#11: James K Polk Part 2

Really Cool Stuff about James K Polk
1. James was never baptized as a baby. Due to very high infant mortality rates, most children of this time were baptized in the church, just in case. However, due to a misunderstanding between James’ father and the pastor, Polk would miss out on this crucial ceremony. “The moment came when the Reverend James Wallis, a stern and dogmatic pastor, expected the child’s parents to affirm their Christian faith. Sam [Polk senior] balked. He would make no such avowal. Whereupon Pastor Wallis also balked; no parental commitment to the Christian faith, no baptism, he decreed. It was not until fifty-three years later, on his deathbed, that James K Polk was christened by a Methodist minister” (p. 12).
2. He was one of the few presidents to take a case all the way to the Supreme Court. “Seven lawyers who became presidents are known to have taken cases all the way to the US Supreme Court, and Polk is one of them. In January, 1827 the Court agreed with the argument of Polk and his co-counsel in the case Williams vs Norris” (p. 24).
3. Polk served consistently as a Congressman and was reelected seven times in a row!
4. During the mudslinging portion of the 1844 presidential campaign, Whig newspapers were absolutely at a loss with Polk due to his squeaky-clean reputation. “The Whigs had a tough time nailing Polk with the sort of personal dirt that was editorial grist for every presidential election mill. He had led an exemplary married life and was never known to carouse or gamble. He drank in moderation and could only have been accused, as Houston once said, of an addiction to water. He showed up at church with Sarah too often to be attacked as an unbaptized non-Christian” (p. 94-5). Because there was simply nothing wrong to blame on him, the Whigs turned to other avenues of research. “Whigs searched the Polk family tree for a flaw and came up with a charge that his grandfather Ezekiel had been a Tory sympathizer during the Revolutionary War” (p. 95). It turns out though that Ezekiel had merely struck up a bargain with the local Tories so that they would not burn his house. In reality, Polk’s grandfather was an ardent revolutionary and James proved it several times over through interviews and primary source accounts.
5. Polk was the first dark horse candidate in US history. “A small clique of Tennesseans, however, had devised a scheme that would launch the nation’s first ‘dark horse’ presidential candidate” (p. 80).
6. Polk had an almost paranoid obsession with Whigs and Federalists. If a politician subscribed to either political party, Polk would vehemently, and irrationally, hate him to the end of his days. Even though Generals Taylor and Scott were winning victory after victory during the Mexican War, Polk always distrusted them because they were Whigs and several times considered getting rid of them. “While their military credentials were outstanding, their courage unquestioned, and their patriotism admirable, they were both Whigs—and both had political aspirations…Both generals won repeated victories over the Mexican army in the field, but back in Washington, jumping to conclusions, Polk judged them harshly” (p. 133).
7. FYI: I looked up ‘manifest destiny’ separately because I was curious as to where that term came from. The Polk biographer uses it quite a bit and like I mentioned earlier, I associate that phrase with Polk’s presidency. So according to that ultimate information source, Wikipedia, the term ‘manifest destiny’ was used by John O’Sullivan in an 1845 article calling for the annexation of Texas. Just so you know.
8. PPS: I have to include this quote about Andrew Jackson and I wish that I had it during my Jackson bio. It sums him up so nicely. “As a young man, Jackson acted as if the laws of political gravity did not apply to him. Even as he served as Tennessee’s first congressman, one of its early US senators, and a member of the highest court of the state, his exaggerated sense of moral outrage, his burning ambition, and his violent temper led to repeated embarrassing conflicts: dueling, street fighting, gambling disputes, verbal attacks on critics, and explosive tantrums” (p. 27).

As biographies go, this one was pretty vanilla. Although I don’t think that this was the fault of the biographer so much as a faithful account of Polk’s personality. Let’s face it: James K wasn’t a spectacular personage and as such, Seigenthaler only has so much to work with here. However, I didn’t like the fact that Polk gets lost in his own biography. Even though Polk was overshadowed by Andrew Jackson throughout most of his political career, he was still a visible political heavy hitter at the time and should not be overlooked. Seigenthaler goes into great depth during the Jackson and Van Buren presidencies but giving more emphasis to Jackson and Van Buren, rather than his man, Polk—the hero of the piece. At one point I made this note: “history of Polk or Jackson!?!” Poor Polk gets shunted to the side until its time for him to shine front and center and that hurt his biography a bit.

I noticed two pretty remarkable things about Polk as I was reading through his bio. The first one was that it is amazing, especially with 150 years worth of hindsight, that there is no dirt on this guy. Polk is the quintessential Politician’s Dream-Come-True due to his virtually spotless existence. I actually laughed out loud when I read about the Whigs and their frantic search for anything-anything at all-that would lead to some sensational breaking news on Polk. And I know that there had to be some utter disbelief in the Whig ranks. I mean, who on earth is that good!?! For all you cynics out there: Hear ye, Hear ye…we have had a president with a squeaky clean past and lived to tell the tale.

The second remarkable thing about Polk is that he said what he would do as president and, get this, he actually did it. Every single thing. Come on now—you’re not impressed by this? We sit here in 2010 and complain about all the broken promises littering this good country by our presidents and yet here was a man who had an agenda and went through with it. He said that he was going to fix the tariff, create an independent treasury, and nab California and Texas and by God, he did! Not only that but he swore that he would only run for one term and he did that too. Goodness. I have to say that I’m seriously awed, Mr. Polk.