James Pollock - Definition and Overview

James Pollock (10 September 1811 - 19 April 1890) was the governor of Pennsylvania from 1855 to 1858. Pollock completed his secondary education at the College of New Jersey and practiced law in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania before being elected its district attorney. in 1836. After a brief stint as a judge, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1844, where he pressed for the completion of a transcontinental railroad and telegraph line.

He returned to the judiciary in Pennsylvania's Eighth District in 1950 and was nominated by the Whig Party for the governor's race in 1854, amid controversy surrounding the Kansas-Nebraska Act. During his administration, Pennsylvania began to seel its publicly held railroads and canals, and helped steer the state through the financial Panic of 1857. He chaired the Pennsylvania delegation to the Washington Peace Convention in 1861, and was appointed director of the Philadelphia mint that same year. While leading the U.S. Mint, he suggested the inclusion of the phrase "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency.