Background
Richard Walker was born on 16 February 1823 in Huntsville, Alabama. He was the son of John Williams Walker and the brother of Percy Walker and LeRoy Pope Walker.
4000 Dauphin St, Mobile, AL 36608, United States
Richard Wilde Walker attended Spring Hill College in Mobile.
Charlottesville, VA, United States
Richard Wilde Walker attended the University of Virginia.
Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
Richard Wilde Walker graduated with honors from Princeton College (present-day Princeton University) in 1841
congressman lawyer planter politician
Richard Walker was born on 16 February 1823 in Huntsville, Alabama. He was the son of John Williams Walker and the brother of Percy Walker and LeRoy Pope Walker.
Richard Wilde Walker attended Spring Hill College in Mobile and the University of Virginia before graduating with honors from Princeton College (present-day Princeton University) in 1841.
In 1844, Richard Wilde Walker was admitted to the Huntsville bar. In 1845, he moved to Florence, Alabama, where he was a district solicitor from 1848 to 1851. Walker, who was also a slaveholding planter, was elected in 1851 to represent Lauderdale County in the state House.
Four years later, he was elected speaker of the House. In 1853, he was the Whig nominee for governor, but he made no contest for the office. Appointed to the state Supreme Court in 1859, he was elected to the position the following year.
Richard Wilde Walker was a close political ally of Alexander Stephens, and he held the opposite political views of his brother, Leroy Pope Walker, whom he nevertheless supported for the post of secretary of war in 1861. In the provisional Confederate Congress, he headed the Alabama delegation and served on the Commercial and Financial Independence, Foreign Affairs, and provisional and permanent Constitution Committees. Walker was responsible for the provision in the permanent Confederate Constitution which combined the Confederate district and circuit courts.
Although he supported the Davis administration in the provisional Congress, he later turned against it. In 1863, the Alabama legislature chose him to replace Clement C. Clay, a Davis supporter, in the second Confederate Senate. In the Senate, he served on the Joint, Commerce, Engrossment and Enrollment, Judiciary, Post Office and Post Roads, and Public Buildings Committees.
When the war ended, he returned to his Huntsville law practice. Federal disabilities kept him from participating in political life.
As tensions and cleavages on the question of slavery between the northern and southern United States grew, Richard Wilde Walker became active in the formation of the Confederate States of America.
Richard Wilde Walker married Mary Ann Simpson Walker. Their children were John Simpson Walker, Margaret Walker Bolling, Richard Wilde Walker.