Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America

Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America by Walter R. Borneman was my pick for the book on our 11th president, and it was not a bad pick. It’s a quick overview, which is what I like, but also highlighted his contributions to our country.

James Knox Polk was born on November 2, 1795, near Pineville, NC and was the oldest of 10 children born to Jane and Samuel Polk. He was not sickly, but not always in the best of health, he was prone to stomach upsets and kidney stones, which he basically just dealt with until he was 17 when he underwent surgery to remove the kidney stones. Now, surgery in the 19th century, pre-anesthesia, meant getting blind shit faced drunk and letting the doctor just cut on you. There was no guarantee of success or survival as post-surgical infections were common. But he did survive; however, it’s likely he also received an inadvertent vasectomy as he never had children.

When he was 11, the family moved to the Duck River Valley in Tennessee and that is where the family lived and where he grew up and lived for the rest of his life, unless he was politicking in DC, excepting his childhood in North Carolina, and his college years, where he was enrolled from 21 to 23 years of age, before returning to Tennessee to begin a law clerkship with Felix Grundy, who remained one of his mentors, even though the two rarely saw eye to eye on anything. Polk immediately recognized that he didn’t really want to be a lawyer, he wanted to be a politician, but that law was a good steppingstone to achieve that goal.

Even though he didn’t want to be a lawyer, picking Grundy as a mentor was a good move, despite not seeing eye to eye, as Grundy was a very astute man who assisted Polk in getting his start in politics, helping Polk to get elected as clerk of the senate in the state of Tennessee in 1820.

So 1820 he’s the clerk of the Tennessee State Senate and admitted to the bar, in 1823 he’s elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives, and that’s where he truly got his start in politics and as a politician, which lasted for two years.

January 1, 1824 he married Sarah Childress Polk and on August 4, 1825 he’s elected to the US House of Representatives.  Polk served seven terms as US Congressman Polk from Tennessee starting December 5, 1825, and this is where he began to really interact with Jackson during this time, and Jackson became his mentor. His contact with Jackson was so well known he picked up the nicknames Young Hickory, and Napoleon of the Stump. Because he was a really accomplished speech maker.

Jackson as Senator and Polk as a novice congressman gave Polk time to really learn at the feet of the master, and to coalesce who he really was politically. Polk’s last two terms in Congressman he served as speaker of the house, as well as serving on the committee for foreign affairs and on the house committee on ways and means, before making the jump to the executive branch by becoming governor in Tennessee in 1839. He only served one term as governor, losing his next two election bids for that seat, which brings us up to 1843.

So, he was a career politician at this point, and people knew who he was by 1843. And having lost two bids, it’s kind of believed his political career is now dead in the water. However, Tyler’s presidency was so contentious, that his political allies started considering running Polk as a good compromise candidate for vice-presidency on a Van Buren/Polk ticket in 1844.

And then Texas happened.

So, Tyler tried very hard to get Texas annexed and to come up with an acceptable treaty to make that happen. The move to annex gets hindered by the unexpected death of Secretary of State Upsher and the replacement Secretary of State John Calhoun takes over.

The problem with Calhoun is that was such an ardent slave holder, that once he got into the State position, has the treaty in his hot little hand, brings it to the senate, Calhoun then goes out and starts talking to the press, saying Yes, Texas will be a slave holding state. This caused problems with the abolitionists in the northern states who were all very much against slavery.

So, the presumed Whig nominee, Henry Clay, steps up and says NOPE! We don’t want Texas if it means more slave states joining the Union. And if the Whigs nominate me, I’ll make sure to veto Texas. And then Van Buren, in a colossal misstep, said the exact same thing Clay said. So then Jackson steps up and says, ok, well we need Texas. Jackson’s no longer president, but he is politically savvy, and this caused a shift in fortunes for Polk.

Not quite immediately…the initial plan was to keep Polk as VP candidate with Silas Wright as the presidential candidate. And Polk was good with this too. Then at the Democratic convention in Baltimore in 1844, Henry Clay is unanimously elected to be the Whig Parties candidate with Theodore Frielingheusen as his running mate, and a month later the Democrats hold their convention in Baltimore.

And once the Democrats realized a 2/3 majority would be needed to obtain a candidate, not just a simple majority, they went to polling. And the numbers shifted back and forth, but at the end of the first day, no candidate had been selected.

Into history steps Gideon Pillow. Who was one of Polk’s men. Not always a good man, but he stepped in and served his purpose. The original plan had been to force Van Buren to withdraw before nominating Wright/Polk. However, Wright refused to run unless Van Buren VOLUNTARILY withdrew. Not forced…voluntarily.

So Pillow, negotiating with the other delegates, proposed to put forth Polk as a candidate. And the eighth poll of the convention occurred the next morning, with Polk coming in as fourth pick. After a bit of shouting, the dust settles, and Polk is nominated on the ninth ballot, with George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania as his running mate.

Recognizing that this would be a tough fight, Polk appealed to Jackson for assistance, asking for three favors. First, had to do with media relations, specifically the Washington Globe, which was published by Jackson’s friend Frank Blair, and was constantly attacking Tyler. Now, in today’s media, we all more or less know where the propaganda comes from. Even more so back then. EVERYONE knew that Blair and the Washington Globe was Jackson’s man and paper. And since Blair was attacking Tyler, everyone knew it was with Jackson’s blessing. So Polk asked Jackson to ask Blair to pull it back. He was worried if the attacks were to vituperative, then some democrats might vote for that dreaded third party, or for the Whig’s out of spite. This request was gladly granted by Jackson.

The second request was to persuade Tyler to voluntarily withdraw from the race. And this required some diplomatic tap dancing on the part of Jackson, but he pulled it off, and Tyler ultimately referred democratic minded followers to vote for Polk.

The third request, was to write a letter to any friend that could then be leaked to the press, indicating that Tyler loyalists who voted democrat would be welcomed back to the party and eligible for patronage appointments. This, Jackson refused to do. This reminded Jackson horribly of the deal between Clay and Adams that cost Jackson the presidency in 1824.

Points one and two were all that were needed to secure Polk the 1844 election, and he was sworn in as the eleventh president on March 4, 1845. Part of what won him the election was his promise to be a one term president. This may have ultimately made his job harder.

First off, because he swore it was only one term, he did garner a lot of support, from future presidential hopefuls, who saw it as just four short years until their own shot at the White House. People who were unsure were like, hey, it’s only four years, no problem.

On the flip side, having announced his intention to be a one term president from the start, he went into his presidency as a lame duck: One who is seen as having less influence with other politicians due to the limited time left in office.

This left the incoming congress critters with little incentive to play nice with Polk.

His cabinet would push back on Polk, more than any other president. Because in four years, it could be any one of them sitting in the head chair. And how’s it going to look to future voters, if I don’t speak my mind now? And so everything he did had an undertone with his cabinet. How are those optics.

On the other hand, since he was not worried about his re-election chances, this freed his hands considerably so that he was actually able to accomplish everything he set out to do as president. When was the last time that happened?  Probably 1845-1849.

Per his campaign speech, he had four things he wanted to accomplish.

1.       Resolve the joint occupation of Oregon.

2.       Acquire California.

3.       Reduce the Tariff.

4.       Establish an Independent Treasury.

You may note that annexing Texas was not one of Polk’s goals. Almost before the ink was dry on the treaty, the Senate had denied it. So just hours before stepping down, Tyler sent an offer to Texas to join the Union, not as a territory, but as a full state. Which offer was accepted by both the Senate and Texas, making Texas our 28th state on December 29, 1845.

Polk never claimed credit for it. That was all Tyler, and he let that honor ride with the former president.

However, having Texas as a state in 1845 laid the groundwork for brining in California. See, the actual boundaries of Texas were a little nebulous. When Texas left Mexico in 1836, the actual boundaries were not clearly defined. Mexico thought the boundary was the Nueces River. Polk thought it should be the Rio Grande.

So, in 1846, Polk sent troops, led by General Zachary Taylor to set up positions along the Rio Grande. And Mexico, because they think, No….the Nueces is the border…. Takes exception to this action. And sends troops to the Rio Grande.

And April 25, 1846, Mexican soldiers attack Taylor’s position, resulting in 16 American deaths. Military action continued into May, before news even made it back to Washington DC. And when that news hit DC, there was none of this slow supplication that Madison engaged in with the War of 1812. Polk was pretty decisive in action Congress for war authority. Polk’s contention that we needed to act now, would be challenged before the war was over by novice Congressman Abraham Lincoln. But in the moment, it got Polk the authority he needed to make the war happen. Which was the funding and the troops to set our southern border.

Concurrent to all this in 1846 was the question of Oregon. As part of the resolution of the War of 1812, the Oregon territory was to be jointly held by the United States and England. And in the intervening 30 odd years, since the Treaty of Ghent had been signed in 1814, Americans had started moving west. In record numbers. So that most of the settlers in Oregon were American. Polk determined that this meant Oregon, should be wholly American. Because there were more of us.

England was very amenable to this negotiation. They just wanted access to the harbor but didn’t really care about the land. Which is a good thing for Polk, or he might have had the dreaded two front war on his hands. But, with England agreeable, the northern border was settled with England at its current location, giving us our Canada/USA border pretty much as it exists today. This agreement with England was reached on June 12, 1846, when the Senate approved the treaty with England, giving us Oregon, which would eventually break into the states of Oregon and Washington.

Second point: Reduce the Tariff.  This was more easily done than one would have thought, given that there was no income tax back then, so tariffs were the only source of government income. And we now needed money, because we were fighting a war with Mexico. The administration simply removed the tariffs on tea and coffee, the two imports NOT domestically grown, so why should we tax them? Removal of the tariff on Tea and Coffee passed July 3, 1846.

Establish an independent treasury. His plan was for the government to hold it’s own funds, in it’s own vaults, and not have them be deposited in a national corporation or individual banks. Martin Van Buren had actually managed to establish something like that, but it was repealed almost as soon as he lost his reelection bid in 1840. And from 1846 to 1913, national finance was handled by way of this Independent Treasury Act.

So Polk accomplished three of his four stated goals within 18 months of taking office. Which is impressive.

That fourth goal. California. A not insignificant chunk of this book was spent on explaining California, expansion, John C. Fremont, Kit Carson, and the Mexican/American War. Which makes perfect sense. This is one of the very few Congressionally Declared Wars in US History. 1812, Mexican/American, World War I, World War II. Maybe the Spanish American War. Everything else is just the president being a dictatorial asshole.

So only our second declared war, and the conclusion of it would set our national borders at almost exactly where they would be for the duration of our country.

This telling reads almost like a who’s who of Civil War fighters…because most of them got their start militarily during the Mexican/American War, and drives home that history does not happen in a vacuum. And while Polk gets the credit for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the war, he maybe doesn’t deserve quite as much credit as history gives him. Not because of the nebulous manner in which the war started. But because he had ordered his ambassador, Nicholas P. Trist, to negotiate the treaty with specifically defined goals, but ordered Trist to return to DC early based off of a news article from Mexico that indicated Trist was willing to settle our borders at the Nueces River, which is what kicked off the war to start.

Trist had made no such promise or statement and was very closed to concluding negotiations when he received his recall notice. So he ignored the recall notice and continued to conclude the treaty. I guess what Polk does deserve credit for here, is not received this treaty gift wrapped with everything he wanted, Rio Grande to the Pacific ocean, he got it. Trist got it for him. And he responded graciously, giving Trist a big old Pat on the Back. Treaty was passed, with our southern border finally settled with the Gadsden Purchase of 1853.

So Polk achieved everything he set out to do when he stepped into the role of President. Oregon, California, Independent Treasury, and Tariff Reduction. Set four goals, four achieved. In four years.

Polk then reaffirmed he had no intention of running again in 1848, and stepped down from the White House on March 4, 1849, handing the reigns over to Zachary Taylor, hero of the Mexican/American War. Polk headed out for a tour of the United States with his wife, starting out heading south by steamboat and train, before looping up the Mississippi heading towards home in Tennessee on April 2, 1849, before dying of Cholera on June 15, 1849. His widow Sarah, however, lived for another 42 years, and she wore widow’s black the entire time, until passing away herself on August 14, 1891.

Overall this was a good book, it reinforces that history is not static, does not occur in a vacuum, and there is significant crossover in historical events as they happen.

This book was initially reviewed on YouTube on February 27, 2022, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.