Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/176

 DAVIS

DAVIS

in Buchanan's cabinet, as a coinmittee to adjust the war claims against the department of Missouri and to investigate the conduct ot tJeneral Fre- mont in the administi-ation of the affairs of the de- partment. In 1«62 President Lincohi appointed Judge Davis a visitor to the U.S. military acad- emy and the same year to the seat on the bench of the United States supreme court made vacant by the death of Mr. Justice McLean. He became a firm friend of Chief Justice Taney and this friendship was maintained up to the time of the death of the latter. He administered the estate of Abraham Lincoln in 18G5. In 1870 he signed the minority report of the supreme court, giving as his opinion that the act of congress making government notes a legal tender for the payment of debts, was constitutional. At this time the ex parte Mulligan case, one of the most important cases of the period and one exciting wide public interest, was assigned to liim. It involved the question of individual liberty and the power of the government in times of war. The leading thoughts of Mr. Justice Davis's decision are: " The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulei'S and people in war and in peace and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men at all times and under all circumstances. The government within the constitution has all the powers granted to it which are necessary to preserve its existence, as has been happily proved by the result of the great effort to ovei-throw it." In 1872 he accepted the nomination of the Labor Reform party as its candidate for President, and his name was also presented at the Liberal Re- publican national convention at Cincinnati, where he received ninety-two and a half votes on the first ballot. On the nomination of Mr. Greeley, however, he withdrew from the field as the candidate of the Labor Reform party. It was in first accepting the nomination that Justice Davis made use of the oft-quoted expression: "The chief magistracy of the republic should neither be sought nor declined by any American citizen." In 1876 the Independents in the Illinois legislature united with the Democrats and elected Justice Davis to the United States senate. He re.signed his .seat on the bench of the U.S. su- preme court and took liis .seat in the senate, March 4, 1877. He served on the committee of the judiciary and in 1881, on the reorganization of the senate, under the administration of President Garfield, he declined the chairmanship of the judiciary committee. Upon the accession of Vice-President Artluir to the presidency, Senator Davis was elected president of the senate at the convening of the 47th congress, Dec. 5, 1881, and accepted the position with the frank state- ment that " if the least party obligation had been made a condition, directly or indirectly, h^

would liave declined tlio compliment." He resigned from the senate in 1883 and retired to his farm near Bloomiiigton, 111. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Beloit college in 1863; from the Illinois Wesleyan university Jn 1865; from Williams college in 1873; and from St. John's college in 1874. He was married, Oct. 30, 1838, to Sarah W., daughter of Judge William Perrin Walker of Lenox, Mass., and had one son, George Perrin, who was graduated from Wil- liams in 1864 and from the University of Micliigan law school in 1867, practising in Blooniington, III.; and one daughter, Mrs. Sarah D. Swayne. Mrs. Davis died Nov. 9, 1879, and on March 14, 1883, Judge Davis was married to Adeline E. Burr of Fayette ville, N.C. He died in Blooming- ton, 111., June 26, 1886.

DAVIS, Rdmund Jackson, governor of Texas, was born in St. Augustine, Fla., Nov. 21, 1830; son of William Goodwin and Mary Ann (Chan- ner) Davis. He removed to Texas in 1848 where he practised law; was collector of customs, 1850-52; district attorney, 1853-54, and district judge, 1854-60. He joined the Union anny as colonel, 1st Texas cavalry; was jH-omoted brig- adier-general, Nov. 10, 1864; and mustered out, Aug. 24, 1865. He was a member of the first and president of the second reconstruction conven- tions, and Republican governor of Texas, 1870- 74. He died in Austin, Texas, Feb. 8, 1883.

DAVIS, Edwin Hamilton, archajoiogist, was born in Ross county, Ohio, Jan. 22, 1811. His brotlier, Werter Renick, M.D., D.D., was a cele- brated Methodist elder. Edwin attended Kenj'on college and the Cincinnati medical college, where he was graduated M.D. in 1838. He located at Chillicothe in the practice of his profession and in 1850 removed to New York city to take the chair of materia medica and therajjeutics in the New York medical college. He was also con- nected with the editorial management of the American Medical Monthly. He aided Charles Whittlesey in exploring ancient American mounds in 1836. In 1845-47, with the assistance of Epliraim G. Squires, he surveyed about one hun- dred groups of pre-historic mounds and opened, at his own expense, two hundred mounds. His accumulation of relics thus obtained was offered for .sale, but found no purciiaser in America and was transferred to Blackmore's mu.seum, Salis- bury, England. This is by far the largest collec- tion of mound relics ever made in America. His suksequent collection, with duplicates from his first, was subsequently deposited in the American museuna of natural history in New York city. He delivered a course of lectures on arch.T-ology before the Lowell institute. Boston, Mass., in 1854, which he repeated in Brookhn and in New York city. The first volume of the Smithsonian