JAMES
KNOX POLK
The Forgotten
President
By
David
Neill
Under
Tutelage of
Delbert
Smith
Iowa
Western Community College
Clarinda
Campus
Neill
Publishing
Shenandoah
– Clarinda
November
1993
Introduction
When I
embarked upon this study of the eleventh President of the United States, it was
my intent to prove that James Knox Polk was one of the greatest presidents of
this nation. Having discovered that
others have already done just that (far better than I could), I will instead
acquaint the reader with President Polk, abolish preconceived notions about
“Polk the Mendacious” and harness an admiration for “Young Hickory.”
Though
unappreciated in his own time, modern historians see him in a different light. Norman Graebner said James Knox Polk was the
most significant figure between Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln.
Polk
was the first man to enter the Presidency with a defined agenda, which he
related to his Secretary of the Navy, George Bancroft:
There are four great measures which are to be
the measure of my administration: one, a reduction of the tariff; another, the
independent treasury; a third, the settlement of the Oregon boundary question;
and lastly, the acquisition of California.
He
ably accomplished all four of these goals and did it in a single four-year
term. No other president can claim such
success, both domestic and foreign, in so short a time.
Polk
was often accused of being deceitful and double-dealing; this was an unfounded
accusation. In conversation, Polk tended
to listen passively to others and seldom expressed his own ideals; he’d have
made an excellent poker player (but his wife banished cards from the White
House). Those who had conversations with
him often thought, wrongly, that he agreed with them (silence equals
consent? Not with James Polk).
Polk
was firmly rooted in principle. He could
set aside prejudices (q.v. Mormons), oppose allies or risk war (q.v. Oregon) on
the basis of his principles. Few
presidents have ever thought and acted with such clarity.
Though
he was not one to compromise and often accused of deceit, he was very
polite. In fact, he was too polite to
send away unwanted office-seekers. Even
his political adversary John Quincy Adams said Polk gave him “every kindness
and courtesy imaginable.”
Polk
was a single-minded man with virtually no interests outside of politics. When a juggler entertained in the White
House, Polk had to be escorted from his office to watch, and afterward he
“thought the time unprofitably spent.”
In
modern terms, he was a workaholic. He
took responsibility for every facet of the government during his
administration. “No president who
performs his duty faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure. If he intrusts the details and smaller
matters to subordinates constant errors will occur.”
Considering
his great success and his impact, he was a nondescript man. He was a man of medium height, long hair brushed
back behind his ears, a thin-lipped mouth and piercing gray eyes. His expression was usually sad but
occasionally brightened with a genial smile.
Rise to the Presidency
James
Knox Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, NC on November 2, 1795. His family moved to Tennessee in 1806. He proved to be academically inclined so his
father, Samuel Polk, sent him to the University of North Carolina; he graduated
in 1818. He practiced law, first as an
assistant to Felix Grundy and later in partnerships. He also served as a clerk in the state
legislature.
In
1823, Polk was elected to the Tennessee legislature. He served with Colonel Davy Crockett and
faced issues such as banking and land management. During his term on January 1, 1824, he
married Sarah Childress, the daughter of a well-to-do gentleman in the then
capitol of Murfreesborough.
In
1825, Polk went to Washington as a freshman member of the House of
Representatives. During his tenure, he
served on, and later chaired, the Ways and Means Committee and was Speaker for
four years, from 1835 to 1839. He, like
his mentor Andrew Jackson, acquired a dislike for federally-funded improvements
and likened it to “Log-rolling – a term which came from the frontier and was
based on the old practice of brining neighbors when a field was cleared, and
having them help roll the logs from the land.”
In
1839, Polk was elected governor of Tennessee.
He worked toward asserting states’ rights, believing that “The federal
government must be restricted to the powers specifically given it by the
Constitution…” He made a bid for the
Vice-Presidency in 1840 but lost out to Richard Johnson (a man who claimed to
have killed Tecumseh in the War of 1812).
He lost the governorship in 1841 and again in 1843 but his career was
not yet dead.
The Campaign of 1844
Polk’s
recent defeats in his home state of Tennessee made it seem unlikely that he
would capture the Vice-Presidential nomination he sought. The front-runner for the Presidency had been
the former President, Martin Van Buren of New York, but it was not to be. The Texas issue, which both parties had
agreed to keep silent for mutual benefit, reared its head when President Tyler
again proposed annexation.
Van
Buren was against annexation; a stand which lost him considerable support in
the South. Andrew Jackson, still
powerful in the Democratic Party, slyly proposed Polk, an ardent
‘annexationist,’ in his place. At the
Baltimore convention, Polk was nominated on the eighth ballot.
The
Whigs were delighted. “Who is James K.
Polk?” they asked. Compared to their
candidate, the renowned Henry Clay, Polk was an unknown. Henry Clay was the favorite to win the Presidency. He had been a national figure for decades and
was extremely popular. “If women could
vote, he’d have been elected”
Polk
narrowly won the election thanks to Clay’s vacillation on the Texas question
and, more importantly, the Liberty candidate, James G. Birney. The Liberty Party consisted of abolitionists
who had defected from the Whigs; this third part resulted in Clay’s defeat.
|
Candidate |
Party |
Electoral Votes |
Popular Votes |
New York Votes |
|
|
Polk |
Democrat |
170 |
1,337,243 |
237,588 |
|
|
Clay |
Whig |
105 |
1,299,062 |
232,482 |
|
|
Birney |
Liberty |
- |
62,300 |
15,812 |
|
A
shift of slightly more than 5,000 votes in New York (a state worth 36 electoral
votes) would have given Clay 141 electoral votes and the Presidency (Polk would
have dropped to 134 electoral votes).
Despite his razor-thin victory, Polk took it as the most powerful of
mandates and acted accordingly.
Domestic Issues
On the
domestic front, Polk had two primary goals.
First, he wanted to reduce the tariff to a level for optimum revenue
rather than use it as a means of protectionism.
Second, he wanted to reinstate the independent treasury which the Whigs
had repealed during Tyler’s administration.
Polk
also had strong views on the role of the federal government as regards domestic
issues. He was opposed to the use of
federal funds to promote the States and he came to dislike the patronage system
(i.e., giving government jobs to faithful party members).
The Walker Tariff
Polk
believed that tariffs should be used to raise revenue, not to protect domestic
manufactures from foreign competitors.
With Whigs and northern Democrats against reduction, it was an uphill
battle. Industrial interests descended
on Washington, even holding manufacturer’s fair, in hopes of stopping the
bill. Polk took an active role: “I
consider the passage of the bill before the Senate the most important domestic
measure on my administration, and therefore I take so great an interest in it.”
The
votes were so close that Polk noted of those opposed, “The absence of a single
Democratic Senator will probably enable them to effect their object.”
Jarnagin
declined to vote, and Vice President George Mifflin Dallas cast the deciding
tie-breaking vote. The tariff remained
in effect for eleven years and the U.S. was prosperous under it.
The Independent Treasury
After
Andrew Jackson killed the “Monster” (i.e., the Bank of the United States), it
was necessary to deposit U.S. funds elsewhere; Jackson wanted an independent
treasury. It was Jackson’s successor,
Martin Van Buren, who finally established it in 1840. It was dissolved during Tyler’s
administration. Polk wanted to
re-establish it.
As
with the Walker Tariff, Polk took great interest in the independent
treasury. He dispatched his Secretaries
of State, War, Navy, and Treasury, the Postmaster General, the Union editor and
his personal secretary to secure passage of the Independent Treasure Bill.
Internal Improvements
Like
Jackson, Polk abhorred the use of federal money for internal improvements such
as road construction, harbor, or river improvements, et al. “I would bring the government back to what it
was intended to be, a plain economical government.”
If it be admitted, how broad and how
susceptible of enormous abuses is the power thus vested in the General
Government! There is not an inlet of the
ocean or the lakes, not a river, creek or streamlet within the states, which is
not brought for this purpose within the power and jurisdiction of the General
Government.
He saw
that improvements financed by the federal government would expand the power of
the federal government. “Denying, as I
do,” Polk wrote in the Autumn of 1848, “the power of the general government to
make such improvements..., I desire to be prepared to meet it with a veto.”
Patronage
The
“Spoils-system” had been around for a long while before Polk became President,
but he found the system troublesome. In
a letter to Silas Wright of New York, he wrote, “I sincerely wish I had no
office to bestow.”
So
incensed had he become over the constant flow of office seekers and complaints
of Congressmen that, in January of 1847, he asserted that:
If God grants me length of days and health, I
will, after the expiration of my term, give a history of the selfish and
corrupt considerations which influence the course of public men, as a legacy to
posterity. I shall never be profited by
it, but those who come after me may be.
Unfortunately,
he never did get to write such a book.
Civil Service reform met with little success until the US Civil Service
Commission was established over 35 years later.
Foreign Affairs
Polk
was very strong when it came to dealing with foreign powers. He knew what he wanted to accomplish and
acted with confidence and certainty. In
his first State of the Union message on December 2, 1845, he said the U.S. “can
not in silence permit any European interference on the North American
continent, and should any interferences be attempted will be ready to resist it
at any and all hazards.”
The Oregon Boundary
The
resolution was a forgone conclusion, but election promises caused a great deal
of friction. During the campaign of
1844, the Democrats had slogans such as “Fifty-four forty or Fight!” and “All
of Oregon, all of Texas.”
Polk
knew demands for all of Oregon would never be accepted by England, so he
authorized Secretary Buchanan to settle at 49o north latitude. On July 29, 1845, the British Minister, Sir
Richard Pakenham, rejected the offer in “rough terms.”
British
Foreign Secretary Lord Aberdeen condemned Pakenham’s’ actions and intimated an
interest in further negotiations based on the American proposition of 49o. Polk did not hesitate in his response:
We had made a proposition which had been
rejected, in terms not very courteous.
The British had afterwards been informed, in the notes of Mr. Buchanan
of the 30th of August, that our proposition was withdrawn and no longer to be
considered as pending.
Polk
rebuffed precisely the compromise he eventually anticipated because of
principle; England had rejected it and it was therefore up to them to propose a
settlement. He also had politics in mind
when he made his decision; had he so readily ceded the territory north of 49o
his “all of Oregon” supporters, Lewis Cass among them, would have abandoned
him. Thus, the delay and hard stance
proved to be a political boost.
Buchanan
was dismayed. He thought Polk’s actions
would “precipitated a crisis” in which we “would have war.”
A grave discussion took place in view of the
contingency of war with Great Britain, growing out of the present critical
state of the Oregon question. Mr.
Buchanan expressed himself decidedly in favor of making vigorous preparations
for defense, and said it was his conviction that the next who weeks would
decide the issue of peace or war.
Two
weeks later, there was not yet war, but Polk did ask Congress to give notice to
terminate the joint occupation of Oregon under the 1827 Convention. When questioned on the wisdom of this course,
he explained, “The only way to treat John Bull was to look him straight in the
eye…if Congress faltered or hesitated in their course, John bull would
immediately become arrogant…”
The
Oregon question simmered for several month as the Congress failed to pass a
resolution to give the requested notice (Great Britain refused to pursue the
matter further until such notice was given).
Finally, on April 23, 1846, the Congress did pass it.
In
June, the British offered to compromise on the 49th parallel,
provided they had free navigation on the Columbia River. Polk said no to free navigation. They altered the proposal to free navigation
for the Hudson Bay Company (the major British concern in the Oregon territory)
until its charter expired in 1859. Polk
said okay and instructed Buchanan to send a message to the Senate to get their
prior consent. So eager to compromise
six months earlier, Buchanan suddenly became a 54o40’ man and refused
to draft such a message. With the advice
of his Cabinet, Polk drafted the message and sent it to the Senate; they
accepted the British proposal on the 12th of June by a vote of 38 to
12 (as war had already been declared against Mexico two months earlier, the
Senate was in a compromising mood). The
Senate officially ratified the Oregon Treaty on June 15, 1846 by a vote of 41
to 14.
Standing
firm and yet avoiding war, Polk resolved the third of his “four measures.” The current states of Oregon, Washington,
Idaho, and sections of Montana and Wyoming were now undisputed U.S. territory;
the U.S. spanned the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Clancy Mandeville called it “one of the best
wars that was never fought.”
War with Mexico
The
dominant occurrence of the Polk Administration was the war with Mexico. It is one of the most misunderstood wars in
American history; it was long viewed as an unjust war of conquest. Ulysses S. Grant, a lieutenant during the
conflict, thought it was a “wicked war.”
In 1836,
Texas fought and won a war of independence from Mexico. In 1837, the United States recognized their
independence but refused to annex Texas for fear of war; Mexico had said that a
state of war would exist if the U.S. annexed Texas. In the 1840s, Texas found itself suffering
attacks from Mexico; they again sued for annexation. The presidential campaign of 1844 settled the
issue; Texas became a state and, if Mexico was true to its threats, a state of
war existed (Mexico had broken off diplomatic relations).
In his
examination of the Mexican War, David Lavender wrote, “No one in the new
administration, President Polk least of all, believed that Mexico would
actually go to war over Texas. The
country was backward industrially, torn by revolution, and all but bankrupt.”
President
Polk immediately sought to smooth things between Mexico and the U.S., but he
was also determined that the U.S. should obtain California, preferably by
purchasing it (he was willing to pay as much as 40 million dollars for it
though he anticipated 15 million). He
sent John Slidell to work out the details, but Mexico refused to negotiate; it
was political suicide in Mexico to let the U.S. keep Texas. To strengthen Slidell’s diplomatic hand, Polk
had sent General Taylor into the disputed territory between the Nueces and the
Del Norte (Rio Grande). On April 7th,
Polk received word that Slidell would not be recognized by the Mexican
government.
With
Slidell’s rejection, the diplomatic option was ended. The U.S. public took it as an insult that our
minister was not accepted. Polk now had
two options: risk letting the territories of California and New Mexico being
sold to European nations (England had shown an interest in California and
Mexico need the money) and forfeit American grievances against Mexico (American
assets had been taken during the numerous revolutions) or declare war. The ‘Polk Doctrine’ made the decision easy.
Polk
believed Mexico would open hostilities but when nothing had occurred by early
May, he began preparing his war message.
Little did he know, the shooting had already started in April when a
patrol of about sixty men was attacked on the north side of the Rio Grande.
General
Taylor sent a dispatch to Polk which reported, “Hostilities may now be
considered as commenced.”
Mexico has passed the boundary of the United
States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon American
soil. War exists, and, notwithstanding
all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself.
The
Congress recognized a state of war on May 13, 1846. Polk reluctantly appointed Winfield Scott, a
Whig, to command the Mexican campaign on the same day.
The
outbreak of war presented Polk with a new, though not wholly unexpected,
problem: the appearance that the U.S. was in a war for conquest. Thomas Hart Benton wrote, “Defeat would be
ruin: to conquer vicariously, would be dangerous.”
Polk
had planned on a small war or, as Thomas Hart Benton put it, “Not large enough
to make military reputations.”
Almost
immediately after war was declared, Polk and Scott disagreed. Polk wanted immediate action; Scott wanted to
plan and train which would delay action to September. General Scott did not appreciate the
micro-management from the executive and, in a fit of indiscretion, wrote
Secretary of War Marcy, “I do not desire to place myself in the most perilous
of positions:-a fire upon my rear, from Washington, and a fire in front from Mexicans.”
Despite
being out-numbered by the Mexican forces, Taylor had a series of victories
including Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma.
The use of flying artillery, Samuel Colt’s first military revolver, high
American moral, and better U.S. logistics all contributed to the success of the
Mexican Campaigns.
Polk
did not count purely on military success.
In February, three months prior to the declaration of war, a
representative of ousted President Santa Anna, Colonel Atocha, visited Polk.
He said that Santa Anna was in favor of a
treaty with the United States, and that in adjusting the boundary between the
two countries the Del Norte should be the western Texas line, and the Colorado
of the West down through the Bay of San Francisco to the sea should be the
Mexican line on the north, and that Mexico should cede all east and north of
these natural boundaries… for a pecuniary consideration, and mentioned thirty
millions of dollars as the sum.
He
didn’t trust Atocha. “Col. Atocha is a
person to whom I would not give my confidence.”
By the
end of 1846, the U.S. had taken possession of all the territories Polk hoped to
annex and then some. Kearney had taken
New Mexico and California and Taylor had taken Monterrey. Mexico wasn’t willing to give up. In order to force Mexico to sign a peace
treaty, it would be necessary to invade central Mexico but who would command
the expedition?
In
December, after Taylor had taken Monterrey and become a national hero, Polk
endeavored to have Colonel Thomas Hart Benton elevated to a Lieutenant General;
in so doing, he could have a Democrat rather than a Whig as his field commander
of his invasion force.
I am held responsible for the conduct of the
war and yet Congress refused to give me a commander in whom I have confidence
and I am compelled to employ the officers whom the law provided, however unfit
they may be.
Furthermore,
John C. Calhoun accused him, rightly, of furnishing Whig candidates for the
next decade: Taylor in 1848, Scott in 1852 and, as a Republican, John C.
Fremont in 1856.
General
Scott ran a brilliant campaign into the Mexican interior and by mid-September,
he entered Mexico City. In October, Polk
received a dispatch dated September 19 which said Mexico City had been
captured:
This intelligence is that our army was in
peaceable possession of the City of Mexico; that Santa Anna had resigned the
Presidency; and that Pena y Pena, who had succeeded him, had convened the
Mexican Congress to meet at Queretaro on the 5th instant.
Polk
had planned ahead and sent a plenipotentiary minister to accompany General
Scott. Nicholas P. Trist was that
man. He was an able fellow; he had
studied law with Jefferson, attended West Point, served as Jackson’s private
secretary, and spoke fluent Spanish.
Even
before Scott had captured Mexico City, Trist had set about establishing a peace
treaty based loosely on Polk’s instructions.
This loose interpretation, in which he considered taking the Nueces River
the southern boundary of Texas, caused Polk to recall him on the 4th
of October, 1847.
Trist
received both recall orders on November 16th and prepared to return
but there would be no escort available until December 4th. In the interim, a Mexican peace commission
formed and asked Trist to draft a treaty.
He stayed despite orders from Washington and negotiated the Treaty of
Guadalupe-Hidalgo which set most of the U.S./Mexico border and was signed on
February 2, 1848.
Polk
received the treaty on the 19th of February. With the immense costs of the war, Polk and
others had been seriously considering annexing a much larger portion of Mexico
than originally planned. An “All of
Mexico” policy was gaining support.
Offer for Cuba
The
United States was often on the verge of buying Cuba through the latter half of
the 19th century and finally, in 1898, invaded the Spanish
island. In the age of Polk, plans to
purchase the Caribbean island were discussed.
In his diary, Polk wrote “…I am decidedly in favor of purchasing Cuba
and making it one of the States of the Union.”
Miscellany
The
period from 1845 to 1849 was one of considerable change and accomplishment in
the United States. Edgar Allan Poe had
his classic poem, The Raven, published.
Both the sewing machine and the rotary printing press, capable of
printing 8000 newspapers an hour, were invented. The Naval Academy at Annapolis was
established by Navy Secretary George Bancroft.
Lucretia Mott held a women’s rights convention in Seneca Fall, New
York. The Potato Famine in Ireland
caused a flood of Irish immigrants. The
ill-fated Donner party was trapped in the California mountains. Iowa was admitted as the 29th state. Though Polk had little if any effect on
these, he did play a role in those that follow.
The California Gold Rush
On
January 14, 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in the Sacramento Valley
of California. In his last State of the
Union message to Congress, on December 5th of that year, Polk
reported the “abundance of gold” and thereby helped to set off the California
Gold Rush of 1849.
The Court-Martial of John C. Fremont
John
C. Fremont was a noted figure in the United States and his court-martial was a
headline affair. Fremont was the
son-in-law of Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri (one of Polk’s strongest
supporters) and famed as a pathfinder; he had blazed the Oregon Trail in 1842.
In May
of 1846, Polk needed to appoint 100 officers for the Mexican War. On candidate, Captain Fremont, he made
special not of in his diary:
He had made several explorations to Oregon and
California, and his reports show that he is an officer of high merit and
peculiarly fitted for this regiment, which is intended to guard and protect our
emigrants to Oregon.
About
that same time, Fremont was engineering an uprising in California to expel
Colonel Castro, the military commandant.
He established the “California Republic” under the Bear Flag. Commodore R. F. Stockton of the US Navy
appointed Fremont as civil governor. As
it happened, Stockton didn’t have the authority to make such an appointment;
vague orders from Washington had led him to his erroneous conclusion.
An unfortunate collision has occurred in
California between General Kearny and Commodore Stockton, in regard to
precedence in rank. I think General
Kearny was right. It appears that Lt.
Colonel Fremont refused to obey General Kearny and obeyed Commodore Stockton
and in this he was wrong.
Polk,
who still regarded Colonel Fremont as “gallant and meritorious”
General
Kearny was not nearly so forgiving. He
ignored the aforementioned dispatch and ordered Fremont to go east with him
after a temporary government was established in California. When they reached Fort Leavenworth, Fremont
was placed under arrest.
Senator
Benton lobbied Polk to intervene on behalf of Fremont and further requested
that a complete investigation be made.
Polk told Benton he “regretted the whole affair” and would “act justly
in the matter.”
Fremont
was court-martialed and found guilty of mutiny, disobedience of orders and conduct
prejudicial to public service and was sentenced to dismissal from service. Polk discussed the matter with his
Cabinet. His view was that the mutiny
was unwarranted but agreed with the other two counts. Several members of his Cabinet felt the
sentence was too harsh. Polk approved
the sentence but remitted the penalty.
Fremont resigned in indignation.
Sometime
afterward, Polk encountered Thomas Hart Benton and noted “…he never speaks to
me as he was in the habit of doing before the trial of Colonel Fremont.”
The Smithsonian Institution
Upon
his death in 1829, James Smithson, an English scientist, left a sum of five hundred
thousand dollars for the purpose of establishing an institution in Washington
D.C. that would increase and spread knowledge.
He also insisted that it would be known as the Smithsonian Institution
(to perpetuate his own name, some suggest).
On
August 10, 1846, President Polk signed the act which established the
Smithsonian Institution and a month later, on September 9th, he took
part in placing it.
At nine o’clock this morning, … I rode in my
carriage to meet the regents of the Smithsonian Institute on the public grounds
lying west of the capitol and south of the President’s house, with a view to
locate the sight of that institution.
On the
1st of May in the following year, the cornerstone of the Smithsonian
Institution was laid in the public mall south of Pennsylvania Avenue. Polk was present at the event along with
several members of his Cabinet. He
recorded it as follows:
The occasion on the ground opened and closed
with a prayer. The ceremonies of laying
the cornerstone of the building were performed chiefly by B. B. French,
esquire, grand master of the Masonic fraternity of the District of Columbia. The Vice-President, after this ceremony was
over, delivered an address to the multitude assembled on the occasion. A large crowd of ladies and gentlemen were
present.
Allan
Nevins noted that “Polk took a warm interest in the growth of the establishment.”
The Department of the Interior
Initially
called the Home Department, the Department of the Interior was established in
the last days of the Polk Administration.
It was only the second addition to the Cabinet (the Secretary of the
Navy having been established under John Adams) since President Washington. Polk had keen insight on what this expansion
meant:
I had serious objections to it, but they were
not of a constitutional character, and I signed it with reluctance. I fear its consolidating tendency. I apprehend its practical operation will be
to draw power from the States, where the Constitution has reserved it, and to
extend the jurisdiction and power of the United States by construction to an
unwarrantable extent. Had I been a
member of Congress I would have voted against it.
Having
been a governor, Polk was a strong believer in States’ rights and local
solutions for local problems. He saw the
federal government as having a narrowly defined function which the Interior
Department needlessly expanded. Eight
more Cabinet posts have been established since Polk’s administration and two
more are on the horizon.
The Mormon Migration
On
June 27, 1844, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, leaders of the Mormons, were murdered in
Nauvoo, Illinois; it was the culmination of years of discrimination. Unwilling to tolerate such treatment any
longer, they resolved to leave the United States and move to California. By February of 1846, they had crossed the
Mississippi River.
Governor
Ford wrote President Polk in regard to the Mormon Migration. Though Polk disagreed with Mormon beliefs, he
wrote “…as President of the United States I possessed no power to prevent or
check their emigration; that the right of emigration or expatriation was on
which any citizen possessed.”
In
June, Polk was visited by J. C. Little (a Mormon) who wanted to know what the
U.S. policy was toward the emigrating Mormons.
Polk assured him that he “had no prejudices toward them which could include
a different course of treatment” than other Americans.
The Wilmot Proviso
In
August of 1846, only three months after war had been declared against Mexico,
Polk conceived to offer the Mexican government two million dollars “to
facilitate negotiations.”
David
Wilmot, a Representative from Pennsylvania, opposed the expansion of
slavery. With this in mind, he added an
amendment (known as the Wilmot Proviso) to the appropriation bill which, if
passed, would make all territories won from Mexico free territories. The measure passed the House but was rejected
by the Senate.
The
Wilmot Proviso, however, lived on. Polk
was disturbed by the “agitation of the slavery question in Congress” which he
though uncalled for. Polk expressed his
views to Whig Senator Crittenden in January of 1847:
I told him the question of slavery would
probably never be a practical one if we acquired New Mexico and California,
because there would be but a narrow ribbon of territory south of the Missouri
Compromise line 36o30’, and in it slavery would probably never
exist.
Lewis
Cass and Stephan Douglas believed much the same thing. Polk thought that the Missouri Compromise
should simply be extended to the Pacific Ocean.
Near the end of his term, Polk discovered through his Secretary of
Treasury, Mr. Walker, that Wilmot came to feel the same.
Mr. Walker stated a conversation he had held
with Wilmot, which may hereafter become important, in which he argued with
Wilmot to prove that without the Proviso slavery would never exist in
California, and that Wilmot had declared to him that if the views he presented
had occurred to him before he offered the Proviso he never would have offered
it.
Wilmot
discovered his error too late; the issue was already aflame. Robert Kelley said in regard to the proviso,
“Once opened, the issue of slavery could never again be closed.”
The Washington Monument
In
1833, it was decided that a memorial to George Washington should be
erected. By 1836, a design submitted by
Robert Mills was agreed upon, but it was not until July the Forth of 1848 that
the cornerstone was laid.
Accompanied by the Cabinet and escorted by
General Walton, the United States marshal of the District of Columbia, and his
deputies, and by a troop of horse commanded by Col. May of the United States
Army, we were conducted in carriages to the City Hall, where the procession was
formed and moved to the site of the Washington Monument on the banks of the
Potomac and south of the President’s Mansion.
I witnessed the ceremony of laying the cornerstone, and heard an address
delivered by Mr. Speaker Winthrop of the House of Representatives.
Though
started under Polk, the monument was not completed for more than thirty years,
when Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885) was in the White House.
Forgotten?
Considering
the extent of his record and the vast consequences of his Presidency, one must
wonder why Polk goes largely unmentioned as a historical figure. Three factors explain why Polk has been
seemingly overlooked: first, his personality, second, the Civil War, and
finally, misplaced shame.
In his
biography of Polk, Edwin Hoyt said, “One had to pay solemn attention to what
James was saying at all times if one was to be impressed, not to how he
said it.” Polk had given a speech before
the House of Representatives and evoked yawns; a Congressman, who had not been
present, read the speech and thought it the most provocative that session.
Another
significant cause of Polk’s anonymity is the Civil War. The Civil War stands out like a sore thumb in
19th century history and has occupied historians to the detriment of
Polk. The Civil War has overshadowed
Polk in much the same way the Vietnam War has overshadowed the Korean War.
To the
casual observer, Polk is often seen as a latter day Cortez who marched into
Mexico like a conquistador and stole their treasured lands. Thus, choosing not to dwell on this ‘dark era’
in American history. Clearly this
characterization is incorrect and unfair.
Polk pursued policies to keep Europe out of North America. Had a Whig been in office and followed U.S.
policies, such as the No-Transfer Resolution or 1811 and the Monroe Doctrine,
he would have been compelled to follow Polk’s course.
Conclusion
On
March 5th, 1849 (the 4th had fallen on a Sunday), Zachary
Taylor was inaugurated as the 12th President and Polk happily
retired. “I feel exceedingly relieved
that I am now free from all public cares.”
Considering
the vast accomplishments which Polk managed to achieve in but a single term, it
is clear that he has been under-rated by historians. Polk himself summed up his administration:
Within less than four years the annexation of
Texas to the Union has been consummated; all conflicting title to the Oregon
Territory south of the forty-ninth degree of north latitude, being all that was
insisted on by any of my predecessors, has been adjusted; and New Mexico and
Upper California have been acquired by treaty…the territories recently
acquired, and over which our exclusive jurisdiction and dominion have been
extended, constitute a country more than half as large as all that which was
held by the United States before their acquisition, and, including Oregon,
nearly as great an extent of territory as the whole of Europe, Russia only
excepted. The Mississippi, so lately the
frontier of our country, is now only its center…
James
Polk made the nation prosperous and expanded its borders. He confronted every obstacle thrown in his
way and surmounted them all. Edwin Hoyt
said if “…Polk had never been President…, it is doubtful if our nation would
span the continent as it does today.”
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