McKoski on David Davis, Abraham Lincoln's Favorite Judge

Ray McKoski, University of Illinois, Chicago, School of Law, has published David Davis, Abraham Lincoln's Favorite Judge (University of Illinois Press, 2025) Book sections - Introduction and Biographical Sketch of David Davis. Here is the abstract.

David Davis, Abraham Lincoln’s Favorite Judge explores two aspects of Judge David Davis’s interesting and important life. First, the book traces Davis’s unmatched contribution to the political rise of Abraham Lincoln. Davis’s unbreakable loyalty to Lincoln forged while they traveled the central Illinois court circuit, their shared Whig origins, Davis’s voluminous political and personal contacts, his organizational skills, and as Lincoln put it, Davis’s knack “of making a man do a thing whether he wants to or not,” all combined to make the judge Lincoln’s strongest and most effective political supporter. In evaluating Davis’s role in Lincoln’s assent to the presidency, the book engages in a long overdue examination of the professional and personal relationship between the two friends. Second, the book details Davis’s vital contribution to the fabric of the legal system—impartiality on the bench. Off the bench Davis left no stone unturned in advancing the political career of Lincoln and made no secret of his personally held “fixed opinions” on subjects such as Democrats, temperance, and abolitionists. In court, however, Judge Davis set aside his beliefs and relationships and rendered decisions free from personal, political, and social views; friendships; public pressure; and partisan loyalties. Even Davis’s sharpest critics on the political front acknowledged his judicial impartiality and honesty. And Davis’s independence was on full display after Lincoln appointed Davis to the U.S. Supreme Court. To the disdain of Republicans, in Ex parte Milligan Davis disallowed the use of military commissions created by President Lincoln to try civilians in non-seceding states in which the courts were open. Then in Railroad Company v. Catharine Brown, Davis rejected the argument that “separate but equal” passenger cars complied with the railroad’s congressional charter. Davis found that segregated cars were prohibited as a “badge of slavery.” Twenty-three years later in Plessey v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court would ignore Davis’s reasoning and uphold the separate but equal doctrine.

The extracts are not available from SSRN.