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Ridgewood NJ, James Polk (1795-1849) served as the 11th U.S. president from 1845 to 1849. During his tenure, America’s territory grew by more than one-third and extended across the continent for the first time. Before his presidency, Polk served in the Tennessee legislature and the U.S. Congress; in 1839 he became governor of Tennessee.
“I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.”
―
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A Democrat who was relatively unknown outside of political circles, Polk won the 1844 presidential election as the dark horse candidate. As president, he reduced tariffs, reformed the national banking system and settled a boundary dispute with the British that secured the Oregon Territory for the United States. Polk also led the nation into the Mexican-American War (1846-48), in which the United States acquired California and much of the present-day Southwest. Polk kept his campaign promise to be a one-term president and did not seek reelection. Soon after leaving the White House, he died at age 53.
Polk was the last so called “manifest destiny” President extending the boundaries of the US from “sea to shinning sea” . Manifest destiny was a widely held belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were entitled to conquer and control North America.
At age 49, James Polk was younger than any previous president when he entered the White House. A workaholic, America’s new chief executive set an ambitious agenda with four major goals: cut tariffs, reestablish an independent U.S. Treasury, secure the Oregon Territory and acquire the territories of California and New Mexico from Mexico.
Polk eventually achieved all his goals. He was a champion of manifest destiny–the belief that the United States was fated to expand across the North American continent–and by the end of his four years in office, the nation extended, for the first time, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
In 1845, the United States completed its annexation of Texas, which became the 28th state on December 29. This move led to a breakdown in diplomatic relations with Mexico (from which Texas had revolted in 1836). After the United States sent troops to a disputed border region around the Rio Grande River, the Mexican-American War (1846-48) broke out.
The United States won the two-year battle, and as a result, Mexico relinquished its claims to Texas. It also recognized the Rio Grande as America’s southern border and, in exchange for $15 million, ceded the land that makes up all or parts of present-day California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. (Despite the U.S. victory, the war proved controversial and reignited the slavery extension debate that would ultimately result in the American Civil War in the 1860s.)
With the Oregon Treaty of 1846, Polk managed another significant land acquisition–this time without going to war–when his administration diplomatically settled a border dispute with the British and gained full control of the present-day states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho, as well as parts of Montana and Wyoming.