Chapter 8
Dreaming of California: James K. Polk
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding Polk’s rise to power
Keeping campaign promises after winning the presidency
Expanding into new territories
Knowing when not to run
James Knox Polk is one of the most underrated presidents in U.S. history. Polk had one of the most successful presidencies in U.S. history, yet presidential observers usually ignore him. In his four years as president, Polk was not only one of the hardest working presidents, but he was also able to keep his administration free of corruption and scandals — no small feat, as recent history has shown.
Polk’s legacy isn’t just his able leadership but also the doubling of the size of the United States. To top it off, Polk also kept his campaign promises, making him even more unique in America’s long list of presidents.
President Polk, when asked about his work habits, said, “In truth, though I occupy a very high position, I am the hardest working man in this country.”
Young Hickory
Growing up in Tennessee, Polk was a fan of local hero and favorite son Andrew Jackson, who deeply affected Polk’s political ideas — Polk tied his political career to Jackson’s. Jackson, nicknamed “Old Hickory,” was a good friend of the family. Polk was so dedicated to Jackson and his ideas that he was referred to as “Young Hickory.”
Polk’s Early Political Career
In 1820, Polk was admitted to the bar. In 1823, he won a seat in the Tennessee state legislature. Polk, who was a fairly small man, was such a tenacious campaigner that supporters gave him the nickname “Napoleon on the Stump.”
After the 1824 presidential election — when the House of Representatives selected John Quincy Adams for president over Polk’s political mentor, Andrew Jackson — Polk made it his mission to get Jackson elected president in 1828. To that end, Polk ran for Jackson’s old seat in the House of Representatives in 1824 and was thrilled when he won.
James Polk got involved in politics at a time when the dominant party, the Democratic-Republicans, was falling apart. The faction that was organizing the Democratic Party supported farmers and workers. Polk aligned himself with the future Democrats, calling for free public education and lower tariffs. The faction that was organizing the National Republicans championed the interests of the growing business class and merchants.
After working day and night to elect Jackson to the presidency during the 1828 presidential campaign, Polk set out to make sure that Jackson’s presidential agenda made it through Congress. He soon became Jackson’s right arm in Congress. In 1835, the House selected Polk to be the Speaker of the House. Because Polk was so loyal to Jackson, his opponents made fun of him, accusing him of not having a mind of his own. They insulted Polk by using terms like “slave” and “servant” to describe him.
James Polk is the only Speaker of the House of Representatives to become president.
In 1836, the Whigs carried Tennessee in the presidential and gubernatorial races. Polk, who couldn’t bear to see his home state governed by the opposition, ran for governor in 1839 and won back the office for the Democrats. Polk didn’t hold the office of governor long, losing reelection bids in 1841 and 1843. His political career seemed to be over.
Texas to the Rescue
With the 1844 presidential election approaching, Polk let it be known that he was interested in the vice presidency. He began to support former president Martin Van Buren, who, after losing in 1840, wanted to make one more run for office. Van Buren enjoyed broad support within the Democratic Party and looked like a sure bet to win the nomination.
Then the issue of territorial expansion became a campaign issue. Polk and former president Jackson endorsed President Tyler’s annexation of Texas as a slave state into the Union. But Van Buren opposed the idea — as did many Northern Democrats. Van Buren not only alienated the Southern wing of the Democratic Party but also expansionists within the party who believed that the United States should expand its borders (for info on this policy, see the “Manifest Destiny: God’s take on geography” sidebar).
Congress rejected the annexation of Texas in 1844 because the Whigs and Northern Democrats feared that it would be admitted as a slave state. They were right. When Texas was admitted in 1845, it became a slave state and later joined the Confederacy.
Southern and Western Democrats decided that Van Buren had to go. So they changed the nominating rules at the Democratic convention to require that a nominee receive a two-thirds majority vote instead of a simple majority. Van Buren failed to meet the new standard.
Former president Jackson endorsed his loyal friend Polk rather than Van Buren for the presidency. After several unsuccessful ballots, the delegates realized that Van Buren wouldn’t receive the necessary votes to win the Democratic nomination, so they turned to Polk as the only alternative. For the first time in its history, the United States had a dark horse candidate — an unexpected or unknown contestant who is not expected to win — nominated for the presidency by a major party. Suddenly the man whose career seemed to be over only a few months earlier was the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party.
Keeping His Campaign Simple
As the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party in 1844, Polk faced a formidable challenger in Henry Clay, the Whig nominee. This political battle allowed for some payback on Polk’s part: Clay was the man who took away the presidency from Polk’s buddy Jackson in 1824 (see Chapter 6). At first, the Whigs had fun with Polk’s candidacy. They thought that he was a nobody who had no chance of beating their well-known candidate. Clay was even quoted as asking, “Who is James Polk?” His tune soon changed.
Polk ran on a limited platform, making only a few campaign promises instead of outlining a major agenda as is common today. His major theme in the campaign was the territorial expansion of the United States, promising to reoccupy the Oregon Territory and annex Texas, as well as acquire California.
Polk squeezed out a narrow victory with the help of Southern Democrats, who wanted the acquisition of new slave states, and the western parts of the United States, where many people believed in the concept of Manifest Destiny. The final result was close: Polk beat Clay by about 38,000 votes nationwide.
President James Polk (1845–1849)
Polk, shown in Figure 8-1, was a workaholic who set out to fulfill his campaign promises right away. He turned first to the question of tariffs. In 1846, Polk and the Democratic Congress successfully passed a new tariff, the “Walker Tariff,” which lowered duties on non-luxury items, such as textiles and agricultural goods. Polk knew that low duties allowed the average person to buy goods for less. He also believed that free trade with Great Britain, especially in the area of agricultural goods, would stimulate the export of more U.S. goods to the British Empire.
Establishing a treasury system
President Polk, being a true Jacksonian, didn’t believe in a national bank or paper money — for him, only gold currency had value. After President Jackson destroyed the national bank, his successor, President Van Buren, put an independent treasury system into place.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
FIGURE 8-1: James Polk, 11th president of the United States.
When the Whigs were elected to office in 1840, they destroyed the independent treasury system. Polk’s goal was to restore it. Because his party controlled Congress, Polk had a fairly easy time restoring the system. By 1846, the independent treasury was back in place. The independent treasury remained intact until it was replaced with the Federal Reserve System in 1913.
Expanding north and south
One of Polk’s biggest tasks as president was tackling the issue of territorial expansion. Polk turned first to the Northwest — namely the Oregon Territory, which included the western parts of what today is Canada. After lengthy negotiations with Great Britain, Polk successfully added the Oregon Territory to the United States in 1846.
Without firing a shot, Polk gained access to the Pacific coast. But such achievement was not enough for a man driven by ambition. Polk decided it was time to turn south. After successfully dealing with the British Empire, what resistance could a small country — politically unstable and divided — provide against the mighty United States? Mexico became Polk’s next target.
Polk’s victory in November 1844 gave the Democratic party a majority in both houses of Congress. For this reason, President Tyler decided to give the annexation of Texas one more shot. Tyler asked Congress to offer annexation to Texas through a joint resolution of Congress, which required a simple majority instead of a two-thirds Senate vote. After Congressional approval, Tyler signed the bill on March 1, 1845, offering to admit Texas to statehood. Texas accepted on December 29, 1845.
Polk was halfway to fulfilling his campaign promise of territorial expansion. Polk believed in Manifest Destiny. He knew that the United States could become a great power in the world only if it expanded to the Pacific Ocean. He first attempted to buy California from Mexico. In late 1845, he offered Mexico $25 million and promised to drop U.S. claims for $3 million in damages in exchange for California. Mexico, still upset over the loss of Texas (see Chapter 6), refused to discuss the offer.
To make matters worse, the Mexicans refused even to meet with the U.S. representative, John Slidell. An angry and determined Polk incited U.S. citizens living in California to rebel against Mexico. Polk also attempted to restore former Mexican dictator General Santa Anna, of Alamo fame, to power. (Later, Polk did restore Santa Anna to power — he promptly began fighting against the United States.) By early 1846, all of Polk’s attempts had failed. He concluded that only war could accomplish his goals.
Fighting a war with Mexico
Polk, not wanting to appear as the bad guy, looked for a pretense to declare war on Mexico. The Texas-Mexico border gave him the issue he was looking for. Knowing that the border was disputed, Polk sent 4,000 troops under General (and later president) Zachary Taylor to the Rio Grande area.
Mexico, who claimed the territory, wasn’t amused; Mexican troops attacked a U.S. patrol, killing 11 soldiers. The attack was enough for Polk. Addressing Congress, Polk loudly proclaimed that Mexico had invaded U.S. territory and shed American blood. The war was on.
When Texas was part of Mexico, the state’s borders extended only to the Nueces River, excluding what today is south Texas. But the Republic of Texas claimed that its borders extended all the way down to the Rio Grande River. When Texas was admitted to the Union, Polk aggressively supported this claim. Mexico, however, didn’t recognize the Rio Grande border.
Support for the war was high in the Southern states and the American West. Whigs and Northern Democrats rejected the war because they saw it as another attempt by Polk to expand slavery. They also felt that the president deceived them by inciting a war and that the war itself was not only unjust but also illegal.
Among the most famous opponents of the war was a young congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln, who condemned Polk on the floor of the House. Even a young army lieutenant involved in the war, Ulysses S. Grant, was quoted as saying that Polk started an “unjust war by a stronger nation against a weaker nation.”
Commanding his troops
James Polk was the first U.S. president to truly function as commander in chief of the armed forces. Unlike modern-day presidents, who call on generals to mastermind wars for them, Polk ran the war himself, working 18-hour days and clashing with his generals. After arguing with Whig generals, Polk became so paranoid that he trusted only himself to do the job.
With the Mexican army ill-equipped and poorly led, it wasn’t much of a war. Even though the United States lost 13,000 troops, only 2,000 of them actually died in battle. Most were killed by disease. In 1847, when U.S. troops captured Mexico City, the war was over.
In early 1848, Polk forced Mexico to sign the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo. This harsh and insulting treaty added New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah to the United States, as well as parts of Colorado and Wyoming. The border between Texas and Mexico was fixed at the Rio Grande River. In addition, Polk agreed to pay Mexico the measly sum of $15 million — $10 million less than he had originally offered.
To the surprise of everybody who knew him, Polk showed some restraint after the war: He opposed those who wanted the United States to annex all of Mexico.
Even more insulting to Mexico was Polk’s announcement in early 1848 that gold had been discovered in California. Polk told the American people that California’s gold could not only be used to pay for the war against Mexico, but also to develop the newly acquired western part of the United States. The discovery of gold started the famous California gold rush, where thousands of U.S. citizens rushed to California to try their luck at mining gold.
Winning the War but Losing the Battle
Ironically, Polk’s great successes in the war with Mexico and the compromise with Great Britain didn’t add up to political success back home in Washington, D.C. The victory over Mexico and the enlargement of the country should have provided the president with lots of political support — but that’s not how it worked out. Instead, the more successful Polk was in his quest for expansion, the more enemies he made at home. Northern Democrats and Whigs opposed him. They believed that he wanted to spread slavery by conquering more areas and making the new territories into states that supported slavery.
By the summer of 1846, the Northern Democrats and Whigs actively opposed Polk’s policies. Polk never understood what all the fuss was about; he was just interested in expanding the country’s borders to fulfill the Manifest Destiny that he believed in.
Unable to find a solution to the question of whether to admit new states as free or slave states, Polk and Congress avoided the issue. Polk never imagined that his actions would contribute to a civil war.
In 1846, a Northern Democratic congressman by the name of David Wilmot offered what would be called the Wilmot Proviso. It declared that any territory conquered from Mexico could not have the institution of slavery. Even though the proviso never passed Congress, it contributed greatly to the outbreak of the Civil War. Some Southern states threatened to secede if the proviso passed Congress. The Southern states in turn pushed for what they called “popular sovereignty,” allowing the conquered areas themselves to decide whether to have slavery or not. Of course, they knew that most states would opt for slavery. The controversy itself wasn’t resolved until after Polk’s death.
Choosing Not to Run Again
Keeping his word, Polk didn’t run for reelection in1848. He instead opted to retire. His decision sparked a struggle for the nomination within the Democratic Party. The Southern wing of the party eventually prevailed, nominating Lewis Cass for the presidency. Cass was a supporter of popular sovereignty.
The Northern Democrats violently opposed popular sovereignty. They rallied around former president Van Buren, who had started his own party, the Free Soil Party, and was opposed to the expansion of slavery. A divided Democratic party allowed the Whigs to win the presidency in 1848. Ironically, it was Polk’s old nemesis, Zachary Taylor, the famous general from the Mexican-American War, who won the presidency for the Whigs.
President Polk literally worked himself into the grave. By the time he left office in March 1849, his work habits had taken a toll on his frail body. Polk’s sickly disposition, along with his habit of working 12 to 18 hours a day, caused his immune system to weaken. Three months after leaving office, Polk caught cholera and died. His wife, Sarah, lived another 42 years and turned their home into a shrine to Polk’s presidency. During the U.S. Civil War, Sarah stayed neutral publicly — though she privately supported the Confederacy.
President Polk and his wife Sarah were devout Presbyterians. They did not believe in drinking alcohol or even dancing. So during Polk’s presidency, both drinking alcohol and dancing were banned at all White House functions.