James K. Polk: The American Presidents Series: The 11th President, 1845-1849

This is a great political biography. It is well written and easy to read while really getting across the facts and details. This book really got the spirit and life of Polk across while still really getting the political issues of the time and making them understandable to any reader. Definitely a book to read if you are interested in Polk, the Presidency or this political era.

This is a concise and factual biography of James K. Polk, 11th President of the US. Seigenthaler is interested only in the life and career of Polk, not in the "age" in which he lived, which is why the book is only 200 pages long, and why there is not a lot of speculation or "background" in it. Polk was born in 1795 in North Carolina, though he moved with his family to Tennessee at the age of ten. Sickly as a youth, he underwent a painful and dangerous operation to remove gallstones when he was 17 (whether this caused impotency which left him and his wife childless is speculation). Classically educated at the University of North Carolina, he later studied law with the idea of entering politics. He was elected to the Tennessee legislature in 1823 and served in Congress from 1825-1839. A Democrat, he resigned from Congress in 1839 to become governor of Tennessee, though he lost to the Whigs after serving only one term. A dark-horse candidate at the Democratic national convention in Baltimore in 1844, he was nominated and ran for President against Henry Clay, winning election after a nasty personal campaign was waged by both candidates. Territorial expansion was the major issue of the campaign and Polk's presidency. The Mexican War took place in 1846, and Polk wanted to annex Texas immediately; with US forces victorious and the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, the US acquired half-a-million square miles of new territory. During his presidency the Oregon boundary dispute was also settled. Polk was President for only one term, which was his intention; many historians rank him the best of the one-term Presidents. Shortly after leaving the White House, he toured the Gulf Coast states, probably contracting cholera in New Orleans; always sickly and tiring quickly throughout his life, he never recovered from this disease and died at his home in Nashville in June 1849. Seigenthaler obviously admires his subject, though he doesn't idolize him. Polk seems not to have been a very creative or curious man (John Q. Adams said he had "no wit, no literature, no elegance, no philosophy ..."), but applied himself fervantly to whatever was at hand, giving his all according to his abilities; most impressive to Seigenthaler was Polk's ability to learn from his mistakes. This is a worthy addition to the American Presidents Series, and is an excellent source for anyone interested in Polk. Highly recommended.

Between the presidencies of Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, there was a line of mostly undistinguished presidents. There was one who stood out; James Knox Polk. He wasn't charismatic and he had his weaknesses. He was humorless, partisan, carried grudges, and had an ego which made it hard for him to delegate responsibility. Hailing from Tennessee, he was a protegee of Andrew Jackson. He served as Speaker of the House of Representatives but left the House to run for governor of Tennessee. He was elected but lost his bid for re-election. He tried again and was again defeated. From this position of political weakness, he ascended to the presidency. The favorites were the Whig, Henry Clay and the Democrat, former president Martin Van Buren. Both however, made a fatal mistake; they came out against the annexation of Texas. That cost Van Buren the nominaion and led ultimately to the Democratic convention turning to Polk as a dark horse candidate. He defeated perennial candidate Clay and set four goals, all of which he achieved. He was against the national bank and instead was for a strong federal treasury. Secondly, he wanted to resolve the divisive tariff issue and, to the consternation of many northerners, lowered tariffs. Third, he wanted to acquire the Oregon territory and, in the famous fiftyfour forty or fight showdown with Britain, he aquired it up to the 49th parallel. Finally, he wanted to acquire California. After using a territorial dispute with Mexico as to the border of Texas as an excuse to go to war, he reached that goal as part of the settlement after the war ended. He was the president of manifest destiny. He made the United States a continental nation. His achievements rank him among the top ten or so presidents. However, the acquisition of territory from Mexico was achieved through an unpopular war. Abraham Lincoln, who was a congressman at the time, among many others, opposed this war. Also, the reason the post Jackson presidents were so weak and undistinguished is because they did little to help resolve issues regarding slavery and, instead led us on a course towards disunion and Civil War. Polk was no better on this issue. Indeed, he claimed to believe slavery was an evil but he never made any strong statement to that effect. By his own choice, he was a one term prsident so, he had nothing to lose politically but, he showed very little leadership on this issue which was dividing the nation. Author John Seigenthaler did a remarkable job in this short biography. There were many complex political issues in Polk's career. The nation was divided between Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs. There were numerous political machinations involved in Polk's advancing his political career, and Seigenthaler, in relatively few pages, manages to get into the heart of these issues. The American President Series is an excellent group of short presidential biographies, and this effort by Seigenthaler is one of the best of this fine series.

One of the major occurences in James Polk's administration was the Mexican-American war. With a war that has been called an act of American Imperialism, Polk micro-managed his way through all the political dissention and military intrigues of the war and other controversies of his administration. He retired utterly exhausted and ill, and was dead within four months of leaving office. This book highlights his early life and political rise to the presidency. It is a short book, but full of information and is written in a very readable style. For any American History buff, especially regarding the administrations of the presidents this series covers, I recommend the book very highly, and others in the series.

When the Democratic party nominated the nation's first dark horse presidential candidate in 1844, the opposition Whig party responded with the cry, "Who is James Polk?" Today, many people unfamiliar with this era of the nation's history might ask the same question. Veteran journalist John Seigenthaler provides the answer in this compact, well-organized biography, the latest entry in the "American Presidents" series. Of course, the Whigs, and the rest of the country, knew who Polk was, but they were surprised to see him contending for the highest office in the land. As a young man, Polk had risen rapidly from the Tennessee legislature to the US House of Representatives, where he was a powerful and effective speaker. He returned home to run for governor of the state, seeing that position as his eventual springboard to the presidency. He served a single two-year term in the statehouse, but lost the next two elections. Most in the political arena thought Polk's fortunes were in eclipse before his surprising emergence as the Democratic nominee and subsequent victory over Henry Clay in the general election. Polk promised to serve only one term in the presidency, a pledge that he kept. He also laid out four principal goals for his administration--a lower tariff, restoration of an independent national treasury, and securing Oregon and California for the United States. He accomplished all of these, the most challenging being the acquisition of California, which came at the price of an unpopular war with Mexico. Historians have consistently rated Polk as among the presidential greats or near-greats. But he has little historical resonance with the public in comparison with outsized figures such as Washington, Jackson, Lincoln and the Roosevelts. Seigenthaler explains this as being a product of Polk's colorless, humorless, driven personality. He quotes extensively from Polk's presidential diary to illustrate the rivalries and jealousies that often seemed to control his thoughts and actions. While he may have been a small man in some ways, Polk accomplished great things, Seigenthaler concludes...and that's why his life and career are worthy of greater acknowledgment today.--William C. Hall