Robert J. Walker

Robert James Walker was an American lawyer, economist and politician. An active member of the Democratic Party, he served as a member of the U.S. Senate from Mississippi from 1835 until 1845, as Secretary of the Treasury from 1845 to 1849 during the administration of President James K. Polk, and briefly as Territorial Governor of Kansas in 1857. He was responsible for drafting the 1849 bill that eventually established the United States Department of the Interior.

As senator, Walker vigorously supported the annexation of Texas. As Secretary of the Treasury, he held responsibility for the management of funds relating to the Mexican–American War,. He contributed to a bill called the Walker tariff, which reduced rates to some of the lowest in history. Walker was appointed Governor of Kansas in 1857 by President James Buchanan but resigned shortly after due to his opposition to the administration-sponsored pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution. After his retirement from politics, Walker supported the United States during the American Civil War and continued to practice law in Washington, D.C.

Career :

Admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in Pittsburgh in 1821, Walker practiced law in Pittsburgh from 1822 until 1826 when he moved to Natchez, Mississippi, where his father had died in 1824 at the home of his brother Duncan Walker. Robert Walker then joined his brother, Duncan Walker, in a lucrative law practice. Walker and his uncle also speculated in cotton, land and slaves. However, his brother Duncan (a former Mississippi legislator) moved to Texas in 1834 for health reasons, where he became involved in land speculation and the growing independence movement. For his involvement in the abortive Texas Revolution of 1835, Duncan Walker was imprisoned in Mexico, and traveled to Cuba after his release, where he died on December 31, 1835 (causing his brother Robert to inherit property in Texas)

Secretary of the Treasury (1845–1849):

Upon the recommendation of Vice President George M. Dallas, newly elected President Polk nominated Walker to become U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, and fellow Senators confirmed him. Walker served in that position throughout the Polk administration (from March 8, 1845, until March 5, 1849), and was an influential member of the President's Cabinet.[citation needed]

Walker was involved in a prominent Treasury report of December 3, 1845, which attacked the tariff protection system for manufactures yet supported a tariff for revenue. The Walker Tariff of 1846 was based upon the principles of this paper and was in fact largely the secretary's own work.[citation needed] He also drafted the 1849 bill to establish the United States Department of the Interior. Walker also supported the independent treasury system, and established a warehousing system for handling imports that has had lasting influence.

As Treasury Secretary, Walker was responsible for financing the Mexican–American War, but did so very loosely. On February 23, 1848, he wrote to Major General William Orlando Butler, "Sir, Upon the ratification of a treaty of peace by the Republic of Mexico in conformity with the provisions of the act of the congress of the United States of America approved March 3, 1847 stated 'an act making further appropriation to bring the existing war with Mexico to a speedy and honorable conclusion' you are authorized to draw on this department for any sum not exceeding three millions of dollars to be paid in pursuance of the promotion of said act."

During the Mexican-American War, the U.S. Treasury appeared short of money. An astonishingly large amount of funds (about $6 million) had been withdrawn from the army's quartermaster and commissary departments. Investigation disclosed that $1.1 million of those funds had been deposited in the bank of Corcoran and Riggs, which in turn invested the funds in stock securities. Polk, who had run on an anti-bank platform, wrote in his diary that it was the most troubling moment of his presidency. Confronting Walker yielded only casual, vague replies. Polk ordered an investigation, but Walker still couldn't give Polk the answers he needed. Eventually Walker told Polk that the $600,000 remaining in the bankers' hands would be distributed to the army and Polk lost interest in the matter. No chicanery was proven before the investigation was dropped. However, before Walker's initial appointment, Polk's mentor Andrew Jackson had warned him "that Walker wasn't a man to be trusted with the nation's cash."

After leaving Treasury in 1849, Walker resumed his legal practice in Washington, D.C. He and Edwin Stanton became Pittsburgh's lawyers in the city's (and Pennsylvania's, represented by its attorney general Cornelius Darragh) litigation against the Wheeling Suspension Bridge in the United States Supreme Court. His business interests included land speculation and mining stocks.

In 1853, President Franklin Pierce offered Walker the post of United States Minister to China, but Walker declined.