David Josiah Brewer

For more information on David Josiah Brewer, visit Britannica.com.

(b. Smyrna, Asia Minor [modern Turkey], 20 Jan. 1837; d. Washington, D.C., 28 Mar. 1910; interred Mt. Muncie Cemetery, Leavenworth, Kans.), associate justice, 1890–1910. Brewer was born of Congregational missionary parents in Asia Minor and then raised in privilege. After attending Wesleyan and Yale Universities and Albany Law School, Brewer moved to Kansas in the late 1850s to begin his professional career. There he served on the Supreme Court of Kansas (1870–1884) and the Eighth Federal Circuit Court (1884–1889). In 1890 President Benjamin Harrison appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court. Brewer was twice married: to Louise R. Landon of Burlington, Vt., in 1861, and after her death, to Emma Miner Mott of Washington, D.C., in 1901.

Today Brewer is largely forgotten, partly because at various points his tenure overlapped with three titans of the law—his uncle, Stephen J. Field, John Marshall Harlan, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Nevertheless, it was Brewer, along with Rufus W. Peckham, who served as the intellectual leader of a bloc of justices—largely appointed by Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, and Benjamin Harrison, a Republican—that dominated the Supreme Court at the turn of the century. That group included Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller, who described Brewer as “one of the most lovable of them all.”

Brewer's overriding purpose was to affirm the idea of limited state interference with the economy. He marveled at the abundance that capitalism had produced and defended inequalities in the distribution of wealth as inevitable and just.

In In re Debs (1895), Brewer wrote a unanimous opinion for the Court upholding an injunction against the Pullman strike of 1894 on the theory that Eugene Debs and his followers were obstructing the free flow of commerce among the states (see Commerce Power). In Reagan v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co. (1894), Brewer set aside a regulation of the Texas Railroad Commission limiting railroad rates because investors were receiving no return. He thereby limited the impact of Munn v. Illinois (1877) and in that respect showed a philosophical link with his uncle Field, who originally dissented in that case and was adamant on the protection of property rights.

Brewer was not, however, altogether blinded by his devotion to capitalism, and he was not opposed to the use of state authority when business power threatened the market. In Northern Securities v. United States (1904), for example, he provided the decisive vote to sustain Theodore Roosevelt's effort to set aside a merger between two corporate barons of the day, James Hill and J. P. Morgan.

Moreover, for a man so committed to the market and the system of liberties it implied, Brewer evidenced an instinctive concern for the disenfranchised. Although he joined Peckham's opinion in Lochner v. New York (1905), which invalidated a statute establishing maximum hours for bakers, he wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court in Muller v. Oregon (1908), upholding a similar statute for women working in laundries. Brewer also passionately protested the treatment of the Chinese, on both substantive and procedural grounds. He dissented from Holmes's opinions in United States v. Sing Tuck (1904) and United States v. Ju Toy (1905), which denied resident Chinese access to the Federal courts to try their claims of citizenship, and from Harlan's opinion in the Japanese Immigrant Case (1903), which undermined a Japanese alien's claim for due process in deportation proceedings. He also dissented in Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893), which involved the use of a pass system for resident Chinese under the Geary Act of 1892. Brewer complained: “In view of this enactment of the highest legislative body of the foremost Christian nation, may not the thoughtful Chinese disciple of Confucius ask, why do they send missionaries here?” Brewer also spoke out against the colonialism that swept the nation in the years immediately following the Spanish American War in 1898. “To introduce government by force over any portion of the nation,” he said, “is to start the second quarter of the second century of our life upon principles which are the exact opposite of those upon which we have hitherto lived.”

Like the records of most justices of his time, Brewer's is mixed on the rights of blacks. In Berea College v. Kentucky (1908), he upheld a state statute prohibiting private schools and colleges from providing instruction on an integrated basis; in Hodges v. United States (1906), he ruled that the Federal government lacked the power to prosecute a gang of whites who forced blacks off a job in Arkansas (see Race and Racism). The Berea decision rested on Brewer's view of the totality of a state's power over corporations, entities, or institutions that it helped create; he thought there would be serious constitutional doubts if the Kentucky statute were applied to individuals. The Hodges decision reflected the allocation of power between the states and the national government effectuated by the Civil Rights Cases of 1883. In a critical decision concerning voting discrimination, Giles v. Harris (1903), Brewer, along with Harlan, dissented from an opinion of Holmes that confessed an inability or unwillingness of the Federal courts to provide relief against the massive program of racial disenfranchisement against African‐Americans then sweeping the South (see Vote, Right to).

Brewer's special gift was his conception of the judge's role, which he both propounded and exemplified. He feared the popular movements of his day, which he saw as a threat to civilization, but unlike Holmes, who harbored similar sentiments, Brewer did not believe that the judge was to sit as a spectator while history unfolded; Brewer believed a judge's duty was to remind the people of their highest ideals, to lead rather than to acquiesce. He recognized that there was nothing a judge could do to stop the inevitable triumph of the masses, but still believed that it was the judge's obligation to try. “It is one thing,” Brewer once said, “to fail of reaching your ideal. It is an entirely different thing to deliberately turn your back on it.”

Bibliography

• Owen M. Fiss, The Fuller Court, in History of the Supreme Court of the United States, vol. 8, Troubled Beginnings of the Modern State, 1888–1910 (1993).
• Arnold M. Paul, Conservative Crisis and the Rule of Law: Attitudes of Bar and Bench, 1887–1895 (1960)

— Owen M. Fiss

• Born: June 20, 1837, Smyrna, Turkey
• Education: Wesleyan University, 1852–53; Yale College, B.A., 1856; Albany Law School, LL.B., 1858
• Previous government service: commissioner, U.S. Circuit Court, Leavenworth, Kans., 1861–62; judge of probate and criminal courts, Leavenworth County, 1863–64; judge, First Judicial District of Kansas, 1865–69; Leavenworth city attorney, 1869–70; justice, Kansas Supreme Court, 1870–84; judge, Eighth Federal Circuit Court, 1884–89
• Other government service: president, Venezuela–British Guiana Border Commission, 1895
• Appointed by President Benjamin Harrison Dec. 4, 1889; replaced Stanley Matthews, who died
• Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate Dec. 18, 1889, by a 53–11 vote; served until Mar. 28, 1910
• Died: Mar. 28, 1910, Washington, D.C.

David Brewer was the son of a Congregational missionary who lived in the Anatolian part of the Turkish Empire. The family returned to the United States while Brewer was an infant, and he was raised in Wethersfield, Connecticut.

After graduating from Albany Law School, Brewer went to Kansas, where he served on several state courts, including the Supreme Court of Kansas. During his nearly 21 years as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Brewer tended to support decisions to limit government regulation of private businesses. He strongly believed in free enterprise, free markets, and private property rights as foundations of a free government. Brewer also spoke and wrote against acquisition of colonies by the United States after the victorious war against Spain in 1898.

David Josiah Brewer was an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1890 to 1910. A defender of personal liberty and property rights, he also supported states' rights and was opposed to centralization of power in the federal government.

Brewer was born June 20, 1837, in Smyrna, Asia Minor (now Turkey). His father, Josiah Brewer, was a Yale graduate who worked in Turkey as a missionary. His mother, Emilia Field, was the sister of Supreme Court justice Stephen J. Field, with whom Brewer eventually served. After returning to the United States from their missionary work, the Brewers settled in Wethersfield, Connecticut. Brewer attended Wesleyan University for two years before transferring to Yale, where he graduated with honors in 1856. He studied law for a year with an uncle and then enrolled in Albany Law School. He received his law degree in 1858 and was admitted to the New York bar the same year.

Brewer decided to stake his future on the frontier West. He settled in Leavenworth, Kansas, and almost immediately began his long judicial career. He was appointed commissioner of the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Kansas in 1861 and was elected judge of the probate and criminal courts of Leavenworth County in 1862. Brewer served as a judge of the first judicial district of Kansas from 1865 to 1869. He briefly left the judiciary in 1869 to become Leavenworth's city attorney, but returned in 1870 when, at the age of thirty-three, he was elected to the Kansas Supreme Court. He sat on the Kansas bench until 1884 when President Chester Arthur named him to the federal circuit court for the eighth circuit. Five years later, President William H. Harrison appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he remained until his death.

As a Supreme Court justice, Brewer was known for his ardent support of individual rights against the tyranny of the majority. "Here there is no monarch threatening trespass upon an individual," he once said. "The danger is from the multitude—the majority with whom lies the power." Brewer had great compassion for the marginalized members of U.S. society. In 1908, he wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court in Muller v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412, 28 S. Ct. 324, 52 L. Ed. 551, upholding a statute that established maximum work hours for women toiling in laundries. Although he had in 1905 voted to invalidate a similar statute that applied to bakers, in Lochner v. New York (198 U.S. 45, 25 S. Ct. 539, 49 L. Ed. 937 [1905]), Brewer was convinced that the particular statute at issue in Muller did not unnecessarily limit an individual's contract liberty.

Brewer also wrote strong dissents in several cases limiting the rights of Chinese and Japanese immigrants (see Fong v. United States, 149 U.S. 698, 13 S. Ct. 1016, 37 L. Ed. 905 [1893]; United States v. Sing Tuck, 194 U.S. 161, 24 S. Ct. 621, 48 L. Ed. 917 [1904]; United States v. Ju Toy, 198 U.S. 253, 25 S. Ct. 644, 49 L. Ed. 1040 [1905]; the Japanese Immigrant case, 189 U.S. 86, 23 S. Ct. 611, 47 L. Ed. 721 [1903]). His dissent in Fong, in which the Court found that the power of Congress to deport aliens was inherent in national sovereignty, included this sarcastic indictment of what he considered Congress's arbitrary denial of plaintiffs' rights: "In view of this enactment of the highest legislative body of the foremost Christian nation, may not the thoughtful Chinese disciple of Confucius ask, Why do they send missionaries here?"

Brewer was, in most cases, a moderate conservative. He spoke out against racial disfranchisement in Giles v. Harris, 189 U.S. 475, 23 S. Ct. 639, 47 L. Ed. 909 (1903). However, reflecting his belief in states' rights, he held that a state had the right to prohibit integration in an institution it had created (Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U.S. 45, 29 S. Ct. 33, 53 L. Ed. 81 [1908]) and that the federal government lacked power to prosecute a case of racially motivated harassment (Hodges v. United States, 203 U.S. 1, 27 S. Ct. 6, 51 L. Ed. 65 [1906]). A lifelong advocate of international peace, Brewer served as president of a congressional commission investigating a border dispute between Venezuela and British Guyana, and later served on the tribunal that ended the controversy. Brewer advocated women's suffrage and restrictions on immigration. He was a vigorous anti-imperialist who believed that the Philippines should be given independence with guaranteed neutrality.

Brewer was an unusually outgoing justice who lectured frequently and wrote several books, including The Pew to the Pulpit, The Twentieth Century from Another Viewpoint, American Citizenship, and The United States: A Christian Nation. He felt strongly that judges have a moral obligation to use their lofty position to lead rather than simply observe. "It is one thing," he once said, "to fail of reaching your ideal. It is an entirely different thing to deliberately turn your back on it."

Brewer died in Washington, D.C., on March 28, 1910.

David Josiah Brewer
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
In office December 18, 1889[1] – March 28, 1910
Nominated by	Benjamin Harrison
Preceded by	Thomas Stanley Matthews
Succeeded by	Charles Evans Hughes
Born	June 20, 1837(1837-06-20) Izmir, Turkey
Died	March 28, 1910 (aged 72) Washington, D.C.

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.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Career 2 References

Biography

Early life

Brewer was born to a family of Congregational missionaries in Izmir, Turkey. His parents, Emilia Ann Hovey Field and Josiah Brewer, returned to the United States in 1838 and settled in Connecticut. Brewer attended college at Wesleyan University (1851-1854) and Yale University, graduating from the latter, Phi Beta Kappa in 1856.^[2] Brewer read law for one year, then enrolled at Albany Law School in Albany, New York, graduating in 1858.

Career

Upon graduating from law school, Brewer moved to Kansas and established a law practice. 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.

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. Brewer was confirmed by the Senate on December 18, and received commission the same day. He served on the court for 20 years, until his death in 1910.

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. In his time he frequently sided with Court majorities striking down property rights restrictions. Brewer was the author of the unanimous opinion of the Court in Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United States (143 U.S. 457, 36 L.Ed. 226, 12 S. Ct. 511 February 29, 1892) where it was declared, "...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." Brewer was also 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, Justice Brewer dissented in Giles v. Harris (1903), a case challenging grandfather clauses as applied to voting rolls.

He was also the nephew of Associate Justice Stephen Johnson Field.

He wrote:

• The Pew for the Pulpit (1897)
• American Citizenship (1902)
• The United States: A Christian Nation (1905)
• The Mission of the United States in the Cause of Peace (1909)

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.^[3]

References

1. ^ "Federal Judicial Center: David Josiah Brewer". 2009-12-11. http://www.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=251. Retrieved 2009-12-11. 
2. ^ Supreme Court Justices Who Are Phi Beta Kappa Members, Phi Beta Kappa website, accessed Oct 4, 2009
3. ^ "Carnegie Assaults the Spelling Bee", The New York Times, March 12, 1906. Accessed August 28, 2008.

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

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

Supreme Court of the United States

The Fuller Court Chief Justice: Melville Weston Fuller (1888–1910) 1890–1891: S.J. Field | J.P. Bradley | J.M. Harlan | H. Gray | S. Blatchford | L.Q.C. Lamar II | D.J. Brewer 1891–1892: S.J. Field | J.P. Bradley | J.M. Harlan | H. Gray | S. Blatchford | L.Q.C. Lamar II | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown 1892–1893: S.J. Field | J.M. Harlan | H. Gray | S. Blatchford | L.Q.C. Lamar II | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown | Geo. Shiras, Jr. 1893: S.J. Field | J.M. Harlan | H. Gray | S. Blatchford | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown | Geo. Shiras, Jr. | H.E. Jackson 1894–1895: S.J. Field | J.M. Harlan | H. Gray | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown | Geo. Shiras, Jr. | H.E. Jackson | E.D. White 1896–1897: S.J. Field | J.M. Harlan | H. Gray | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown | Geo. Shiras, Jr. | E.D. White | R.W. Peckham 1898–1902: J. M. Harlan | H. Gray | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown | Geo. Shiras, Jr. | E.D. White | R.W. Peckham | J. McKenna 1902–1903: J. M. Harlan | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown | Geo. Shiras, Jr. | E.D. White | R.W. Peckham | J. McKenna | O.W. Holmes 1903–1906: J. M. Harlan | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown | E.D. White | R.W. Peckham | J. McKenna | O.W. Holmes | Wm. R. Day 1906–1909: J. M. Harlan | D.J. Brewer | E.D. White | R.W. Peckham | J. McKenna | O.W. Holmes | Wm. R. Day | Wm. H. Moody Jan–Mar 1910: J. M. Harlan | D.J. Brewer | E.D. White | J. McKenna | O.W. Holmes | Wm. R. Day | Wm. H. Moody | H.H. Lurton

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.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)