David Davis, Abraham Lincoln's Favorite Judge
About the Book
One of Abraham Lincoln’s staunchest and most effective allies, Judge David Davis masterminded the floor fight that gave Lincoln the presidential nomination at the 1860 Republican National Convention. This history-changing event emerged from a long friendship between the two men. It also altered the course of Davis’s career, as Lincoln named him to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1862.Raymond J. McKoski offers a biography of Davis’s public life, his impact on the presidency and judiciary, and his personal, professional, and political relationships with Lincoln. Davis lent his vast network of connections, organizational and leadership abilities, and personal persuasiveness to help Lincoln’s political rise. When Davis became a judge, he honed an ability to hear each case with complete impartiality, a practice that endeared him to Lincoln but one day put him at odds with the president over important Civil War–era rulings. McKoski details these cases while providing an in-depth account of Davis’s role in Lincoln’s two unsuccessful campaigns for U.S. Senate and the fateful run for the presidency.
About the Author
Raymond J. McKoski is a retired Illinois Circuit Judge and adjunct professor at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. He is the author of Judges in Street Clothes: Acting Ethically Off-the-Bench.Reviews
Blurbs
“Drawing on his more than two decades of experience as a trial judge, historical researcher, and expert on judicial ethics, Raymond J. McKoski restores David Davis’s place in state and federal judicial history as a model of impartiality on the bench. In an era when Americans have become increasingly skeptical about partisanship and the courts, Judge Davis serves as a model of judicial decision making.”--Jonathan W. White, author of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize-winning A House Built by Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House
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