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Senate Years of Service: 1835-1845
Party: Democrat
WALKER, Robert John, a Senator from Mississippi; born in Northumberland, Pa., July 19, 1801; graduated
from the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia in 1819; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1821
and commenced practice in Pittsburgh, Pa., the following year; moved to Natchez, Miss., in 1826 and
continued the practice of law; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate; reelected, and
served from March 4, 1835, to March 5, 1845, when he resigned; chairman, Committee on Public
Lands (Twenty-fourth through Twenty-sixth Congresses); Secretary of the Treasury in the Cabinet of
President James K. Polk 1845-1849; declined the mission to China tendered by President Franklin
Pierce in 1853; resumed the practice of law; appointed Governor of Kansas Territory in April 1857,
but resigned in December 1857; United States financial agent to Europe 1863-1864; again engaged in
the practice of law at Washington, D.C., and died there November 11, 1869; interment in Oak Hill
Cemetery.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Dodd, William E. Robert J. Walker,
Imperialist. Gloucester, Mass.: P. Smith, 1967; Shenton, James P. Robert John
Walker: Politician From Jackson to Lincoln. New York: Columbia University Press,
1961; Hartnett, Stephen. “Senator Robert Walker’s 1844 Letter on Texas Annexation: The
Rhetorical Logic of Imperialism.” American Studies 38 (Spring 1997), pp. 27-54.
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