POLK, JAMES KNOX

"The people of this continent alone have the right to decide their own destiny."
—James K. Polk

James Knox Polk, eleventh president of the United States, served just one term in office, but in that time he was extremely influential in shaping the country's evolution into a large and politically formidable nation. Polk's primary achievements came in the area of foreign affairs, where he completed the annexation of Texas;

directed the Mexican War (1846–48); and negotiated with Great Britain for the acquisition of the Oregon territory. In domestic policy, Polk was a strong advocate for lowering tariffs and establishing an independent treasury for the United States. Historians and presidential scholars consistently rate Polk among the most effective and important presidents of the United States.

James Polk was born on November 2, 1795, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and went on to study law, establishing a successful practice in Columbia, Tennessee.

Polk soon embarked on a political career, being elected to the Tennessee legislature in 1823 and the U.S. House of Representatives in 1825. In Congress, Polk fought to defend individual freedoms, the rights of the states against the centralizing tendencies of the national government, and a strict interpretation of the Constitution. In 1839 Polk was elected governor of Tennessee. However, his two-year term in office was undistinguished, and he was defeated in the 1841 and 1843 gubernatorial races.

After his second defeat, Polk's political career appeared to be over, but events took a surprising turn. martin van buren, who had served as Andrew Jackson's vice president from 1833 to 1837 and as president from 1837 to 1841, was expected to be the democratic party's presidential nominee for the 1844 election, but Van Buren's candidacy was derailed when he announced in April 1844 that he was opposed to the annexation of Texas on the grounds that it would constitute aggression against Mexico. Van Buren's support immediately eroded, because the annexation of Texas was a controversial political item widely supported by andrew jackson and his followers. By the time the Democrats held their nominating convention in late May, the party was in turmoil. Van Buren's supporters failed to generate the support needed for their candidate and Polk was nominated to be the presidential candidate instead.

The Whig presidential candidate in 1844 was the powerful and influential henry clay of Kentucky, who had held important positions in both the House and the Senate in addition to serving as secretary of state under john quincy adams. The campaign was hard fought and bitter. Polk eventually won with 170 electoral votes compared with Clay's 105; in the popular vote, Polk received just 38,000 more votes than Clay, out of the almost 2,700,000 votes cast.

The Polk administration added approximately 1.2 million square miles to the United States, increasing its size by fifty percent. The addition resulted from the three major foreign policy matters Polk oversaw: the annexation of Texas, the Mexican War, and negotiations with Great Britain over the Oregon territory.

Polk inherited the Texas issue from the administration of john tyler. Tyler had wrestled with Congress over methods for annexing Texas, which had existed as the independent Lone Star Republic since winning its independence from Mexico in 1836. Tyler and Congress had agreed that Texas would be given the opportunity to vote for annexation, and Polk continued this approach. The Texas congress eventually approved annexation and wrote a state constitution, which the voters approved in a general referendum. In December 1845 the U.S. Congress completed the transaction by admitting Texas as the twenty-eighth state.

The annexation led to territorial disputes that resulted in war between the United States and Mexico. For several years relations between the United States and Mexico had been rocky, primarily because the United States had made financial claims against the Mexican government. Since winning its independence from Spain in the early 1820s, Mexico had had a series of unstable governments, and foreign nationals often had lost property during the resulting revolutions. Those individuals and their governments lodged claims against the Mexican government, and by the mid-1840s, these claims amounted to millions of dollars. This dispute over claims had soured relations between the United States and Mexico, and the annexation of Texas brought matters to a crisis. As part of the annexation agreement, the United States government had consented to recognize Texas's claim to the Rio Grande boundary and to provide military protection to defend that boundary. For its part, Mexico had never given up hope of winning back Texas, and the United States' annexation, together with the assertion of the Rio Grande boundary, the placement of U.S. troops along the border, and the longstanding claims disagreement, led Mexico to break off diplomatic relations with Washington and accuse the United States of initiating war.

In response, Polk sent a representative to negotiate with the Mexican government, offering to buy California and New Mexico and relinquish U.S. claims against Mexico in return for a recognition of the Rio Grande boundary. The Mexican government refused to negotiate, and by spring of 1846, skirmishes were beginning to break out along the border. Polk requested that Congress declare war, which it did by an overwhelming margin. Though the United States lacked a powerful professional army, volunteers signed up in droves. The war lasted until September 1847, when the Mexican government agreed to enter into peace negotiations. In the resulting agreement, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico agreed to recognize the Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas and to cede New Mexico and upper California to the United States; for its part, the United States agreed to relinquish all claims against Mexico and to pay the Mexican government $15 million.

The third major foreign policy issue requiring Polk's attention was the dispute between the United States and Great Britain over the Oregon territory, which stretched from the northern boundary of California to the Alaska panhandle, including what is now Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Both countries claimed the area but had agreed in 1818 to occupy it jointly, with the provision that either party could terminate the agreement with a year's notice. The United States had repeatedly requested to resolve the issue by extending the forty-ninth parallel boundary that existed between the two countries east of the Rocky Mountains, but Britain had refused, insisting on the Columbia River as the boundary.

The situation had remained unresolved, and British fur traders had continued to dominate the area into the 1830s. At that time, however, increasing numbers of U.S. settlers migrated into Oregon and pressed the United States to address their needs and defend their interests. After the 1844 presidential election, the issue became heated. As U.S. statements on the issue became more angry and aggressive, the British government grew concerned that war might break out, and it entered into earnest negotiations with the United States. In July 1845 Polk once again offered to draw the boundary at the forty-ninth parallel, but the British minister in Washington rejected the offer. Furious, Polk withdrew the offer, instead reasserting the U.S. claim to the entire territory.

In his first message to Congress in December 1845, Polk continued this hard line on Oregon,

asking Congress to provide the one year's notice that the United States was terminating its joint occupancy agreement with Great Britain. In addition, he asked that jurisdiction be extended to Americans living in Oregon and that military protection be provided to emigrants along the route to Oregon. Finally, Polk reasserted the monroe doctrine, which held that North America was not open to any further colonization by European powers. Polk's tough stance apparently spurred Great Britain to renew negotiations, and this time it agreed to the forty-ninth parallel boundary. The treaty was signed on June 15, 1846.

A principal goal of Polk's domestic agenda was to eliminate the high tariffs that had been imposed in 1842 under the Tyler administration. Polk believed that low tariffs were crucial for the success of the agricultural sector, and after strong and sustained lobbying, he was able to persuade Congress to reduce tariffs in July 1846.

A second focus of Polk's domestic efforts was the establishment of an independent treasury for the United States. Previously, the government's funds had been held in national banks or in various state banks, but Polk argued that the government's money should not be deposited in banks at all, but should be held in its own independent treasury.

Despite Polk's many successes, presidential scholars agree that he utterly failed in his ability to foresee the catastrophic consequences that the slavery issue would have for the nation. A slaveholder with plantations in Tennessee and Mississippi, Polk never actively defended slavery, but he failed to see the importance that it would have, instead believing that it was an aggravating side issue that hampered the resolution of more important problems.

Polk left office when his term ended in 1849, remaining faithful to his election promise that he would serve only one term as president. Polk returned to Tennessee exhausted and in ill health. Just three months after leaving office, Polk died unexpectedly on June 15, 1849. He was fifty-four years old.

further readings

Bergeron, Paul H. 1994. "James K. Polk." Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, edited by Leonard W. Levy and Louis Fisher. New York: Simon & Schuster.

——. 1987. The Presidency of James K. Polk. Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas.

Haynes, Sam W. 2002. James K. Polk and the Expansionist Impulse. New York: Longman.

Leonard, Thomas M. 2001. James K. Polk: A Clear and Unquestionable Destiny. Wilmington, Del.: S.R. Books.

Pletcher, David M. 1996. "James K. Polk." The Presidents, 2d ed., edited by Henry F. Graff. New York: Scribner.

James Knox Polk

The administration of James Knox Polk (1795-1849), eleventh president of the United States, saw America at war with Mexico. As a consequence, Polk added more territory to the United States than had any other president except Thomas Jefferson.

James K. Polk was born on Nov. 2, 1795, in Mecklenburg County, N.C. As a child, he moved to an area in Tennessee settled by his grandfather, a land speculator. After graduation from the University of North Carolina in 1818, he studied law under Congressman Felix Grundy and was admitted to the bar in 1820. Elected to the legislature in 1822, Polk became known as an opponent of the state's banks and land speculators. He supported Andrew Jackson, who was an old friend of his father, for the presidency in the election of 1824.

As a Jacksonian, Polk was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1825, becoming a leader of his party. He advocated a strict states'-rights position, emphasizing the desirability of an economical government. As chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee from 1833 to 1835, he supported Jackson's banking policies, including removal of the government's deposits from the Bank of the United States. As a reward for his support, Polk was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1835 and served until 1839. He vastly increased the powers of the Speaker's office by assuming the burden of guiding administrative measures through Congress. He was governor of Tennessee from 1839 until 1841; he was defeated for reelection in 1841 and again in 1843.

Polk received the Democratic nomination for president in 1844; he was the compromise candidate among several contenders. The first "dark horse, " he defeated the better-known Whig nominee, Henry Clay, in an extremely close election. During the campaign Polk skillfully reconciled the various Democratic factions. To attract John C. Calhoun's partisans, Polk adopted an expressionistic platform, emphasizing the incorporation of all the Oregon Territory and the annexation of Texas. Clay's last-minute endorsement of Texas annexation cost him the election, as it forced 15, 000 antislavery Whigs to defect to the Liberty party.

The Presidency

Polk's cabinet, one of the most able of the antebellum period, included Secretary of State James Buchanan, Secretary of the Treasury Robert J. Walker, Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft, and Secretary of War William L. Marcy. They represented most factions of the Democratic party. Their renunciations of all presidential ambitions while in the administration, as well as Polk's decision not to run for a second term, were aimed at limiting friction within the party. This failed because of the alienation of Martin Van Buren from Polk and the commitment of antislavery Democrats to a free-soil policy in the territory acquired from Mexico after 1846.

Polk maintained a tight control over all decisions. As an administrator, he was extremely innovative. Introducing a real executive budget, he tightened up the bookkeeping operations in the various departments, which resulted in a considerable savings of money. His success as president may be determined in part by how well he achieved his goals. In his inaugural address, he set four major tasks for himself: reestablishment of the independent treasury, lowering of the tariff, settlement of the Oregon dispute with England, and acquisition of California. By his retirement in 1849 he had achieved all of these. Passage of the independent treasury completed the hard currency campaign the Democrats had begun more than a decade earlier. The basic feature of this system, in which the government received and paid its debts in specie, remained the dominant element in the American banking system until the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. Polk's commitment to a low tariff resulted in the passage of the Walker Tariff, whose rates were not substantially revised until the Civil War.

Foreign Policy

The most significant events of Polk's administration occurred in foreign policy. Since 1818 the United States and Great Britain had maintained joint occupation of the Oregon Territory. This solution no longer was workable after Polk, in his presidential campaign, laid claim to the whole region up to the southern boundary of Russian-controlled Alaska. Once he became president, he sought a more amiable solution, suggesting the extension of the 49th parallel, which already divided the United States from Canada east of the Rockies. British rejection of this position led to a minor war scare, lasting until the outbreak of the Mexican War. On the eve of that conflict, the question was settled in approximately the terms suggested by Polk.

After the annexation of Texas, which occurred as a result of a joint resolution of Congress on the last day of John Tyler's administration, Mexico broke off diplomatic relations with the United States. Polk wanted to eliminate all boundary disputes with Mexico, settle claims Americans had against the Mexican government, and acquire California. He hoped that the acquisition of California and Oregon would help to reunite the nation. Polk's emissaries failed to negotiate a treaty. When Mexico expelled John Slidell, the minister to Mexico, Polk decided upon war. He was given his opportunity when Gen. Zachary Taylor was fired upon in territory under dispute with Mexico above the Rio Grande River. The war resolution passed the House of Representatives on May 11, 1846.

War with Mexico

Despite the outbreak of war, Polk hoped to secure California and New Mexico by diplomacy. He financed Antonio López de Santa Ana's return to Mexico after the former dictator promised to negotiate peace. However, Santa Ana took command of the army as soon as he returned home. Another plan to set up a $2 million fund to purchase peace with Mexico met with defeat in Congress.

The war was won on the battlefield, as Polk proved an exceptionally adept commander-in-chief. Taylor advanced south to the heart of Mexico, while Gen. Winfield Scott invaded Mexico through Veracruz. Polk, distrusting both men as potential Whig candidates for president, kept close control over the Army. Scott captured Mexico City in April 1848.

The final diplomatic negotiations were conducted by a State Department clerk who joined Gen. Scott in Mexico City and arranged the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico gave up California and New Mexico as well as all claims to Texas for $15 million. Thus, by the Oregon and Guadalupe Hidalgo treaties, Polk had rounded out the continental United States, except for a small piece in the Southwest, purchased from Mexico in 1853.

Polk's hope that the war and the acquisition of the West Coast would end the growing sectional agitation that was threatening to break up the Union proved forlorn. During the course of the conflict, considerable opposition to the war developed both inside and outside Congress. That most of this opposition came from the Whigs did not obscure the fact that the war had intensified sectional disharmony. This was especially evident when a group of radical Democrats led by Congressman David Wilmot introduced the Wilmot Proviso, which would have barred slavery from the territories acquired as a consequence of the war. Twice this measure passed the House of Representatives to be defeated in the Senate. But the controversy would spread during the next decade and eventually lead to the Civil War. On this issue, Polk sought a compromise that would eliminate sectional friction. Although he was a slaveholder, he attempted to revive the Missouri Compromise of 1820, whereby slaves were to be prohibited above the 36°30′ parallel in the new territories. By 1848 this compromise was unacceptable to both the North and the South.

True to his commitments 4 years earlier, Polk stepped aside, supporting Lewis Cass for the presidential nomination. Zachary Taylor, the Whig candidate, defeated Cass in November. In a sense, this Democratic defeat resulted directly from Polk's administration. Van Buren broke with his party and, running as the Free Soil candidate, drew votes from Cass. The Free Soil party attracted radical Democrats and some Whigs who supported the Wilmot Proviso.

Polk had taken few vacations while in office, and when he left the presidency, his health was broken. He died in Nashville, Tenn., on June 15, 1849, just 3 months after leaving office.

Historians have generally considered Polk as one of America's "Ten Greatest Presidents." During his term he strengthened the office, achieved his legislative goals, and added a great new empire. But these goals were achieved at a great cost: the destruction of the party and the increased polarization of the sections.

Further Reading

Polk's writings are in Milo Milton Quaife, ed., The Diary of James K. Polk during His Presidency, 1845-1849 (4 vols., 1910). The definitive biography is the first two volumes of a projected three-volume study of Polk by Charles Grier Sellers: James K. Polk, Jacksonian, 1795-1843 (1957) and James K. Polk, Continentalist, 1843-1846 (1966). A useful old biography with an emphasis on Polk's public life is Eugene Irving McCormac, James K. Polk: A Political Biography (1922; repr. 1965), which concentrates particularly on Polk's role in Tennessee politics.

Polk's presidential election is covered in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed., History of American Presidential Elections (4 vols., 1971). An interesting account by a political scientist of the development of the presidency during Polk's term is Charles A. McCoy, Polk and the Presidency (1960). The standard account on the war with Mexico is Justin Smith, The War with Mexico (2 vols., 1919). Glenn W. Price, Origins of the War with Mexico: The Polk-Stockton Intrigue (1967), implicates Polk in Commodore Robert Stockton's attempt to launch an attack on Mexico. □

Polk, James Knox (1795–1849), eleventh president of the United States.A Jacksonian Democrat and devotee of Thomas Jefferson's agrarian political ideology, Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and reared in Maury County, Tennessee. Graduating with honors from the University of North Carolina in 1818, he first practiced law and in 1823 won election to the Tennessee legislature. He married Sarah Childress in 1824. Elected to Congress in 1825, he opposed President John Quincy Adams's domestic program of economic development and political consolidation. As chair of the House Ways and Means Committee in Andrew Jackson's first term, he led the Democratic party's opposition to federally funded internal improvements and renewal of the national bank's charter. He served two terms (1835–1839) as speaker of the House.

Polk backed the Democrat Martin Van Buren for president in 1836, but Tennessee voted Whig. Determined to regain political control of his state, he won the governorship in 1839. Tennessee again voted Whig in 1840, however, and Polk himself lost gubernatorial bids in 1841 and 1843. In 1844, seeing near‐certain Democratic defeat if Van Buren again headed the ticket, the aged Andrew Jackson persuaded the party to nominate Polk, a westerner who, he hoped, would annex Texas while bridging the deepening sectional divide. The first “dark horse” presidential candidate, Polk defeated both the Whig Henry Clay and James G. Birney of the tiny antislavery Liberty party by a razor‐thin plurality. Clay hurt his candidacy by issuing ambiguous statements on Texas annexation, while Polk limited his public utterances to a single statement on the tariff. The election revealed a nation almost evenly divided over expansionism, the tariff, immigration policy, and agrarianism versus the market revolution.

As president, Polk pursued five major goals: Texas annexation (already approved by Congress), settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute with Britain, tariff reduction, establishment of an independent treasury, and the purchase of California. In pursuing Texas annexation, Polk first tried diplomacy. He offered to purchase Mexico's northern provinces, not from a belief in so‐called Manifest Destiny but from a desire to preserve the agrarian republic. Each new generation of independent farmers, he believed, must find its own rich soil or sink into wage dependency. Mexico, rejecting America's right to annex lands west of the Sabine River, broke diplomatic relations shortly after Polk's inauguration. Polk sought to restore amicable ties, but Mexico's military rulers feared that the loss of Texas would precipitate other provincial uprisings and a further erosion of centralized control. For his part, Polk saw annexation as preferable to a drawn‐out defensive border war upholding Texas's sovereignty and its claims to the Rio Grande as its southern boundary. Convinced that Mexico intended to invade Texas and frustrated when Mexico snubbed John Slidell, his diplomatic emissary, Polk ordered Zachary Taylor and his troops to the Rio Grande. On 24 April 1846, a large Mexican force crossed the river and captured an American patrol. Reacting forcefully, Polk on 11 May informed Congress that “war exists by the act of Mexico itself.” The resulting war led to U.S. acquisition of Texas, California, and Mexico's other territories north of the Rio Grande.

The British cabinet, meanwhile, had decided to settle the Oregon dispute by accepting a boundary line at the forty‐ninth parallel. Contrary to the view of his secretary of state, James Buchanan, Polk had calculated correctly that the British would not go to war over its commercial interests in North America. Polk's diplomatic and military successes failed to bring political consensus at home, however, as the Whig party blamed him for giving up half of Oregon and denounced the Mexican War as immoral. Polk's expansionist policies postponed the demise of the agrarian republic, but left unresolved the profound economic, religious, and racial issues dividing the nation. Having accomplished his goals, he honored his pledge not to seek a second term. Polk succumbed to cholera at his Nashville, Tennessee, home just three months after leaving office.
See also Antebellum Era; Bank of the United States, First and Second; Texas Republic and Annexation.

Bibliography

Milo Milton Quaife, ed., The Diary of James K. Polk, 4 vols., 1910.
Charles Grier Sellers Jr. , James K. Polk, Jacksonian, 1957.
Herbert Weaver and Wayne Cutler, eds., Correspondence of James K. Polk, 9 vols., 1969–1996.

Wayne Cutler

Polk, James K. (1795–1849), eleventh president of the United States.Born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, on 2 November 1795, Polk moved to Tennessee with his family in 1806, and graduated from the University of North Carolina. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1820. An active Jacksonian Democrat, he served in Congress from 1825 to 1839, was speaker of the house and later governor of Tennessee.

In 1844, Polk—known as “Young Hickory”—was elected president. He entered the White House with a clear and aggressive foreign policy agenda, and as president he employed the threat of war and war itself as instruments to achieve his territorial objective: the West Coast and especially its ports.

The United States annexed Texas in 1845, and Polk provoked the Mexican War a year later by making use of a climate of hostility, existing border disputes, and Mexican unwillingness and inability to accept U.S. offers to purchase its northern provinces. Polk proved to be a determined, tough, and successful commander in chief. Although he lacked military experience or training, he made many key military decisions and played a direct role in organizing and planning the war effort. Despite opposition from Whigs and some Democrats, Polk never wavered in his determination to use the war to acquire the territories of New Mexico and upper California.

Polk was not a popular president with his contemporaries. He was intensely partisan and had a proclivity for secrecy and evasiveness. He was constantly at odds with his two Whig generals, Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott. Moreover, the Mexican War proved unpopular in the Northeast, and territorial expansion into the Southwest was a highly controversial political issue. Polk, however, is generally recognized as the first effective wartime president. Unlike James Madison during the War of 1812, Polk aggressively employed presidential power to conduct the military effort and achieve administration war goals, thus setting an example upon which Abraham Lincoln would expand during the Civil War.
[See also Commander in Chief, President as.]

Bibliography

Paul H. Bergeron , The Presidency of James K. Polk, 1987.
Sam W. Haynes , James K. Polk and the Expansionist Impulse, 1997.

John H. Schroeder