JAMES K.POLK

James Knox Polk, the first of ten children, was born on November 2, 1795 in a farmhouse (possibly a log cabiin what is now Pineville, North Carolina in Mecklenburg County, just outside Charlotte.His father, Samuel Polk, was a slaveholder, successful farmer and surveyor of Scots-Irish descent. His mother, Jane Polk (née Knox), was a descendant of a brother of the Scottish religious reformer John Knox. She named her firstborn after her father James Knox.

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Polk was home schooled.His health was problematic and in 1812 his pain became so unbearable that he was taken to Dr. Ephraim McDowell of Danville, Kentucky, who operated to remove urinary stones.Polk was awake during the operation with nothing but brandy available for anesthetic, but it was successful. The surgery may have left Polk sterile, as he did not sire any children.

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When Polk recovered, his father offered to bring him into the mercantile business, but Polk refused.In July 1813, Polk enrolled at the Zion Church near his home. A year later he attended an academy in Murfreesboro, where he may have met his future wife, Sarah Childress.At Murfreesboro, Polk proved a promising student. In January 1816, he transferred and was admitted into the University of North Carolina as a second-semester sophomore. The Polks had connections with the university, then a small school of about 80 students.

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Polk graduated with honors in 1818 from the University of North Carolina. Leaving his law practice behind, he served in the Tennessee legislature, where he became friends with Andrew Jackson. Polk moved from the Tennessee legislature to the United States House of Representatives, serving from 1825 to 1839 (and serving as speaker of the House from 1835 to 1839). He left his congressional post to become governor of Tennessee.

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Leading into the presidential election of 1844,Polk was the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for the vice presidency. Both would-be presidential candidates, Martin Van Buren for the Democrats and Henry Clay for the Whigs, sought to skirt the expansionist ("manifest destiny") issue during the campaign, seeing it as potentially controversial.

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Andrew Jackson, who knew that the American public favored westward expansion. He sought to run a candidate in the election committed to the precepts of manifest destiny, and at the Democratic Convention, Polk was nominated to run for the presidency. Polk went on to win the popular vote by a razor-thin margin, but took the electoral college handily.

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James Polk took office on March 4, 1845—and, at 49 years of age, he became the youngest president in American history. Before Polk took the oath of office, Congress offered annexation to Texas, and when they accepted and became a new state, Mexico severed diplomatic relations with the United States and tensions between the two countries escalated.

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Polk was the last strong pre–Civil War president, and he is the earliest of whom there are surviving photographs taken during a term in office. He is noted for his foreign policy successes. He threatened war with Britain over the issue of which nation owned the Oregon Country, then backed away and split the ownership of the region with Britain.

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Polk oversaw the opening of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Smithsonian Institution, the groundbreaking for the Washington Monument, and the issuance of the first postage stamps in the United States. He promised to serve only one term and did not run for reelection. He died of cholera three months after his term ended.

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FUN FACTS

• Polk graduated with honors May 1818
• . The University later named the lower quad on its main campus, Polk place.
• After graduation, Polk traveled to Nashville to study law.
• Felix Grundy was his attorney.
• Sarah Childress, and Polk married on January 1, 1824 in Murfreesboro.