Bancroft Davis
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| John Chandler Bancroft Davis | |
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| In office March 25, 1869 – November 13, 1871 January 24, 1873 – January 30, 1874 December 19, 1881 – July 7, 1882 |
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| Preceded by | Frederick W. Seward Charles Hale Robert R. Hitt |
| Succeeded by | Charles Hale John Cadwalader John Davis |
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| In office 1883 – 1902 |
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| Preceded by | William Tod Otto |
| Succeeded by | Charles Henry Butler |
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| Born | December 22, 1822 Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | December 27, 1907 (aged 85) Washington, DC, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Profession | Lawyer, Politician, Author |
John Chandler Bancroft Davis, commonly known as Bancroft Davis (December 22, 1822–December 27, 1907) was an American lawyer, judge and diplomat. He was also the ninth reporter of decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, serving from 1883 to 1902.
Davis was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of John Davis, a Whig governor of Massachusetts, and was the older brother of congressman Horace Davis. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1847. In 1849, Davis became secretary of the American embassy in London and later its chargé d'affaires. He practiced law in New York City and was the correspondent for The Times in London. Because of ill health, he retired from the law in 1862, but in 1868 he was elected to the New York State Assembly.
Under President Ulysses S. Grant, he was Assistant Secretary of State in 1869-71 and again in 1873-74. Between times he was a secretary of the commission which concluded the Treaty of Washington in 1871, to create a tribunal to settle the Alabama claims. He subsequently represented the United States at the tribunal, the Geneva Court of Arbitration, which met at Geneva December 15, 1871. The American case was prepared and presented by him.
In 1874, he was appointed as the U.S. Minister to Germany, serving in that position until 1877. President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him to be an associate judge on the United States Court of Claims on December 14, 1877. For another special assignment at the State Department, he resigned from the court in 1881 at the request of President Chester A. Arthur, who reappointed him to the court in 1882. He resigned again in 1883 to become Reporter of Decisions for the Supreme Court.
In 1886, a Supreme Court decision (Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company) led to a corporation becoming a "person" with protection under both the first and fourteenth amendments. Chief Justice Morrison Waite wrote at the time, “We avoided meeting the Constitutional question in the decision.” Bancroft Davis reporting stands as: “The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a state to deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Prior to 1886, the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment defined human rights, and individuals - representing themselves and their own opinions - were free to say and do what they wanted. Corporations, being artificial creations of the states, didn't have rights, but instead had privileges. The state in which a corporation was incorporated determined those privileges and how they could be used. And the same, of course, was true for other forms of "legally enacted game playing" such as unions, churches, unincorporated businesses, partnerships, and even governments, all of which have only privileges.
But with the stroke of his pen, Court Reporter Davis moved corporations out of that "privileges" category - leaving behind all the others (unions, governments, and small unincorporated businesses still don't have "rights") - and moved them into the "rights" category with humans, citing the 14th Amendment which was passed at the end of the Civil War to grant the human right of equal protection under the law to newly-freed slaves.
On December 3, 1888, President Grover Cleveland delivered his annual address to Congress. Apparently the President had taken notice of the Santa Clara County Supreme Court headnote, its politics, and its consequences, for he said in his speech to the nation, delivered before a joint session of Congress: "As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters."
Bancroft Davis died in Washington, DC.
[edit] Works
- The Massachusetts Justice (1847)
- The Case of the United States Laid before the Tribunal of Arbitration at Geneva (1871)
- Treaties of the United States, with Notes (new edition, 1873)
[edit] References
- The United States Court of Claims : a history / pt. 1. The judges, 1855-1976 / by Marion T. Bennett / pt. 2. Origin, development, jurisdiction, 1855-1978 / W. Cowen, P. Nichols, M.T. Bennett. Washington, D.C. : Committee on the Bicentennial of Independence and the Constitution of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 1976 i.e. 1977-1978. 2 vols.
| Preceded by Frederick W. Seward |
United States Assistant Secretary of State 1869 – 1871 |
Succeeded by Charles Hale |
| Preceded by Charles Hale |
United States Assistant Secretary of State 1873 – 1874 |
Succeeded by John Cadwalader |
| Preceded by George Bancroft |
United States Ambassador to Germany 1874 – 1877 |
Succeeded by Bayard Taylor |
| Preceded by Robert R. Hitt |
United States Assistant Secretary of State 1881 – 1882 |
Succeeded by John Davis |
| Preceded by William Tod Otto |
United States Supreme Court Reporter of Decisions 1883 – 1902 |
Succeeded by Charles Henry Butler |
