James K. Polk

11th President of the United States

### Siblings

Jane Maria Polk (sister), Lydia Eliza Polk (sister), Franklin Ezekiel Polk (brother), Marshall Tate Polk (brother), John Lee Polk (brother), Naomi Tate Polk (sister), Ophelia Clarissa Polk (sister), William Hawkins Polk (brother) Samuel Washington Polk (brother)

### Education

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (BA)

### Hair color

Brown

Often referred to as the first “dark horse” President, **James K. Polk** was the eleventh president of the United States (1845-1849). A protégé of Andrew Jackson and an advocate of Jacksonian democracy, he was the last strong President until the American Civil War.

*The Presidency of James K Polk spanned the period in United States history that encompasses the events of the Westward Expansion era. President James K Polk represented the Democratic political party which influenced the domestic and foreign policies of his presidency as did the goal of westward expansion and the belief in the "Manifest Destiny" of the American people. The country expanded with the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo when Mexico sold Alta California and New Mexico to the US for $15 million.*

## Biography

He was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, in 1795. Studious and industrious, Polk was graduated with honors in 1818 from the University of North Carolina. As a young lawyer he entered politics, served in the Tennessee legislature, and became a friend of Andrew Jackson.

In the House of Representatives, Polk was a chief lieutenant of Jackson in his Bank war. He served as Speaker between 1835 and 1839, leaving to become Governor of Tennessee.

Until circumstances raised Polk’s ambitions, he was a leading contender for the Democratic nomination for Vice President in 1844. Both Martin Van Buren, who had been expected to win the Democratic nomination for President, and Henry Clay, who was to be the Whig nominee, tried to take the expansionist issue out of the campaign by declaring themselves opposed to the annexation of Texas. Polk, however, publicly asserted that Texas should be “re-annexed” and all of Oregon “re-occupied.”

The aged Jackson, correctly sensing that the people favored expansion, urged the choice of a candidate committed to the Nation’s “Manifest Destiny.” This view prevailed at the Democratic Convention, where Polk was nominated on the ninth ballot.

“Who is James K. Polk?” Whigs jeered. Democrats replied Polk was the candidate who stood for expansion. He linked the Texas issue, popular in the South, with the Oregon question, attractive to the North. Polk also favored acquiring California.

Even before he could take office, Congress passed a joint resolution offering annexation to Texas. In so doing they bequeathed Polk the possibility of war with Mexico, which soon severed diplomatic relations.

In his stand on Oregon, the President seemed to be risking war with Great Britain also. The 1844 Democratic platform claimed the entire Oregon area, from the California boundary northward to a latitude of 54’40’, the southern boundary of Russian Alaska. Extremists proclaimed “Fifty-four forty or fight,” but Polk, aware of diplomatic realities, knew that no course short of war was likely to get all of Oregon. Happily, neither he nor the British wanted a war.

He offered to settle by extending the Canadian boundary, along the 49th parallel, from the Rockies to the Pacific. When the British minister declined, Polk reasserted the American claim to the entire area. Finally, the British settled for the 49th parallel, except for the southern tip of Vancouver Island. The treaty was signed in 1846.

Acquisition of California proved far more difficult. Polk sent an envoy to offer Mexico up to $20,000,000, plus settlement of damage claims owed to Americans, in return for California and the New Mexico country. Since no Mexican leader could cede half his country and still stay in power, Polk’s envoy was not received. To bring pressure, Polk sent Gen. Zachary Taylor to the disputed area on the Rio Grande.

To Mexican troops this was aggression, and they attacked Taylor’s forces.

Congress declared war and, despite much Northern opposition, supported the military operations. American forces won repeated victories and occupied Mexico City. Finally, in 1848, Mexico ceded New Mexico and California in return for $15,000,000 and American assumption of the damage claims.

President Polk added a vast area to the United States, but its acquisition precipitated a bitter quarrel between the North and the South over expansion of slavery.

Polk, leaving office with his health undermined from hard work, died in June 1849.

## Personality

The character traits of President James K Polk can be described as intelligent, persuasive, determined, forceful and ambitious. It has been speculated that the Myers-Briggs personality type for James K Polk is an would be INTJ (introversion, intuition, thinking, judgment). A reserved, analytical and insightful character with a strong sense of independence. James K Polk Personality type: pragmatic, logical, individualist and creative.

## Nicknames

* "Napoleon of the Stump"
* "Young Hickory"
* "The Dark Horse President"

*Meaning: The nickname of President James K Polk provides an insight into how the man was viewed by the American public during his presidency. The meaning of the unusual nickname "Napoleon of the Stump" refers to Polk's eagerness to exercise his considerable speech making skills. He took every opportunity to deliver a speech, and tree stumps were once utilized for this purpose, and his delivery was as fearsome as Napoleon when he spoke..*

## Inauguration

The **inauguration of James K. Polk** as the 11th president of the United States took place on Tuesday, March 4, 1845, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 15th inauguration and marked the commencement of the only four-year term of both James K. Polk as president and George M. Dallas as vice president. Polk was sworn in by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. This was the first inaugural ceremony to be reported by telegraph and to be shown in a newspaper illustration; it appeared in *The Illustrated London News*.

## Presidents who died during his Presidency

* John Quincy Adams
* Andrew Jackson

## Accomplishments and major events

*The major accomplishments and the famous, main events that occurred during the time that James K Polk was president included the Indian Wars, the Mormon migration to Utah (1846), Bear Flag Revolt (1846), Wilmot Proviso of 1846, the Walker Tariff (1846) and the California gold rush (1848).*

**Westward Expansion**

Summary: The Westward Expansion encompassed the movement of Americans across the North American continent from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific in the west. The movement west and the rapid settlement of territories was enabled by buying land, victories in wars, treaties and the displacement of Native American Indians. The process of Westward Expansion was made possible by progressive transportation systems such as roads, canals and the railroads and the belief in the Manifest Destiny of the United States of America.

**Manifest Destiny**

Summary: The Manifest Destiny was the firm belief that occupation of North America  was a divine right of the American people.

**The Mexican-American War**

Summary: The Mexican-American War lasted just under 2 years from and was fought between April 25, 1846 – February 2, 1848 in  Texas, New Mexico and California.

**The California Republic and the Bear Flag Revolt**

Summary: The California Republic and the Bear Flag Revolt involved conflicts between American settlers against Mexico in Alta California.

**The Wilmot Proviso of 1846**

Summary: The Wilmot Proviso of 1846 was an amendment to an appropriations bill to gain funding for the settlement of the Mexican-American War. The Wilmot Proviso stated that slavery should be banned in the territories acquired from Mexico, including California.

**The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo**

Summary: The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed during the presidency of James K Polk when Mexico was forced to sell Alta California and New Mexico to the US for $15 million.

**The California Gold Rush**

Summary: The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) started started on January 24, 1848 at Sutter's Lumber Mill in Coloma, California during the presidency of James K Polk. The gold seekers,  numbering over 90,000, were called the "49ers" as the majority of them reached the goldfields in 1849.

**The Oregon Treaty of 1846**

Summary: The Oregon Treaty of 1846 settled the land disputes between the US and Great Britain and ended the twenty-eight years of joint occupancy of the Pacific Northwest.

**The Elias Howe Sewing Machine**

Summary: The invention of the Elias Howe Sewing Machine revolutionized the shoe and clothing industry providing the means for Americans to buy cheap, fashionable clothes.

## Post Presidency

Polk's time in the White House took its toll on his health. Full of enthusiasm and vigor when he entered office, Polk left the presidency exhausted by his years of public service. He left Washington on March 6 for a pre-arranged triumphal tour of the Southern United States, to end in Nashville. Polk had two years previously arranged to buy a house there, afterwards dubbed Polk Place, that had once belonged to his mentor, Felix Grundy.

James and Sarah Polk progressed down the Atlantic coast, and then westward through the Deep South. He was enthusiastically received and banqueted. By the time the Polks reached Alabama, he was suffering from a bad cold, and soon became concerned by reports of cholera—a passenger on Polk's riverboat died of it, and it was rumored to be common in New Orleans, but it was too late to change plans. Worried about his health, he would have departed the city quickly but was overwhelmed by Louisiana hospitality. Several passengers on the riverboat up the Mississippi died of the disease, and Polk felt so ill that he went ashore for four days, staying in a hotel. A doctor assured him he did not have cholera, and Polk made the final leg, arriving in Nashville on April 2 to a huge reception.

## Death

After a visit to James's mother in Columbia, the Polks settled into Polk Place. The exhausted former president seemed to gain new life, but in early June, he fell ill again, by most accounts of cholera. Attended by several doctors, he lingered for several days and chose to be baptized into the Methodist Church, which he had long admired, though his mother arrived from Columbia with her Presbyterian clergyman, and his wife was also a devout Presbyterian. On the afternoon of Friday, June 15, Polk died at his Polk Place home in Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 53. According to traditional accounts, his last words before he died were "I love you, Sarah, for all eternity, I love you." Borneman noted that whether or not they were spoken, there was nothing in Polk's life that would make the sentiment false. Polk's funeral was held at the McKendree Methodist Church in Nashville.

## Facts and trivia

* James K. Polk is ranked in political surveys as one of America's greatest presidents.
* Polk was the first of 10 children born into a family of farmers. His mother Jane named him after her father, James Knox.
* Polk's father Samuel Polk, was a farmer, slaveholder, and surveyor of Scots-Irish descent. The Polks had immigrated to America in the late 1600s, settling initially on the Eastern Shore of Maryland but later moving to south-central Pennsylvania and then to the Carolina hill country.
* The Knox and Polk families were Presbyterian. While Polk's mother remained a devout Presbyterian, his father, whose own father Ezekiel Polk was a deist, rejected dogmatic Presbyterianism. He refused to declare his belief in Christianity at his son's baptism, and the minister refused to baptize young James. Nevertheless, James' mother "stamped her rigid orthodoxy on James, instilling lifelong Calvinistic traits of self-discipline, hard work, piety, individualism, and a belief in the imperfection of human nature
* In 1803, Ezekiel Polk led four of his adult children and their families to the Duck River area in what is now Maury County, Tennessee; Samuel Polk and his family followed in 1806. The Polk clan dominated politics in Maury County and in the new town of Columbia. Samuel became a county judge, and the guests at his home included Andrew Jackson, who had already served as a judge and in Congress. James learned from the political talk around the dinner table; both Samuel and Ezekiel were strong supporters of President Thomas Jefferson and opponents of the Federalist Party.
* Polk suffered from frail health as a child, a particular disadvantage in a frontier society. He had urinary bladder stones surgically removed by Ephraim McDowell, a prominent Kentucky surgeon. Anesthesia wasn’t available at that time, so the future president reportedly dulled the pain with brandy. It has been speculated that the surgery left him infertile, as he never had children.
* In January 1816, Polk was admitted into the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a second-semester sophomore. The Polk family had connections with the university, then a small school of about 80 students; Samuel was its land agent in Tennessee and his cousin William Polk was a trustee. Polk's roommate was William Dunn Moseley, who became the first Governor of Florida.
* While a student at UNC, Polk joined the Dialectic Society where he took part in debates, became its president, and learned the art of oratory. In one address, he warned that some American leaders were flirting with monarchical ideals, singling out Alexander Hamilton, a foe of Jefferson.
* After graduating from college, Polk returned to Nashville, Tennessee to study law under renowned trial attorney Felix Grundy, who became his first mentor.
* Beginning in early 1822, Polk courted Sarah Childress—they were engaged the following year and married on January 1, 1824, in Murfreesboro. Educated far better than most women of her time, especially in frontier Tennessee, Sarah Polk was from one of the state's most prominent families. During James's political career Sarah assisted her husband with his speeches, gave him advice on policy matters, and played an active role in his campaigns. Rawley noted that Sarah Polk's grace, intelligence and charming conversation helped compensate for her husband's often austere manner.
* Polk had as much charisma as a puddle of mud. He was straight-laced, somber, and humorless. As Speaker, an editor in Washington called him the "most unpretending man, for his talents, this, or perhaps any country, has ever seen." Some attributed Polk’s boringness to his refusal to drink socially. The politician Sam Houston supposedly called him “a victim of the use of water as a beverage.” (Sarah banned hard liquor—and dancing—from the White House.)
* After building a successful law practice in Tennessee, Polk was elected to its state legislature in 1823 and then to the United States House of Representatives in 1825, becoming a strong supporter of Andrew Jackson.
* After serving as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, he became Speaker of the House in 1835, the only person to have served both as Speaker and U.S. president. Polk left Congress to run for governor of Tennessee, winning in 1839 but losing in 1841 and 1843.
* Months before the democratic national convention of 1844, Polk was at a low point. He had just lost his bid to be re-elected governor of Tennessee (he had been voted out of office in 1841 and tried—and failed—to be elected again in 1843).
* Polk was a dark horse candidate in the 1844 presidential election as the Democratic Party nominee; he entered his party's convention as a potential nominee for vice president but emerged as a compromise to head the ticket when no presidential candidate could secure the necessary two-thirds majority. In the general election, Polk defeated Henry Clay of the rival Whig Party.
* With a slender victory in the popular vote, but with a greater victory in the Electoral College (170–105), Polk proceeded to implement his campaign promises. He presided over a country whose population had doubled every twenty years since the American Revolution and which had reached demographic parity with Great Britain.
* After being informed of his victory on November 15, 1844, Polk turned his attention to forming a geographically balanced Cabinet. He consulted Jackson and one or two other close allies, and decided that the large states of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia should have representation in the six-member Cabinet, as should his home state of Tennessee.
* A property owner who used slave labor for most of his adult life, Polk kept a plantation in Mississippi and increased his slave ownership during his presidency.
* Polk did not want his Cabinet to contain presidential hopefuls, though he chose to nominate James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, whose ambition for the presidency was well-known, as Secretary of State.
* During Polk’s day, anybody was permitted to visit the White House for “office hours.” For two days every week, concerned citizens and lobbyists could drop by to vouch for a cause or ask for political favors.
* Historians have praised Polk for meeting every major domestic and foreign policy goal he had set during his single term. After a negotiation fraught with the risk of war, he reached a settlement with Great Britain over the disputed Oregon Country, the territory, for the most part, being divided along the 49th parallel.
* Polk provoked a war with Mexico in an attempt to expand the United States and succeeded in doing so, as it resulted in Mexico's cession of nearly all the American Southwest.
* Polk secured a substantial reduction of tariff rates with the Walker tariff of 1846. The same year, he achieved his other major goal, re-establishment of the Independent Treasury system.
* True to his campaign pledge to serve only one term, Polk left office in 1849 and returned to Tennessee, where he died three months after leaving the White House. He holds the record of having the shortest presidential retirement in American history.
* Polk's funeral was held at the McKendree Methodist Church in Nashville. Following his death, Sarah Polk lived at Polk Place for 42 years and died on August 14, 1891, at the age of 87. Their house, Polk Place, was demolished in 1901, a decade after Sarah's death.
* Polk's remains have been moved twice. After his death, he was buried in what is now Nashville City Cemetery, due to a legal requirement related to his infectious disease death. Polk was then moved to a tomb on the grounds of Polk Place (as specified in his will) in 1850. Then, in 1893, the bodies of James and Sarah Polk were relocated to their current resting place on the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville.
* Though he is relatively obscure today, scholars have ranked Polk favorably for his ability to promote and achieve the major items on his presidential agenda, despite limiting himself to a single term.
* Polk has also been criticized for leading the country into an aggressive war against Mexico and thus exacerbating divides between free and slave states.
* The legacy of Polk's policy of territorial expansion – with the United States reaching the Pacific coast and, roughly, its present contiguous borders – made the United States a nation poised to become a world power, but with sectional divisions gravely exacerbated, setting the stage for the Civil War.

## References

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James\_K.\_Polk#Post-presidency\_and\_death\_(1849)
* https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/james-k-polk/
* https://www.american-historama.org/presidents-united-states/james-polk.htm