Davis, John William (b. Clarksburg, W. Va., 13 Apr. 1873; d. Charleston, S.C., 24 Mar. 1955), lawyer and solicitor general, 1913–1918. Member of Congress from 1910 to 1913, ambassador to the Court of St. James's from 1918 to 1921, and Democratic candidate for president in 1924, Davis was preeminently an appellate lawyer. During his five years (1913–1918) as
solicitor general of the United States during the Wilson administration and three decades as the head of the Wall Street law firm of Davis, Polk, Wardwell, Sunderland & Kiendl, he argued more cases in the Supreme Court than any attorney to that time. Davis's conception of the law was wholly traditional. He believed devoutly in stare decisis (see
Precedent), states' rights (see
State Sovereignty and States' Rights), and strict constructionism, and he regarded
property rights and human liberty as inseparable. He became a founding member of the anti–New Deal Liberty League in 1934, and he attacked the
New Deal in half a dozen arguments before the Supreme Court. In 1952, as counsel for the steel industry in
Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co.
v. Sawyer, Davis successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Truman administration's seizure of the industry. In the epic
Brown v. Board of Education (1954), he unsuccessfully defended school segregation. “Somewhere, sometime,” he declared in oral argument, “to every principle [e.g., segregation] comes a moment of repose.”
A man of gentle wit and superior learning, Davis was esteemed by the bar; his grace and quiet elegance charmed almost everyone he touched.
Bibliography
William H. Harbaugh , Lawyer's Lawyer: The Life of John W. Davis (1973).
William H. Harbaugh
