WALKER, Robert J., American legislator: b. Northumberland County, Pa., 23 July 1801; d. Washington, 11 Nov. 1869. He grew up in the midst of an enlightened community and he was graduated at the University of Penn sylvania, at the head of his class, when he was only 18 years old. A little later he mar ried the gramdclaughter of Benjamin Franklin, Mary Bache, daughter of Richard Bache and sister of the famous Alexander Bache, one of the founders of the Smithsonian Institution. Walker began the practice of law at Pitts burgh in 1822. Two years later he was an advocate of the election of General Jackson to the presidency and he seems to have exerted considerable influence upon the attitude of Pennsylvania. But the lure of the lower South was too strong for him and he moved to Natchez, Miss., in 1826, where he promptly became one of the leaders of the community. In the land speculations which paralleled the removal of the various tribes of Indians from Mississippi and Alabama, 1830-36, he made what was considered a large fortune. But he was a natural politician and he entered the race for the United States Senate against George Poindexter. It was a spectacular contest which attracted national attention. Walker was suc cessful and once in the Scnate, President Jaclc son promptly made it known that Walker was his friend. From the day of Walker's en trance into national politics, he was a constant and unremitting advocate of the annexation of Texas. In the campaign of 1844, Wallcer was the chairman of the National Democratic Com mittee, as we should now say, and he was more tesponsible than any other man for the nomina tion and election of Polk. He was Secretary of Treasury in the Polk cabinet and he wrote the tariff of 1846, generally recognized as the best of tariffs before the Civil War. He man aged the finances of the government, almost without advice or counsel from the President, during the Mexican War. For the first time in American history, government securities con tinued to sell at par or above throughout a war. At the close of the Polk administration, Walker becatne a lawyer and a lobbyist in Washing ton. He was sent to Europe by the directors of the Illinois Central Railroad to sell bonds and purchase building supplies. He was coun
sel for certain mining interests in California from which he received a fortune in the form of a fee, in 1858, amounting to some hundreds of thousands of dollars. But he could not keep aloof from politics and President Buchanan made him territorial governor of Kansas in April 1857. Once in Kansas, Walker endeavored so to arrange the tangled affairs of the war-torn Territory that he was to be returned to the United States Senate. But he failed, more be cause the President withdrew his support than from any lack of wisdom in dealing with the Kansans. When the President withdrew his support Walker resigned and became a public supporter and advocate of Stephen A. Douglas for the Presidency. That completed the breach between Walker and the South where he had al ways had influence. VVhen Lincoln, and not Douglas, became President, Walker set up a magazine in New York which he called the Con tinental Monthly and in which he supported strongly the cause of the Union. When the war was at its most doubtful crisis, President Lin coln sent Walker as a c,ommissioner of the Treasury to Europe to borrow money on the hest terms he could and to discredit the Con federacy in any way he tnight. Walker suc ceeded beyond expectation for he secured loans of $300,000,000 in goid at a time when the government needed gold quite as much as the armies needed men. On the return of Walker to the United States, he became once more a lawyer and lobbyist in Washington and as such had a good deal to do with the pas sage of the act appropriating the necessary money for the purchase of Alaska. His worlc and character were not of the kind that en hanced his reputation for integrity. His death was passed almost unnoticed in the press of the country and his burial place has been almost entirely forgotten; but not many men of his generation had more to do with the growth and development of the country. The facts about Walker are to be found only in governmental documents, (The Diary of James K. Polk,) and contemporary newspapers.