David Josiah Brewer

David Josiah Brewer
51st Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
In office December 18, 1889[1] – March 27, 1910[2]
Nominated by	Benjamin Harrison
Preceded by	Thomas Stanley Matthews
Succeeded by	Charles Evans Hughes
Personal details
Born	June 20, 1837(1837-06-20) Izmir, Turkey
Died	March 27, 1910(1910-03-27) (aged 72) Washington, D.C.
Relations	Stephen Johnson Field (uncle)

David Josiah Brewer (June 20, 1837 – March 28, 1910) was an American jurist and an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for 20 years.

Biography

Early life

Brewer was born to Emilia Field Brewer and Rev. Josiah Brewer, who at the time of his birth were running a school for Greeks in Izmir, Turkey; Mrs. Brewer's brother Stephen Johnson Field, a future Supreme Court colleague of Brewer's, was living with the couple at the time.^[2] His parents returned to the United States in 1838 and settled in Connecticut. Brewer attended college at Wesleyan University (1851–1854) and Yale University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the latter in 1856.^[3][4][5][6] While at Yale, Brewer was a classmate of Henry Billings Brown and was "greatly influenced by the political scientist-protestant minister Theodore Dwight Woolsey."^[2] After graduation, Brewer read law for one year in the office of his uncle David Dudley Field,^[2] then enrolled at Albany Law School in Albany, New York, graduating in 1858.

Career

Upon graduating from law school, Brewer moved to Kansas City, Missouri and after attempting to start a law practice, left for Colorado in search of gold, returning empty-handed in 1859 to nearby Leavenworth, Kansas.^[2] He was named Commissioner of the Federal Circuit Court in Leavenworth in 1861. He left that court to become a judge to the Probate and Criminal Courts in Leavenworth in 1862, and then changed courts again to become a judge to the First Judicial District of Kansas in 1865. He left that position in 1869 and became city attorney of Leavenworth. He was then elected to the Kansas Supreme Court in 1870, where he served for 14 years.^[2]

On March 25, 1884, Brewer was nominated by President Chester A. Arthur to the United States circuit court for the Eighth Circuit, to a seat vacated by George Washington McCrary. This court later became the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Brewer was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 31, and received commission the same day.

After 28 years on the bench, Brewer was nominated by Benjamin Harrison to the United States Supreme Court on December 4, 1889, to a seat vacated by Stanley Matthews.^[2] Brewer was confirmed by the Senate on December 18, and received commission the same day, joining a court that included S. J. Field, his uncle. He served on the court for 20 years, until his death in 1910. In this regard, University of Texas professor and Supreme Court historian Lucas Powe has noted: "Brewer was one of the most influential justices [on] the court at the time. He was a vigorous defender of minority rights. In one case, he argued for stronger labor protections for women, while in other opinions he argued passionately for the rights of marginalized Chinese and Japanese immigrants."^{[7][8][9][10]}

Brewer was an active member of the Supreme Court, writing often in both concurring and dissenting opinions. He was a major contributor to the doctrine of substantive due process, arguing that certain activities are entirely outside government control.^{[citation needed]} In his time he frequently sided with the Court's majorities that struck down property rights restrictions.

Brewer was the author of the unanimous opinion of the Court in Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (143 U.S. 457, 36 L.Ed. 226, 12 S. Ct. 511 February 29, 1892), which addressed a dispute over an employment contract between an Anglican priest and the titular church. Justice Brewer's statement in that opinion, These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation" is often incorrectly cited as part of the controlling ruling in the matter, which is not the case. Indeed, Justice Brewer's book, The United States: A Christian Nation, published in 1905,contained the following passage:

  But in what sense can [the United States] be called a Christian nation? Not in the sense that  Christianity is the established religion or the people are compelled in any manner to support it. On the contrary, the Constitution specifically provides that 'congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' Neither is it Christian in the sense that all its citizens are either in fact or in name Christians. On the contrary, all religions have free scope within its borders. Numbers of our people profess other religions, and many reject all. [...] Nor is it Christian in the sense that a profession of Christianity is a condition of holding office or otherwise engaging in public service, or essential to recognition either politically or socially. In fact, the government as a legal organization is independent of all religions.

Justice Brewer's decision was thus not a binding legal pronouncement reflecting an official acceptance of Christianity, nor that its laws or policies should reflect solely Christian concerns and beliefs.

Brewer temporarily took a leave from his Supreme Court duties to serve as president of the U.S. Commission on the Boundary Between Venezuela and British Guiana,^[2] established by Congress to arbitrate in the Venezuela Crisis of 1895.

Brewer was the author of the unanimous opinion of the Court in Muller v. Oregon (1908) in support of a law restricting working hours for women. He was also the author of In re Debs, upholding federal injunctions to suppress labor strikes. Along with Justice Harlan, Brewer dissented in Giles v. Harris (1903), a case challenging grandfather clauses as applied to voting rolls. Due to the unexpected death of his daughter, Brewer left for his Leavenworth home on the day that Plessy v. Ferguson was argued before the Court, and did not participate in that decision.^[11][12] However, "[a]s a judge in Reconstruction era Kansas, he had authored one of the first judicial opinions upholding the right of an African-American citizen to vote in a general election, and as the superintendent of schools in Leavenworth, he had helped establish the first schools for blacks in the state."^[13]

In 1904, he served as president of the Universal Congress of Lawyers and Jurists held in conjunction with that year's Louisiana Purchase Exposition.^[2] In 1906, Brewer was one of the 30 founding members of the Simplified Spelling Board, founded by Andrew Carnegie to make English easier to learn and understand through changes in the English language.^[14]

Bibliography

• Brewer, David J. (1897). The Pew for the Pulpit. New York City: Fleming H. Revell. http://books.google.com/books?id=xUsNAAAAYAAJ. Retrieved 2010-10-16. 
• Brewer, David J. (1905). American Citizenship. New York City: Charles Scribner's Sons. http://books.google.com/books?id=W-YvAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 2010-10-16. 
• Brewer, David J. (1905). The United States: A Christian Nation. Philadelphia: John C. Winston. http://books.google.com/books?id=f7pMJk_cmAAC. Retrieved 2010-10-16. 
• Brewer, David J. (1910). The Mission of the United States in the Cause of Peace. Boston: International School of Peace. http://books.google.com/books?id=2rca4_3DNkEC. Retrieved 2010-10-16. 

References

General:

• Data drawn in part from the Supreme Court Historical Society and the Oyez Project.
• David Josiah Brewer at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

Specific:

1. ^ "Federal Judicial Center: David Josiah Brewer". 2009-12-11. http://www.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=251. Retrieved 2009-12-11. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Hylton, J. Gordon (April 4, 2008). "Why David Josiah Brewer Is a Neglected Justice". 2008 Judicial Reputation Conference. Vanderbilt University Law School. 
3. ^ "Supreme Court Justices Who Are Phi Beta Kappa Members". Phi Beta Kappa. http://www.pbk.org/userfiles/file/Famous%20Members/PBKSupremeCourtJustices.pdf. Retrieved 2009-10-04. 
4. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=IZcNAQAAMAAJ&pg=PP9&lpg=PP9&dq=%22wesleyan+university%22+and+%22David+Josiah+Brewer%22&source=bl&ots=JpALxOv6Dn&sig=F2yLXJ_Vz1FhHNgaLtsYq6oxFjA&hl=en&ei=gBttTvKnF_LH0AGB06SIBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=%22wesleyan%20university%22%20and%20%22David%20Josiah%20Brewer%22&f=false
5. ^ http://www.robinsonlibrary.com/law/unitedstates/supreme/justices/brewer.htm
6. ^ http://www.nndb.com/people/888/000180348/
7. ^ http://www.aolnews.com/2010/04/28/immigrants-set-illustrious-precedent-on-high-court/
8. ^ http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:NpcfLyTTlaUJ:law.vanderbilt.edu/academics/scholarly-events/symposia--conferences/judicial-reputation-conference/judicial-conference-schedule/download.aspx%3Fid%3D2552+%22Plessy%22+and+%22David+Josiah+Brewer%22&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjXnOBiJQY9npSaLFBoT7ZyH3EbazvYnXEjdllQj0XaZo0SIbnQ5z9JpnAr2zqvb8-goMofmmc4t6FmmxQf4XarcCXj3wZXYSLA9dlaA6VY15qAchpo98Ep2-UZhEyccfvo550t&sig=AHIEtbQGT0AXXpO-27TcmrSiNi_yFeq_iQ
9. ^ http://libinfo.uark.edu/aas/issues/1964v18/v18a15.pdf
10. ^ http://law.jrank.org/pages/4860/Brewer-David-Josiah.html
11. ^ Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) (full text in one web page)
12. ^ Hylton, J. Gordon (Fall 1991). "The Judge Who Abstained in Plessy: Justice David Josiah Brewer and the Problem of Race". Mississippi Law Journal (Mississippi Bar Association) 61: 315. 
13. ^ https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=61+Miss.+L.J.+315&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=0db5a0bdc3347986f90fcd3d56e591d7
14. ^ "Carnegie Assaults the Spelling Bee". The New York Times. March 12, 1906. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F02E5D6103EE733A25751C1A9659C946797D6CF&scp=1. Retrieved 2009-08-28. 

Legal offices
Preceded by Thomas Stanley Matthews	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States December 18, 1889 – March 28, 1910	Succeeded by Charles Evans Hughes

Persondata
Name	Brewer, David Josiah
Alternative names
Short description	United States federal judge
Date of birth	June 20, 1837
Place of birth	Smyrna, Asia Minor
Date of death	March 28, 1910
Place of death	Washington, D.C.