Isaac Pigeon Walker
United States Senator
from Wisconsin
In office
June 8, 1848 – March 3, 1855
Preceded by(none)
Succeeded byCharles Durkee
Member of the Illinois House of Representatives
Personal details
Born(1815-11-02)November 2, 1815
Wheeling, Virginia
(now West Virginia)
DiedMarch 29, 1872(1872-03-29) (aged 56)
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Political partyDemocratic

Isaac Pigeon Walker (November 2, 1815 – March 29, 1872) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin.[1]

Walker was born in Virginia and moved with his family to Illinois in 1825. He practiced law in Springfield, Illinois, and served one term in the Illinois House of Representatives. He moved to Wisconsin in 1841 and practiced law in the Milwaukee area. He served in Wisconsin's territorial legislature from 1847 to 1848. When Wisconsin was admitted as a state in 1848, Walker was elected as a Democrat to represent Wisconsin in the United States Senate, where he served until 1855.

Walker opposed slavery. In 1850, he tried to introduce a one-sentence amendment to Henry Clay's omnibus bill. The amendment proposed to abolish peon slavery, a form of unfree labor among Native American workers in California and New Mexico.[2]

He is buried at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee.

Isaac Walker's older brother, George H. Walker, was a founder and mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

References

Notes

  1. ^ "Isaac Pigeon Walker". Wisconsin Historical Society. Archived from the original on November 5, 2012.
  2. ^ Magliari, Michael F (2022). ""A Species of Slavery": The Compromise of 1850, Popular Sovereignty, and the Expansion of Unfree Indian Labor in the American West". Journal of American History. 109 (3): 521–547. doi:10.1093/jahist/jaac343. ISSN 0021-8723.
U.S. Senate Preceded byNone U.S. senator (Class 3) from Wisconsin 1848–1855 Served alongside: Henry Dodge Succeeded byCharles Durkee


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