Back James K. Polk Afrikaans ጄምስ ፖልክ Amharic James Knox Polk AN Iacobus K. Polk ANG جيمس بوك Arabic دجيمس پولك ARY چيمس بولك ARZ James K. Polk AST Ceyms Noks Polk Azerbaijani جئیمز ناکس پولک AZB
James K. Polk | |
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_(2).jpg) Portrait, c. 1849 | |
| 11th President of the United States | |
| In office March 4, 1845 – March 4, 1849 | |
| Vice President | George M. Dallas |
| Preceded by | John Tyler |
| Succeeded by | Zachary Taylor |
| 9th Governor of Tennessee | |
| In office October 14, 1839 – October 15, 1841 | |
| Preceded by | Newton Cannon |
| Succeeded by | James C. Jones |
| 13th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives | |
| In office December 7, 1835 – March 3, 1839 | |
| Preceded by | John Bell |
| Succeeded by | Robert M. T. Hunter |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee | |
| In office March 4, 1825 – March 3, 1839 | |
| Preceded by | John Alexander Cocke |
| Succeeded by | Harvey Magee Watterson |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | James Knox Polk November 2, 1795 Pineville, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | June 15, 1849 (aged 53) Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Resting place | Tennessee State Capitol |
| Political party | Democratic |
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| Education | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (AB) |
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| Military service | |
| Branch/service | Tennessee militia |
| Years of service | 1821–1825 |
| Rank | Captain |
| Unit | Maury County Cavalry |
Other offices
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James Knox Polk (/poʊk/;[1] November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849. A protégé of Andrew Jackson and a member of the Democratic Party, he was an advocate of Jacksonian democracy and extending the territory of the United States. Polk led the U.S. into the Mexican–American War, and after winning the war he annexed the Republic of Texas, the Oregon Territory, and the Mexican Cession.
After building a successful law practice in Tennessee, Polk was elected to its state legislature in 1823 and then to the United States House of Representatives in 1825, becoming a strong supporter of Jackson. After serving as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, he became Speaker of the House in 1835, the only person to serve both as Speaker and U.S. president. Polk left Congress to run for governor of Tennessee, winning in 1839 but losing in 1841 and 1843. He was a dark-horse candidate in the 1844 presidential election as the Democratic Party nominee; he entered his party's convention as a potential nominee for vice president but emerged as a compromise to head the ticket when no presidential candidate could gain the necessary two-thirds majority. In the general election, Polk narrowly defeated Henry Clay of the Whig Party and pledged to serve only one term.
After a negotiation fraught with the risk of war, Polk reached a settlement with Great Britain over the disputed Oregon Country, with the territory for the most part divided along the 49th parallel. He oversaw victory in the Mexican–American War, resulting in Mexico's cession of the entire American Southwest. He secured a substantial reduction of tariff rates with the Walker tariff of 1846. The same year, he achieved his other major goal, reestablishment of the Independent Treasury system. True to his campaign pledge to serve one term (one of the few U.S. presidents to make and keep such a pledge), Polk left office in 1849 and returned to Tennessee, where he died of cholera soon afterward.
Though he is relatively obscure today, scholars have ranked Polk in the upper tier of American presidents, mostly for his ability to promote and achieve the major items on his presidential agenda. At the same time, he has been criticized for leading the country into a war with Mexico that exacerbated sectional divides. A property owner who used slave labor, he kept a plantation in Mississippi and increased his slave ownership during his presidency. Polk's policy of territorial expansion saw the nation reach the Pacific coast and almost all its contiguous borders. He helped make the U.S. a nation poised to become a world power, but with divisions between free and slave states gravely exacerbated, setting the stage for the Civil War.