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Cushman Kellogg Davis

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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CUSHMAN KELLOGG DAVIS (1838-1900), American political leader and lawyer, was born in Henderson, New York, on the 16th of June 1838. He was taken by his parents to Wisconsin Territory in the year of his birth, and was educated at Carroll College, Waukesha, Wisconsin, and at the university of Michigan, from which he graduated in 1857. After studying law in the office of Alexander W. Randall, he was admitted to the bar in 1860. During the Civil War, as a first lieutenant of Federal volunteers, he served in the western campaigns of 1862 and 1863, and in 1864 was an aide to General Willis A. Gorman (1814-1876). Resigning his commission (1864) on account of ill-health, he soon settled in St Paul, Minnesota, where he practised law in partnership with General Gorman, and soon became prominent both at the bar and, as a Republican, in politics. He served in the state legislature in 1866-1868, and from 1868 to 1873 was United States district attorney for Minnesota. In 1874-1876 he was governor of the state, and from 1887 until his death was a member of the United States Senate. In the Senate he was one of the acknowledged leaders of his party, an able and frequent speaker and a committee worker of great industry. In March 1897 he became chairman of the committee on foreign relations at a time when its work was peculiarly influential in shaping American foreign policy. His extensive knowledge of international law, and his tact and diplomacy, enabled him to render services of the utmost importance in connexion with the Spanish-American War, and he was one of the peace commissioners who negotiated and signed the treaty of Paris by which the war was terminated. He died at St Paul on the 27th of November 1900. Few public men in the United States since the Civil War have combined skill in diplomacy, constructive statesmanship, talent for political organization, oratorical ability and broad culture to such a degree as Senator Davis. In addition to various speeches and public addresses, he published an essay entitled The Law of Shakespeare (1899).