A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent Book

While historians have generally ranked James K. Polk on the list of America's greatest presidents, he remains largely unknown and unappreciated by the vast majority of American citizens, dwarfed in reputation by Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, the two Roosevelts et al., who also populate the list. Robert W. Merry speculates that this is due in part to the fact that Polk lacked personal magnetism and was, even in his own day, largely unable "to pull large numbers of fond acolytes to his side....Unlike other successful presidents, he had no appreciable personal following to breathe life into his story and promote his standing in history."

Despite the fact that he is not better known these days, Polk had, by almost any standard, one of the most successful of American presidential administrations. A protege of Andrew Jackson, Polk entered office with several major objectives: to complete the annexation of Texas to the Union, to annex Oregon to the U.S. and to acquire from Mexico California and the vast Southwest between Texas and California. On the domestic side, he was determined to lower tariff rates and to re-establish the independent treasury system originally put in place by Martin Van Buren.

On taking office, Polk promised that he would limit himself to one term as president and by the end of that four years, he had achieved all of his stated objectives. The U.S. had grown in size by more than one-third and now stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific. More amazing, perhaps, is that he accomplished all of this against considerable opposition from the Whig minority and with a badly divided Democratic party that often frustrated the president even more than the Whigs.

In part, Polk established this record by working harder than any other president before or since. He devoted long hours to the job day in and day out and was absent from Washington D.C. for only a handful of days during his entire presidency. He once explained his rare devotion to duty by confiding to his diary, "No President who performs his duty faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure. If he entrusts the details and smaller matters to subordinates constant errors will occur. I prefer to supervise the whole operations of the Government myself...and this makes my duties very great."

So great, in fact, that Polk wore himself out at the job and died only three months after leaving office at the (even then) relatively young age of fifty-three. Polk quickly proved also to be one of the most stubborn and determined presidents we have ever had. Once he set his mind on an objective, he worked relentlessly and often very skillfully to accomplish it. A prime example was his determination to win most of the Oregon country for the U.S. Merry describes how Polk effectively outmaneuvered the British to win a settlement of the Oregon controversy that was very advantageous to the U.S.

Polk's most controversial actions, both in his own time and down to the present day, were those he took in his determination to place the border between Texas and Mexico on the Rio Grande River, rather than on the Nueces, which was this historic border between Texas and the neighboring Mexican province, and to secure from Mexico California and the Southwest. Polk's opponents in the 1840s, including a young congressman named Abraham Lincoln, and others since have accused Polk of ginning up a war with Mexico to secure the territory when other means failed.

Merry defends Polk against the charge, although not all that convincingly, by arguing that Mexico was also at fault for the events that led to the war and by arguing further that, in effect, might makes right. Logic dictated that the United States and not Mexico would be the nation to dominate California and the Southwest, and that by his actions that led to the war, Polk was simply acknowledging and promoting the nation's destiny.

This is not an argument likely to mollify all of Polk's critics, but one need not agree with all of Merry's conclusions to note that he has written as full and complete an examination of the Polk administration as we are likely to get or to need. Whatever one may think of him, Polk accomplished a phenomenal record.

People will continue to debate that record for a good many years, and, of course, the acquisition of all of that new territory would open a bitter debate over the question of the expansion of slavery. That, in turn, would propel the United States into a cataclysmic civil war, as some of Polk's opponents feared at the time. In the end, perhaps the fairest and most lasting judgment on the Polk administration was rendered by the venerable diplomatic historian Thomas A. Bailey, who once wrote that, "one can fairly criticize Polk's methods, but one can hardly fail to be impressed by the results."