When evaluating a presidency, there are many factors that one must consider. Was the country in a better place economically, diplomatically, and socially after 4 years of leadership? Did life improve for the average American? How did the president respond in times of crisis? Did he demonstrate moral leadership? Did he look out for the interest of all Americans or just those that supported him at the ballot box? These are all important questions and I've asked myself all of them as I've assembled this list. However, some would argue that the most basic question when evaluating a person's job performance is "Did they do what they said they were going to do?" If using this standard, there are few presidents who can surpass James Knox Polk. James K. Polk was a protege of Andrew Jackson. Like Old Hickory, he was a from Tennessee; which was considered the "west" during much of his life. Fittingly, he was an advocate of what would become known as Jacksonian Democracy: the aggressive expansion of voting rights for the average white man and an emphasis of policies that benefited the economic interests of those same white men. It goes without saying that such an agenda often times stood in conflict to the interests of many other groups such as women, slaves, Native Americans, and Mexicans. Polk had a long and distinguished career. He entered politics as a member of the Tennessee state legislature before being elected to Congress. As a legislator he excelled and was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. To date, he is the only former Speaker of the House to ever be elected President of the United States. He returned to Tennessee and served one term as governor.
Polk announced that his agenda consisted of several ambitious goals: settling the border dispute with Great Britain over the Oregon Territory, lowering the federal tariff, the establishment of an independent treasury to replace the Bank of the United States, purchasing California from Mexico, and annexing the Republic of Texas. In only four years, Polk achieved everything he set out to accomplish. The Republic of Texas was an independent nation populated by American immigrants. Texas gained its independence from Mexico in 1836. It initially hoped to join the United States, but Presidents Jackson and Van Buren objected out of fear that adding another southern state would reignite the debate over slavery (they were right), leaving Texas to remain an sovereign nation for 9 years. Polk, a die-hard expansionist, was elected partly on his support of annexation. He considered it a gift when, before he was even sworn into office, the outgoing president John Tyler, pushed a joint resolution through Congress supporting the annexation of Texas. All that was left was for the people of Texas to ratify the annexation bill before President Polk signed the paperwork. In less than a year, with very little effort, President Polk accomplished something that had confounded presidents for the better part of a decade. Texas, was now a state. However, there was disagreement surrounding the southern border of the Lonestar State. This debate would become critical in the years to come. Next on the agenda were fiscal and economic issues. Polk's political hero Andrew Jackson had killed the Bank of the United States in the 1830s. Since that time, the nation's finances were a mess. Without a national bank, funds were kept in various state banks. The Democrats and Whigs disagreed about how best to move forward leading to no permanent solution. With a new Democratic majority in Congress, Polk was able to win passage of bill creating an Independent Treasury to manage taxpayer dollars, bringing much needed stability to the economy. Following this victory of fiscal policy, the president now focused on economic policy. In a close vote, Polk was able to get Congress to pass a law reducing a federal tariff leading to improved trade relation with Great Britain.
In the end, cooler heads prevailed. The United States and Great Britain negotiated a compromise, dividing the territory along the 49th parallel, establishing a peaceful border between the United States and Canada that remains to this day. It was on America's southern border where Polk would take his most impactful and controversial steps. Mexico was much larger in 1846 than it is today. Northern Mexico consisted of the huge area that now makes up New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, as well as portions of Texas, Colorado and Wyoming. The Mexican government exercised very little control over the territory but viewed it as rather valuable. Furthermore, they insisted that the southern border of the United States ended at the Nueces River rather than the Rio Grande. For several years, the United States had its eye on acquiring the Mexican territory of California. Its fertile soil and massive coastline would be of incredible economic benefit to any nation. In 1846, Polk offered to buy California from Mexico and urged them to accept the Rio Grande River as the southern border of the United States. Mexico refused. This put Polk in a predicament. The United States wanted something from a sovereign nation and that nation refused to give it up. This didn't leave many options. Certainly, the US would not go to war simply to capture territory. To do so would be anathema to our founding principles. The United States would only go to war to protect American interests. In short, the US would only go to war out of self-defense. How then could the US go to war in order to acquire territory in the name of self-defense? Polk had a plan.
Northern Whigs were more measured in their response. A young Congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln demanded to know where exactly was the "American soil" Polk claimed was the site of the attack. Former President John Q. Adams, then a member of the House of Representatives was unconvinced. He and other northerners understood that such a conflict would lead to a land grab that would reignite the debate over slavery. In the end, despite some opposition in Congress, the war hawks carried the day and the United States declared war on Mexico. The Mexican-American War was a one-sided affair. The United States, while certainly not the world power that it is today, still vastly overpowered the Mexican army. While Zachary Taylor's forces penetrated deep into Mexican territory, eventually occupying Mexico City, other American forces invaded California. Despite some early struggles, the American army dominated the Mexicans and in 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed officially ending the war. Mexico ceded much of its northern territory to the United States and the US paid a mere $15 million to Mexico as compensation. In 1848, at the end of a single term as America's Chief Executive, President Polk had accomplished every goal he had outlined during his candidacy. The United States was in a more secure place financially than before he took office. The northern and southern borders of the country had been codified by international treaties. With victory in the Mexican War, Polk had acquired enough territory to make the United States a continental nation. America now spread from sea to shining sea. With his goals met, his work complete, and in poor health, Polk honored a campaign pledge and declined to run for a second term as president. Without a standard bearer, the Democrats struggled to rally around a candidate in 1848 opening the door for the Whigs to nominate an outsider as their candidate. Zachary Taylor, the hero of Mexican War, was elected President in 1848. Polk left office disappointed with the outcome of the election but ready to step out of the spotlight. Sadly, the ex-president did not have long to enjoy retirement. A tour of the south left him exhausted and most likely suffering from cholera. Shortly after settling in a new home in Tennessee, Polk's health continued to fail and he died; a mere 3 months after leaving office.
One of the harshest critics of the Mexican-American War was by a future president who served as a officer in the conflict: Ulysses S. Grant. As a young soldier, Grant struggled with the justification of the war. He knew that the United States had provoked Mexicans into a conflict so that it could justify taking a land from a weaker neighbor. He would write in his memoir:
“For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure [Mexican-American War], and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory." The territory acquired caused many problems for the people who called it home. Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and Native Americans living in the region now faced an uncertain future in the face of a land hungry American government. For Native Americans, that future would be a tragic one. Just as significantly, the acquisition of so much territory did exactly what previous presidents had feared, it reopened the debate about slavery. Northern members of Congress attempted to ban slavery in the newly acquired Mexican Cession via the Wilmot Proviso, but their efforts were unsuccessful. The debate about how the United States would populated its new territory exposed deep divisions within the country. Northern states, once fairly neutral on the issue of slavery were now electing leaders who identified slavery for what it was: a sin. The disease of slavery could not be allowed to spread to new territory. Meanwhile, the planter aristocracy of the South and the millions of non-slaveholding whites they represented had an almost religious devotion to what they called their "peculiar institution." Their culture, wealth, and their power was hopelessly intertwined with slavery and they knew that if they didn't actively work to spread it, they would risk losing all of those things. Both North and South wanted to settle the west in their own image. The debate that followed would lead to the greatest conflict the nation had ever seen. President Grant summed it up nicely when he wrote: “The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.”
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Derek Trent AshcraftA place to discuss, among other things, politics, culture, food, faith, and nonsense. Archives
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