William McKendree Springer
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William McKendree Springer (May 30, 1836 – December 4, 1903) was a United States Representative from Illinois.
He was born near New Lebanon, Sullivan County, Indiana, May 30, 1836; moved to Jacksonville, Illinois, with his parents in 1848; attended the public schools in New Lebanon and Jacksonville and the Illinois College at Jacksonville; was graduated from Indiana University in 1858; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1859 and practiced in Lincoln, Illinois and Springfield, Illinois; secretary of the State constitutional convention in 1862; traveled in Europe 1868-1871; member of the State house of representatives in 1871 and 1872; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-fourth and to the nine succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1875-March 3, 1895); chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of State (Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Congresses), Committee on Elections (Forty-sixth Congress), Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Justice (Forty-eighth Congress), Committee on Claims (Forty-ninth Congress), Committee on Territories (Fiftieth Congress), Committee on Ways and Means (Fifty-second Congress), Committee on Banking and Currency (Fifty-third Congress); was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1894 to the Fifty-fourth Congress; again resumed the practice of law in Washington, D.C., in 1895; United States judge for the northern district of Indian Territory and chief justice of the United States Court of Appeals of Indian Territory by appointment of President Grover Cleveland 1895-1900; again engaged in the practice of his profession in Washington, D.C., where he died on December 4, 1903; interment in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Ill.
Springer unsuccessfully challenged the Federal income tax levied during the Civil War in the case of Springer v. United States.
Bibliography: Dictionary of American Biography.
