Albert Gallatin Porter (April 20, 1824 – May 3, 1897) was an American politician who served as the 19th governor of Indiana from 1881 to 1885 and as a United States Congressman from 1859 to 1863.

During the second half of his term a strong Democratic majority took control of the Indiana General Assembly and revoked all of the governor's appointment powers and other authorities, weakening the position to its lowest level in the history of the state.

The following year he moved to Indianapolis, where he took a job in the state's auditors office and briefly served as a private secretary to Governor of Indiana James Whitcomb.

His primary contribution was his own investigation of the railroads, which had accepted numerous land grants from the government during the war and the years leading up to it.

He calculated the value of the transactions, and balanced it again the amount the railroads were demanding for payment for shipping men and munitions, saving the at time cash-strapped government several million dollars.

He was nominated a third time to run for Congress in 1862, but declined primarily because of the position's poor salary and his need to replenish his savings.

He took on several high-profile cases, including the Ex parte Milligan case, which ended before the United States Supreme Court, who ruled that Lambdin P. Milligan, who had been arrested during the war for subversive activities and tried and convicted by a military tribunal, should be released because the tribunal had no authority to prosecute so long as the civil courts were still in operation.

The swamp was at the time one of the largest wetlands in the United States, encompassing nearly a tenth of Indiana and a large part of Illinois.

Although no action was taken on his advice, it renewed the debate which had seen little advancement since Governor James D. Williams had issued a similar request several years earlier.

The two issues were too much for the electorate to consider at once, and in the mid-term election of 1882, the amendment was overwhelming defeated and so were the Republicans as a large Democratic majority came to power.

[5] The second half of Porter's term was one of the uncommon times in Indiana's history where the legislature was completely controlled by a party hostile to the governor.

Typical to such occasions, the assembly began to reign in the governor whose weak constitutional position made it difficult to resist.

He vetoed the bill on its first passage, but the assembly quickly overrode it, taking the responsibility for appointing all board members in the state, a power the governor had held since the Civil War.

He did serve as a delegate to the 1888 Republican National Convention, where he delivered a speech and nominated his old law partner Benjamin Harrison to run for president.

During his time there, he oversaw negotiations with Italy concerning the lynching of eleven Italians in 1891, following a highly publicized murder trial in New Orleans.