David Davis (justice)

“The United States has no right to expect that it will always have wise and humane rulers, sincerely attached to the principles of the Constitution. Instead, wicked men, ambitious of power, with hatred of liberty and contempt of law, may fill the place once occupied by Washington and Lincoln.”

David Davis (March 9, 1815 – June 26, 1886) was a United States 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.

Quotations

• “The United States has no right to expect that it will always have wise and humane rulers, sincerely attached to the principles of the Constitution. Instead, wicked men, ambitious of power, with hatred of liberty and contempt of law, may fill the place once occupied by Washington and Lincoln.”
  • 1866-04-03, opinion in Ex parte Milligan
• “The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances.”
  • 1866-04-03, opinion in Ex parte Milligan
    • Quoted on 1920-01-05, in a dissent to Ruppert v. Caffey by James Clark McReynolds, who notes that the passage “[h]as been regarded as a splendid exemplification of the protection which this court must extend in time of war to rights guaranteed by the Constitution…”
    • Quoted on 1986-09-16, in Proclamation 5367, by Ronald Reagan as “How grateful to God all Americans should be that our Constitution remains as Judge David Davis observed more than a century ago: ‘A law for rulers and people, equally in war and peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances.’”