James Knox Polk

Polk, James Knox

(1795–1849) eleventh U.S. president; born in Mecklenburg County, N.C. Son of a prosperous farmer, he moved in childhood to Tennessee, was admitted to the bar there in 1820, and by 1825 had gained election as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. He became Speaker of the House (1835–39), where he was a powerful advocate of Jacksonian policies and expansionism. After serving as governor of Tennessee (1839–41), he beat Henry Clay for the presidency as a "dark horse" in 1844, mainly on his promise to seize Mexican territory in the southwest. An efficient and determined executive, he did as promised by provoking the Mexican War, which in 1848 secured for the victorious U.S.A. undisputed possession of Texas, and 500,000 square miles including the future states of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. Meanwhile he peacefully settled the Oregon boundary dispute with England. Exhausted, attacked from all sides because of his opposition to both extremes on the issue of slavery, and holding to a campaign pledge, he did not run for reelection and died three months after leaving office.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.