Biography of Thomas Lacy, Arkansas

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Submitted by: Joy Fisher < >
        Date: 16 Dec 2007
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BIOGRAPHICAL AND PICTORIAL HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
BY JOHN HALLUM.
VOL. I.
ALBANY: WEED, PARSON'S AND COMPANY, PRINTERS.
1887.

Entered according to act of Congress in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-seven,
BY JOHN HALLUM, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

NOTE.

  [Before receiving the last twelve sketches by General Albert Pike, the author had
prepared short biographies of some of the same men, to-wit, John Taylor, Thomas J. Lacy,
Edward Cross, David Walker, William Cummins, Archibald Yell and Terrence Farrelly, hence
these characters appear in duplicate; not, however, with the unwarranted assumption that
they will lend any thing to what the greatest of American scholars has written, any
further than to fill in the details omitted by that great man.]


JUDGE DAVID WALKER, FAYETTKVILLE.

  Judge Walker's lineage is traced back to an ancient line of Quakers of robust
integrity, belonging to the middle classes of England. The last trans-Atlantic ancestor
in the male line is Jacob Walker, whose son George emigrated to America and settled in
Brunswick county, Virginia, preceding the revolution, where he married a native to the
manor born, allied in lineage to the cavaliers.

  To him was born several sons whose descendants have made him the central figure in the
American line of a very distinguished family, whose attainments are written high and
prominent on the escutcheon of several States.

  One of these sons, Jacob Wythe Walker, born in the decade that ushered in the
revolution, joined, early in life, the resistless tide of emigrants that crossed the
mountains into Kentucky, where, in what was then a part of Christian, now Todd county, on
the 19th of February, 1806, was born unto him and Nancy Hawkins, his wife, David Walker,
who became the distinguished citizen and upright jurist of Arkansas.

  His father was a distinguished lawyer, free-hearted and generous to a fault; no sordid
desire ever entered his mind to enslave and corrode his heart. His nature was in accord
with the divine monition, "lay up not riches, lest they take wings and fly."

  As we have oft-repeated, and need not here emphasize, educational facilities on the
frontier in the early decades of this century were meager and primitive.

  This want of juncture in fortune and facility placed the noble signet of a self-made
man on the brow of David Walker.

  Instead of dwarfing and perishing his native resources, it kindled the latent energies
of a noble nature early in life, and led it onward and triumphantly upward to the end of
a long and useful life. His achievements in the rudimental and higher branches of
literature, and the noble science he mastered, were the results of unaided battles and
toils. He was admitted to the bar in Scottsville, Kentucky, early in 1829, and practiced
law there until the fall of 1830, when he moved to Arkansas, landing at Little Rock on
the 10th of October. A short time after this he located in Fayetteville, where he
continued until his death, on the 30th of September, 1879, the consummation of a long and
useful life, well worthy the study and imitation of noble and aspiring youth. From 1833
to 1835 he was prosecuting attorney in the third circuit. He was one of the many able
members of the constitutional convention of 1836. In 1840 he rode the tidal wave of
whiggery into the State senate, in which he served four years. In 1844 he led the forlorn
hope of his party in the ever memorable contest with Governor Yell for congress, which is
more fully detailed in the life of the latter. In 1848, whilst he was on a visit to
Kentucky, and without his knowledge, a legislature largely democratic elected him
associate justice of the supreme court over strong democratic opposition, embracing such
men as Judges English and William Conway, both of whom afterward succeeded to the office.
The election to this high office over such opposition at a time when party politics ran
high was the best testimonial the Commonwealth could pay to the exalted worth of the
lawyer and citizen. He was much astonished at this election; being a leader of the
opposition, he did not for a time understand its import, and it required some earnest
effort on the part of his friends to persuade him to accept the office; but after being
satisfied that it would not conflict with his high-church whigism he accepted. In the
administration of this office be made and left a record for ability and stainless
integrity. The people of Arkansas have always accorded him that high degree of
meritorious consideration which the British subject accords his lord chancellor. "When he
saw that war was likely to become the final arbiter in the great sectional conflict
between the States, his love embraced the Union as the fruition of the Greatest blessings
and achievements God had held out to man since the creation of the world, but his
deeply-moved sympathies clung to his native south like the undying love of the mother for
her way ward child, and he cut the "Gordian knot," without doing violence to his heart,
by joining the revolution he could not stay.

  With his soul, and head, and heart, and the delicate adjustment of mental and moral
forces which dominated his nature and impressed it with the signet of that noble
individuality- the sum and product of his character - it was simply impossible for him to
embrace the idea of striking down the south in blood. He ascended to that lofty summit
where General Robert E. Lee stood, and with the noble ken that belongs to the higher type
of man, recognized and acted on the fact, that what the world calls patriotism has its
qualifications and limitations in supreme emergencies like those which ushered in the war
between the States. The exercise of this God-given right has marked the world with more
monuments than one Pharsalia.

  On the 18th of February, 1861, he was elected to the convention which convened on the
4th of March, and finally on the 6th of May, passed the ordinance of secession. He was
nominated for president of the convention, and received the forty conservative votes of
that body, representing its union strength, as against thirty-five votes cast for Judge
B. C. Totten, representing the disunion strength as then developed. But the rapidity with
which the scenes and developments moved in one of the world's greatest dramas changed
every member of this majority (save one) over to the minority by the 6th of May, and
Arkansas with Judge Walker at the head of her revolutionary government cut loose from her
ancient moorings, and proceeded to organize and equip forty regiments and battalions to
maintain her defiant and resolute attitude.

  In the disjointed era of 1866 he was elected chief justice of the State, and in a
little less then two years was driven by military power from the office.

  When the sun of reconstruction went down under the accumulated corruption of the serfs
who violated sacred trusts and abused temporary power; when those, who, " like dead
bodies thrown in the Ganges, rose as they rotted and floated on the surface, objects of
loathing and contamination," were finally removed from power and place, this sterling old
citizen and jurist was again called from his private retreat and placed on the supreme
bench by the unanimous acclaim of a free people. He discharged the duties of this high
office until September, 1878, when he resigned, to enjoy the ease and comforts of private
life, but he had already attained the patriarchal age of seventy and two, and but one
year more was spared him. Nature gave him a vigorous, well-balanced mind, robust
constitution and energies that taxed it to its full capacity. He rode the circuit through
storm and through sunshine, through the rays of an August sun, and the snows of the
winter solstice; he camped out on the road, forded creeks and swam rivers. To him the
discharge of duty in all the relations of life was man's noblest performance.

  We have stated that Judge Walker belonged to a very distinguished family. His father
moved to Arkansas in 1836, and was president of the Fayetteville branch of the State Bank
when he died. His uncle, George Walker, was an able lawyer, and was a senator in congress
in 1814 from Kentucky; his wife was a niece of General Jackson's wife. Another uncle,
David Walker, was a member of congress from Kentucky, and died in Washington while
attending the session of 1820. John Walker, another uncle, was treasurer of Missouri for
many years, and the father of General John G. Walker of the Confederate army. His cousin,
David S. Walker, was governor of Florida. His cousin, James Volney Walker, was the father
of his son-in-law, the Hon. James D. Walker, of Fayetteville, ex-United States senator
from Arkansas, who married his accomplished daughter Mary. He was cousin to the Hon.
William Walker, of Fort Smith, long celebrated as one of the ablest lawyers of the State.
He was also nearly related to Richard S. Walker, ex-judge of the supreme court of Texas.
Royal T. Wheeler, deceased, once an eminent judge of the court of appeals in Texas,
married his sister Emily. Other distinguished kindred of the same name figure
conspicuously in the local histories of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.