“You should probably know that one of your ancestors was an American President,” my Mom told me one day. I was in fifth grade, so probably about 11 years old. And I had never heard my relatives talk about an ancestor who was President.
“Which one?” I asked.
“James K. Polk,” she answered, and went on with her housework with no further words.
I could hardly wait to get to school. I was a kid who did my homework. So I always had extra time while the teacher worked with other students. A nod from the teacher and I headed straight back to the reference books. I was already working my way through the encyclopedia page-by-page, reading those things that were most interesting (and most were). But I had not yet arrived at the “P’s’.
And there it was: James K. Polk.
My first question was what his middle initial “K” stood for (remember, I am just in fifth grade). It is “Knox.” My Dad worked on road construction—we moved around a lot—and I had just spent the prior semester going to school in Knox, Indiana. Strange to name a place after a person’s middle name. “Probably some other Knox” I correctly guessed. But what did this president do? I read on.
Oh, dear!
You do not see prominent statues of President Knox in the Capitol or read much about him today. He was the great invader, the man who put our nation’s “Manifest Destiny” into action with vengeance. At that time, the U.S. had no West Coast. Mexico extended up through what is now California. And Britain held all property from there northward to Alaska (at that time Russian).
There were two major parties back then, the Whigs and the Democrats. Polk was an expansionist and the 1844 Democratic platform advocated that the entire region held by Britain, from Oregon north to the southern edge of Alaska, should be claimed for America. That northern limit was at a latitude of 54 degrees 40 minutes North, leading expansionists to shout “Fifty-four forty or fight!”
At the Democratic Convention, Polk was a “dark horse” candidate, only nominated by the ninth ballot. As our 11th President, Polk settled the dispute with Britain by extending the Canadian boundary along the 49th parallel. Britain wanted to avoid war. The treaty was signed in 1846.
Then he started “Polk’s War.” Most Americans, including Congress, were not in favor of this war just to seize land. Polk was a skilled liar, a politician and supremely arrogant.
As a little kid, I could read between the lines where the encyclopedia tried to smooth over the atrocities. Today, the book “Invading Mexico” by Joe Wheelan provides even more details.
What is now New Mexico, Arizona and California belonged to Mexico. Mexico had won them in a war with Spain 25 years earlier. But Mexico was no military power, having lost their war with Texas 10 years earlier.
Polk sent a message to the retired General Santa Anna (the general who lost Texas) in Cuba asking him to now help the U.S. against Mexico. Instead, Santa Anna returned to Mexico, became president, and led their unsuccessful defense of Mexico.
The Polk War took a terrible toll on Mexico civilians due to our massive shelling of villages. American troops eventually occupied Mexico City. Polk’s War ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848. Our North and South now debated how slavery would expand into these new territories and the drumbeat to our Civil War quickened. That is why you will find no national monuments to this Mexican War of 1846-48. Polk was a one-term President and died in 1849.
It takes the long hindsight of history to fully evaluate a Presidency. There are certainly other candidates for “worst President in history.” Andrew Jackson, William McKinley, Warren Harding and James Buchanan often make scholars’ “worst list” too. That is a lot of embarrassed descendants.
As a little kid, I remember thinking how it might be wise if we let people run for President only if they had no offspring. Then there would be no need for little kids to hide their ancestry.
John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.