Davis yearned to be president himself. In 1872, Davis was a leading
contender for the nomination of the Liberal Republican party, but lost to New
York Tribune editor Horace Greeley. |
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1860
