James K. Polk made 4 campaign promises when he ran for office. Those were that he would cut tariffs, reestablish the U.S. Treasury which had been done away with under Martin Van Buren, secure the Oregon Territory from Great Britain, and purchase California and New Mexico from Mexico. Oh, and he promised he would do all of this in just one four-year term. Well guess what? Unlike 99% of most politicians, James K. Polk did what he set out to do, and when he said he would do it. Polk is the last successful President we will see of the pre-civil war area. Under President Polk, the Unites States would first become a nation truly from sea to shining sea.
Polk joins the club of Presidents born to more modest families. He was born in a log cabin, in Pineville, North Caroline, to a family of farmers. He was the oldest of 10 children. At age 8 his family moved to the frontier area of Tennessee, where James’ father became a good acquaintance of future Tennessee President Andrew Jackson. Polk was a sickly child but became more robust in his teenage years. He enrolled at Bradley Academy in Murfreesboro, TN; and then attended the University of North Carolina when the school only had 80 students (it is close to 20,000 today).
Like so many Presidents before him, he graduated and quickly pursued the law profession. He moved to the frontier town of Nashville (again no hot chicken or opry yet). He studied under a famous trial lawyer and was even elected clerk of the Tennessee State Senate at age 24. At 25 he was admitted to the Tennessee Bar. He first case was to defend his father against charges from a public fighting citation (talk about awkward…..).
In 1825 Polk was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives to represent Tennessee. He would remain here for years, and in 1835 in his 5th consecutive term he would be elected Speaker of the House (and the only Speaker of the House to become President). In 1839, he would run for Governor of Tennessee as a Democrat, as a Whig Party candidate had won the 1835 election for the first time ever. He would run a successful campaign and be elected governor in 1839.
Polk always had aspirations of becoming President and saw the Vice Presidency as the most logical stepping stone. Martin Van Buren was running for President once again, and Polk desired to be his running mate. The hottest button issue at the time was the republic of Texas’s revolt against Mexico, and the possibility of the U.S. annexing Texas. Van Buren was against annexation, and Polk was very pro bringing Texas in as part of the United States. In a surprise move, the Democrats quit backing Van Buren, and backing Polk as they knew only a pro-annexation candidate would win. Overnight, Polk was suddenly in position to grab the office he always dreamed of. He would go on to win the election, after it was made known that his opponent was also against annexing Texas. The mood of the country was definitely to expand our territory, and that’s exactly what Polk set out to do.
Upon entering office, and the youngest to do so at that point at age 49, he immediately set out to tackle his four goals that we stated in the first paragraph. He quickly did move to annex Texas, and add them as our 28th state. As to be expected, Mexico was unhappy with this move, leading to the Mexican-American War from 1846-1848. The U.S. would win this war, and receive from Mexico all or parts of Texas, California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
While this was taking place, Polk was also working to secure the Oregon Country from the British. They laid claim to the land from the explorations of their sea captains Cook and Vancouver. The Americans claimed the land from the Lewis and Clark expeditions. Neither the British nor the United States thought it wise to battle over a distant territory that barely had any people living there at all. The U.S. especially didn’t since they were already fighting a war with Mexico. As a result, the U.S. received all of the Oregon Territory below the 49th parallel, and the British everything above (now Canadian Territories of British Columbia and Alberta). Now Polk in another large move had secured all or parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
Polk, in just two moves, added the territory that would become 12 states, while Iowa and Wisconsin also became states under his watch, increasing the total to 14. In his one term, he increased the size of the United States by more than a 3rd. Within his first year he would reestablish the national treasury that he set out to do, and it would stand for decades until the early 1900’s. He also did tariff negotiations with several different players such as Great Britain, Spain, and several central and South American countries. He lowered tariffs on all of them, booming the U.S economy out of the downward spiral it had been experiencing. He had truly fulfilled all of the campaign promises that he promised to do in just one term.
While Polk’s expansion helped shape what the United States looks like today, it wasn’t without consequences. The addition of so many new states and territories brought the slavery debate to the forefront of national attention. This problem would come to a major head in just under 15 years. Polk’s Major General of the United States Army would become a national war hero during the Mexican-American War. So much so, that he would succeed Polk as President (and was a man who had never expressed any political beliefs, or had even ever voted!). We will take a look at that man in our next article.