PRESIDENT POLK.* JAMES KNOX Polar, who was President of the
United States from 1845 to 1849, has found at last a very competent biographer in Professor McCormac, of California University. It is odd that be should have suffered comparative neglect at the hands of American historians, for in his term of office the United States received an immense accession of territory, second only in importance to the Louisiana Purchase effected by Jefferson in 1803. President Polk welcomed the vast new State of Texas into the Union in 1845, he concluded in 1846 the amicable compromise with Great Britain by which he secured the Oregon territory up to the forty-ninth parallel, and in 1847, at the close of the Mexican War, he obtained the cession of Upper California and New Mexico and thus brought the Pacific coast tither the Stars and Stripes. When we think of all that these Western States have meant for America and for the world at large, and when we compare modem California and Texas— populous, orderly and prosperous—with the misetable Mexican provinces that remain to-day much as they were seventy years ago, it is curious that the President who added these territories to the Union should not have been remembered as one of the great benefactors of his country. But Polk lived at a time when the slavery issue was becoming acute and imparting the utmost bitterness to party controversy. The politicians of the North and the South, absorbed in the one great question, judged of all current proidems in their bearing on the restriction or extension of the "institution." They could not foresee the stupendous importance that the South-West and the Pacific coast would assume in years to come, and were only concerned to know whether slave-owning would or 'would not be permitted kr the new territories. Polk, in aubmitting the Treaty of • James Jr. Pt*.: a Po/ditto: Biography. AlSaiwirayliaa 3nr1og liceorraac: 13erkeley. University of Caltfoznia bus. 1.5 Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which Mexico ceded California, had to encounter fierce opposition from his Whig adversaries in the Senate, and the treaty was ratified only by 38 votes to 14. Such are the vagaries of party polities.
It has sometimes been assumed that Polk was a mere vol faineant, that he was controlled by events and by his Cabinet instead of controlling them. Professor McCormae disposes of this theory by an exhaustive examination of Polk's diaries and State papers. It is clear that Polk had made up his mind from the outset to add California and New Mexico., Texas and -Oregon to the Union, and that he carried out his policy in spite of much opposition from his own Secretary of State, Buchanan, as well as from all the Whigs and many Democrats. English readers will find it hard to understand why Polk retained as his ehief minister a man like Buchanan, who nearly always differed from him and sometimes tried to thwart the President whom he had undertaken to serve. But in their many quarrels Polk imposed his 'will on the obstinate and mutinous Secretary. Buchanan, for example, was opposed to the Mexican War because he professed to believe that Great Britain and France would intervene on behalf of Mexico. When the Mexicans had begun hostilities on the Texan border, Buchanan proposed to inform the Powers that America did not wish to acquire any Mexican territory. When the President had made it clear that he desired to annex California, preferably by purchase, Buchanan was for limiting the annexation to the district north of, and including, Monterey. Polk also experienced considerable difficulties with both the generals employed in Mexico, Taylor and Scott, and with the civilian Trist, 'whom he tent with Scott to negotiate a treaty. The idea of generals on active service engaging at the same time in political intrigues at home is stranger to us than to American readers, but the conduct of the Mexican campaign, as detailed by the biographer, is hardly to be paralleled in American history. It was fortunate for the American troops that Santa Anna's forces were badly led and rent by political dissensions. Taylor was thinking far less about the war than about the best means of securing the Whig nomination for President in 1848— an ambition which was ultimately gratified. In the circumstances, Polk's conduct of affairs showed far greater courage and deter- mination than most historians have allowed. Whether his policy was morally justifiable is an old debating question of which Professor McCormac treats dispassionately. We need not discuss it here. But we may remark that the westward and southward movement of the American people could not be stayed indefinitely by an imaginary line bounding rich and empty territories.
Polk's early life was not without interest. He was descended from a Scottish Pollok, who settled in Ireland in the fifteenth century. The first American Pollok or Polk emigrated to Mary- land about the year 1680. The future President was born in Mecklenburg, North Carolina, in 1795, but was taken by his father in 1806 to Tennessee, with the early pioneers of that State. Polk had a good education and then practised law at Columbia; Tennessee. He enjoyed the friendship and patronage of General Jackson, who had won the battle of New Orleans. He was sent to Congress in 1825, and afterwards became Speaker of the House, in the presidential terms of Jackson and Van Buren. In 1839 he was elected Governor of his State. Like so many Presidents, Polk owed his nomination in 1844 to a compromise between two rival factions, neither. of whom could control the Party convention. For two days the delegates balloted in vain between Van Buren and Cam; on the third day Polk was put forward and soon gained a majority. His selection was wholly unexpected, but it was not unpopular. Guriousle enough Polk lost his own State but won New York and Pennsylvania, and thus defeated his opponent, Clay, with great ease. The biographer says that Polk received private news of his victory in New York and said nothing about it While for a day and a night his friends offered their sympathy in his defeat at home. A man capable of such reticence at such a moment must have been out of the common. He did not survive his Presidency for more than a few months, dying at Nashville in June, 1849.
Previous page
