In 1845, North Carolina would claim another US president, James Knox Polk.
James was born in a small farmhouse (“possibly a log cabin,” one source notes in Lincoln-ese fashion) in Pineville, North Carolina, near Charlotte. Born to Presbyterian parents of Scots-Irish descent, Polk’s father was a slaveholding farmer who gave up on North Carolina to pursue a life of land speculation in Tennessee. Moving his family after James’s eleventh birthday, the elder Polk became wealthy and was eventually selected as a Tennessee county judge. Meanwhile, the young Polk had been homeschooled until 1814 (remember, no public schools until 1840) and then headed to the University of North Carolina. Graduating with honors, Polk then traveled to Nashville, where he received his law degree and was admitted to the bar in 1820.
In unpromising fashion, James K. Polk’s first law case involved defending his father—charged with public fist fighting—gaining his release for a one-dollar fine. He would go on to greater heights of notoriety, growing a successful law practice, accepting an appointment as colonel in the Tennessee militia, fulfilling five terms in Congress, serving as governor of Tennessee and reaching the presidency in 1845 with a campaign advocating slavery and westward expansion. Polk would become the only president whose home states, North Carolina and Tennessee, did not support him.
Although Polk was known for his fine oratory skills, period portraits depict Polk as a serious Addams family contender, with a sinister-looking scowl permanently etched on his face. Along with this setback, Polk would be remembered as the president who made Manifest Destiny the national religion, provoking a war with Mexico in order to secure western lands (as a slaveholder, he also hoped to introduce more slaveholding states). His actions would divide the nation and move it toward civil war. On a positive note, of which there were few, Polk was considered a decisive leader who strengthened the executive power of the presidency and signed the bill creating the Department of the Interior (responsible for the conservation of federal lands).
Polk’s incredibly active four-year term left him exhausted and most likely initiated his spooky appearance. He died three months after his presidency ended. Polk is honored in North Carolina with a statue at the University of North Carolina and a statue at the State Capitol—where he is discreetly perched next to the keister of Andrew Jackson’s horse. His plaque gushes, “He enlarged our national boundaries.”