WALKER 



749 



clear statement of facts and a skeleton of an argument 

 emphasized at its salient points satisfied in his mind 

 the demands of the duty of the advocate and the con- 

 venience of the court. 



It often happens that the advocate in the course of 

 examining a proposition of law under its limited ap- 

 plication to a case under consideration sees it in its 

 broad relations, and thus obtains a standpoint from 

 which its specific applications can be most accurately 

 judged. In such cases it is natural that he should en- 

 deavor to lead the court to the same standpoint, and if 

 the prevailing methods of presentation and the state 

 of business in the court do not admit of such an effort 

 it is a grave misfortune. W henever our jurisprudence 

 reaches the last term of its development, it will be pos- 

 sible to administer it by mechanical methods, but so 

 long as it is to meet new conditions and exhibit expan- 

 sive qualities the required conditions must be found 

 in the methods and mind of the court A close ad- 

 herence to English forensic methods is not practicable 

 for the mind or conditions of America. The English 

 jurists adhere to antecedent ibrms and draw tlicir 

 reasonings from limited authoritative sources, avoiding 

 generalizations that embrace elements that have not 

 this technical sanction ; while the American jurist recog- 

 nizes that the conditions of our national life demand 

 progressive changes, and he seeks to conserve substance 

 rather than form as derived from the past, and admits 

 the principles of nature and social order into his gen- 

 eralizations although not recognized by his juridical 

 predecessors. The English jurist aims to perpetuate 

 existing forms of legal institutions, while his American 

 brother looks to higher adaptations of existing methods 

 than have yet been reached. 



Under the tendency that has just been stated Ameri- 

 can constitutional law has sprung into existence, which 

 owes its development to a breadth of generalization 

 excluded from English forensic methods. It may be 

 said that the stage of the expansive development of 

 American jurisprudence has passed, and it may bo 

 time that the most active period in that respect has 

 gone by, but there is nothing in retrospect or forecast 

 to wan-ant the opinion that a stage of development has 

 been reached that will impose on the jurists of this 

 country no more arduous duty than that of conserving 

 its forms and principles. 



Chief-Justice Waite possessed that trained legal 

 aensc, by which conclusions are drawn before the rea- 

 sons on which they rest are consciously recognized, and 

 which is the first condition of a sound legal judgment. 

 This quality apprehends the fitness of things in a legal 

 sense before their details are examined, and is in fact 

 a gencraliz-ition based on broad legal experience with- 

 out which legal inquiry is in danger of being lost in 

 technicalities and minutiae. If confidence in the pos- 

 session and value of this quality sometimes disinclines 

 its possessor to painstaking efforts for the verification 

 of his results, on the other hand its absence or weak- 

 ness leaves opinion without anchorage in the sense in 

 which the term opinion is put in contrast with that of 

 conviction. In the scientific branch of legal work, 

 which consists in testing the generalizations drawn in 

 the manner just pointed out by the results of antece- 

 dent judicial decisions, many have surpassed Chief- 

 Justice 'U'iiite, and the same maybe faid as to that 

 rare quality by which legal principles are unfolded in 

 their nature and applications. 



In his personal bearing as a judicial officer Chief- 

 Justice Waitc was kind and considerate, and. although 

 the flowers of rhetoric did not flourish under his touch, 

 kindly feelings habitually remained with those who had 

 judicial intercourse with him. 



Sen " Memorial Proceedings in Supreme Court," 

 If. S. Reports, Vol. 126, Appendix. (A. J. W.) 



WALKER, AMASA (1799-1875), economist, was 

 born at Woodstock, Conn.. May 4, 1799: his ancestry 

 settled at Charlestown, Mass., 1641. From 1825 to 

 1840 he was engaged in business in Boston, and active 



in the temperance and anti-slavery movements. From 

 1843 his home was at North Brookfield, Mass., but for 

 some years he visited Oberlin, Ohio, as professor of 

 political economy. He was sent to the Massachusetts 

 assembly 1848 and to the senate 1849, was secretary 

 of state 1851-2, member of the Massachusetts Con- 

 stitutional convention 1852-3, of Congress 1802-3, 

 and lecturer on political economy at Amherst College 

 from 1861. He died Oct. 29, 1875. He was one of 

 three editors of the Transactions of the Massachusetts 

 Agricultural Society, 1848-54. He wrote much on his 

 favorite subject for periodicals, and published Nature 

 and Uses of Money (1857), and Science of Wealth 

 (1866). The latter was widely read, and gained much 

 repute and influence. 



His son, FRANCIS AMASA WALKER, statistician and 

 educator, was born in Boston, July 2, 1840, and grad- 

 uated at Amherst College in 1860. His legal studies 

 were interrupted by the war, in which he became ad- 

 jutant-general of Gen. D. N. Couch's division in 1 862, 

 and colonel in 1 863. He was wounded at Chancellors- 

 ville, taken prisoner, and emerged from the strife with 

 broken health and the brevet of brigadier-general. 

 After teaching for two years at Williston Seminar}', 

 East ham ptori, Mass., and editing the Springfield Re- 

 publican for a year, he was appointed chief of the 

 bureau of statistics at Washington 18C>9. superin- 

 tendent of the Ninth Census 1870, and Indian com- 

 missioner 1871. He became professor of political 

 economy and history in the Sheffield ScientiQc School 

 of Yale College 1872, and president of the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology in Boston 1881. Besides three 

 volumes of census reports and a Statistical Atlas of 

 the United State* (1874), he has published The Indian 

 Question (1873): The Wages Question (1 870), The 

 World's fair (1876); Money in its Relation to Trade 

 and Industry (1879) ; Political Economy (1882), in the 

 "American Science Series"; Land and its Rent 

 ( 1 883), and History of the Second Corps, Army of the 

 Potomac (ISSb). 



WALKER, ROBERT JAMES (1801-1869), statesman, 

 was born at Northumberland, Pa., July 19, 1801, and 

 graduated at the University of Pennsylvania 1819. 

 He began to practise law at Pittsburg 1819, became an 

 act ivi: [>emocrat,and removed in 1826 to Natchez, Miss., 

 where he rose to prominence. Always a Unionist, he 

 resisted the nulliners in 1 833. The next year he pub- 

 lished Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court of Mis- 

 sissippi (1818-32). Elected to the U. S. Senate 1836. he 

 introduced the earliest Homestead bill, supported Van 

 Buren's measures, and urged the recognition of the in- 

 dependence of Texas in 1837, and afterwards its an- 

 nexation. He had much influence with Pres. Tyler, 

 and helped to effect the nomination of Polk, who made 

 him secretary of state in 1845. In this office he ac- 

 tively favored free trade, procured a reciprocity treaty 

 with Canada, and introduced the warehousing system. 

 The Department of the Interior was established at his 

 suggestion. Ilis later posts were of less eminent rank, 

 but afforded opportunities of honorable service. In 

 1853 he was a commissioner to open commercial rela- 

 tions with China and Japan. In 1 857, as fourth gov- 

 ernor of Kansas, he repeated the doleful but enlight- 

 ening experiences of his predecessors (Rcedcr. Shan- 

 non, and Geary), and declared himself "unwilling to 

 aid in forcing slavery on Kansas by fraud and forgery." 

 As in this case he broke with Buchanan's administra- 

 tion and the slave power, so in the war he would not 

 go with his adopted section. As U. S. financial agent 

 in Europe during most of 1863-4, he negotiated $250,- 

 000,000 of the 5-20 bonds, and prevented the sale of 

 the second Confederate loan of $75,000,000. During 

 these years he edited the Continental Monthly, and 

 wrote for it some letters on American resources, which 

 exerted an influence abroad and won high praise. He 

 advocated the purchase of the Danish West Indies 

 and Alaska, ana the construction of the Pacific Rail- 

 road. As a friend of peace and of both sections, he 



