Amasa Walker

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American politician (1799–1875)

title: "Amasa Walker" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["secretaries-of-the-commonwealth-of-massachusetts", "massachusetts-state-senators", "members-of-the-massachusetts-house-of-representatives", "massachusetts-jacksonians", "massachusetts-libertyites", "massachusetts-free-soilers", "harvard-university-staff", "oberlin-college-faculty", "american-economics-writers", "american-male-non-fiction-writers", "people-from-woodstock,-connecticut", "people-from-north-brookfield,-massachusetts", "1799-births", "1875-deaths", "massachusetts-democrats", "abolitionists-from-boston", "american-temperance-activists", "republican-party-united-states-representatives-from-massachusetts", "19th-century-members-of-the-massachusetts-general-court", "19th-century-united-states-representatives"] description: "American politician (1799–1875)" topic_path: "economics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amasa_Walker" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American politician (1799–1875) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox officeholder"]

Field	Value
name	Amasa Walker
image	Amasa Walker.png
state	Massachusetts
district	9th
term_start	December 1, 1862
term_end	March 3, 1863
preceded	Goldsmith Bailey
succeeded	William B. Washburn
order1	11th
office1	Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth
term_start1	1851
term_end1	1853
preceded1	William B. Calhoun
succeeded1	Ephraim M. Wright
office2	Massachusetts State Senate
term_start2	January 1850
term_end2	January 1851
office3	Massachusetts House of Representatives
term_start3	January 1850
term_end3	January 1850
term_start4	January 1860
term_end4	January 1861
birth_date	May 4, 1799
birth_place	Woodstock, Connecticut
death_date
death_place	North Brookfield, Massachusetts
party	Anti-Masonic
Democratic (before 1844)
Liberty Party (1844–48)
Free Soil Party (1848–56)
Republican (after 1856)
signature	Appletons' Walker Amasa signature.png
::

Biography

He moved with his parents to North Brookfield, Massachusetts, and attended the district school. In 1814 he entered commercial life, and in 1820 formed a partnership with Allen Newell in North Brookfield, but three years later withdrew to become the agent of the Methuen Manufacturing Company. In 1825 he formed the firm of Carleton and Walker, of Boston, with Charles G. Carleton, but in 1827 he went into business independently.

He was the unsuccessful Democratic Party nominee for mayor of Boston in the 1837 Boston mayoral election.

He was a delegate to the 1836 Democratic National Convention. In 1839, he became president of the Boston Temperance Society, the first total abstinence association in that city, and in 1839 he advocated a continuous railway between Boston and the Mississippi River. In 1840 he retired from commercial life and went into academia.

In 1842–1848, he lectured on political economy at Oberlin College. In 1853–1860, he was an examiner on political economy at Harvard, and in 1859–1869 lecturer on political economy at Amherst College. The degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by Amherst in 1867.

He was a frequent contributor to periodical literature, especially on financial subjects. His principal work, Science of Wealth, a Manual of Political Economy, was published in 1866. Other works were Nature and Uses of Money and Mixed Currency (Boston, 1857) and, with William B. Calhoun and Charles L. Flint, Transactions of the Agricultural Societies of Massachusetts (7 vols., 1848–1854). In 1857, he began the publication of a series of articles on political economy in Hunt's Merchant's Magazine.

He was active in the anti-slavery movement, and in 1848 he was one of the founders of the Free Soil Party. Walker served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1849 and 1860, in the Massachusetts State Senate in 1850, as Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth 1851–1853, and in the United States House of Representatives 1862–1863, where he was elected as a Republican to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Goldsmith Bailey.

In 1853, he was chosen as a member of the convention for revising the state constitution, becoming the chairman of the committee on suffrage. In 1860, he was chosen as a member of the electoral college of Massachusetts and cast his ballot for Abraham Lincoln. Walker was a delegate to the first International Peace Congress in London of 1843, and he served at the Paris Congress in 1849.

Books

The Science of Wealth: A Manual of Political Economy. Embracing the Laws of Trade, Currency, and Finance, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown & Co. (1866).

References

(December 16, 1837). "Boston City Elections". Fall River Monitor.
(1909). "A Catalogue of the City Councils of Boston, 1822-1908, Roxbury, 1846-1867, Charlestown, 1847-1873 and of the Selectmen of Boston, 1634-1822: Also of Various Other Town and Municipal Officers". City of Boston Printing Department.
"Walker, Amasa {{!}} Encyclopedia.com".
{{Cite EB1911

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