Robert J. Walker (Smith, 1906)

Probably the angriest person in the United States was Walker, who found all his plans thwarted.  He told Calhoun plainly that if the scheme were carried through he should oppose it with all his power.  Calhoun replied that Buchanan himself favored the idea, whereas Walker in a passion retorted:  "I consider such a submission of the question a vile fraud, a base counterfeit, and a wretched device to keep people from voting...I will not support it, but I will denounce it, no matter whether the administration sustains it or not."  When the convention adjourned, leaving the vote to be taken on December 21 through its agents, the exasperated governor returned to Washington, as each of his predecessors had done, to lay the matter before the president.