David J. Brewer

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.

Brewer was nominated by President Benjamin Harrison as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court on December 4, 1889, to succeed Stanley Matthews.[5] In addition to Brewer, President Harrison had also considered Henry Billings Brown for the appointment; when associate justice Samuel Freeman Miller died the following year, Brown was nominated for that seat.[6] Brewer was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a 53–11 vote on December 18, 1889.[7] He was sworn into office on January 6, 1890.[8] He joined a court that included Stephen J. Field, his uncle.

Brewer served on the court for 20 years, until his death in 1910, University of Texas professor and Supreme Court historian Lucas Power 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."[9][10][11]

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,[1] established by Congress to arbitrate in the Venezuela Crisis of 1895.

In April 1896, 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 7-1 decision.[12][13] 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."[14]

In 1904, he served as president of the Universal Congress of Lawyers and Jurists held in conjunction with that year's Louisiana Purchase Exposition.[1] 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.[15]

Brewer was the author of the unanimous opinion of the Court in Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892), which addressed a dispute over an employment contract between an Anglican priest and the titular church.

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.