James Polk Quotes

In the nineteenth century, cholera struck the most modern, prosperous cities in the world, killing rich and poor alike, from Paris and London to New York City and New Orleans. In 1836, it felled King Charles X in Italy; in 1849, President James Polk in New Orleans; in 1893, the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in St. Petersburg.

Although most Americans believed in Manifest Destiny, few could agree on exactly which lands the United States was supposed to govern.

I love you, Sarah. For all eternity, I love you.

It was these elite families which produced such notable Americans of Scotch-Irish ancestry as Patrick Henry. Andrew Jackson, John Calhoun, James Polk, Zachary Taylor, Sam Houston. and others.

The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government.

In the White House now was James Polk, a Democrat, an expansionist, who, on the night of his inauguration, confided to his Secretary of the Navy that one of his main objectives was the acquisition of California. His order to General Taylor to move troops to the Rio Grande was a challenge to the Mexicans. It was not at all clear that the Rio Grande was the southern boundary of Texas, although Texas had forced the defeated Mexican general Santa Anna to say so when he was a prisoner. The traditional border between Texas and Mexico had been the Nueces River, about 150 miles to the north, and both Mexico and the United States had recognized that as the border. However, Polk, encouraging the Texans to accept annexation, had assured them he would uphold their claims to the Rio Grande. Ordering troops to the Rio Grande, into territory inhabited by Mexicans, was clearly a provocation.

In particular, three slaveowning politicians loom large in our narrative as principal enablers of the territorial expansion of slavery and, consequently, of the slave-breeding industry: Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and James K. Polk—a Virginian and two Tennesseans. All three were slaveholders, and like all slaveholders, their wealth was primarily stored in the form of captive human beings, so their entire financial base—personal, familial, social, and political—depended on

At the onset of the Civil War, our stolen bodies were worth four billion dollars, more than all of American industry, all of American railroads, workshops, and factories combined, and the prime product rendered by our stolen bodies—cotton—was America’s primary export. The richest men in America lived in the Mississippi River Valley, and they made their riches off our stolen bodies. Our bodies were held in bondage by the early presidents. Our bodies were traded from the White House by James K. Polk. Our bodies built the Capitol and the National Mall. The first shot of the Civil War was fired in South Carolina, where our bodies constituted the majority of human bodies in the state. Here is the motive for the great war. It’s not a secret.

In the incongruous role of the insurgent party-builder, he made crystal clear the whole host of inferences we have drawn from the experiences of Monroe and Polk: that innovation, however orthodox, is inherently destabilizing; that the purely constructive leadership project is an illusion; that the affiliated leader cannot assume independent ground without ultimately embracing the role of the heretic; that the only way ever to be president in your own right is to become yourself a great repudiator and set yourself directly against the bulwark of received power; that political disruption parallels presidential significance. Roosevelt's insight was not simply that new achievements do not rest securely on old foundations, but that to save the handiwork of his presidency he would have to reconstruct its political base.

Finally, the ambassadors concluded their task of keeping Europe not only out of American affairs but, indeed, out of the entire Western Hemisphere. In 1846 President Polk observed: “We must have California.” Since that Pacific littoral was part of Mexico, Polk provoked Mexico into a war with the United States. California, Arizona, and Utah were ceded two years later. More peacefully, the tidy-minded Polk acquired the Pacific Northwest by treaties with England. With the acquisition of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, the Union now filled the continent from sea to shining sea. In 1867 the Russians sold us their icebox, Alaska, while Hawaii was annexed in 1898, along with Puerto Rico and the reluctant Philippines. While this filling in of vast spaces with neatly ruled new states, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams produced for President James Monroe a doctrine declaring that the two American continents were off limits to Europe, as Europe would be to us. In 1917, by entering World War I, we in effect voided the Monroe Doctrine. But that was to gain yet another world, one that is currently—optimistically—called “global.” Benjamin

the resources of the federal government to make a quality college education affordable for every American citizen who wants one. Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to . . . make war at pleasure. —Lincoln, justifying his stand against President James K. Polk’s invasion of Mexico February 15, 1848

During that century the two countries nearly went to war again at least three more times. As prime minister in the 1840s, Sir Robert Peel was acutely conscious of the American threat to Canada, and warned Parliament of possible war. This was the age of ‘manifest destiny’, which for many Americans meant their country’s destiny to rule the whole of North America, including Canada. At the 1844 presidential election James Polk and the Democrats campaigned on a bellicose platform, demanding the territory which would become the Canadian province of British Columbia, the Pacific coast from Oregon north to the 54th parallel and the border with Russian America, now Alaska: hence the unwieldy slogan ‘Fifty-four forty or fight!’ When Polk was elected, he backed off and found an easier target to the south, embarking on the Mexican–American War of 1846.

Many of us understand that America was built on the brutality of slavery and the looting of Indigenous land. Fewer recognize the colonization of Mexico by the United States as a third pillar in the creation of present-day America. The first colonization of Mexico was of course by Spain. But the second colonization of my people came at the hands of the United States during the Mexican-American War. In school we learn of it as Manifest Destiny, as the God-given right of white people to steal native land. The result was not only the taking of land...but the reluctant acquisition of Mexicans. ...The annexation of Texas into the United States and a dispute over where the Texas border should be drawn gave President James Polk an excuse to loot more Mexican land...There were between 80,000 and 100,000 Mexicans living in the land stolen by the United States. Polk wanted the land, but not the Mexicans on it. They were never immigrants; they didn't come to the United States or cross the border; the border crossed them. After the war, the Mexico-U.S. border was carefully drawn to keep as many Mexicans out as possible, a purpose it still serves. But the border never stopped out roots from growing on both sides.

In the years that followed the Harrison campaign, many candidates—from Colonel James 'Young Hickory' Polk in 1844 to Lieutenant John Kerry in 2004—had their 'humble origins' and/or 'war leadership' highlighted in political material. Often coupled with these tactics was a corollary, to create an image of the opposition candidate that was highly negative—from John Adams as a 'monarchist' to John Kerry as a 'flip-flopping, windsurfing elitist.

At the onset of the Civil War, our stolen bodies were worth four billion dollars, more than all of American industry, all of American railroads, workshops, and factories combined, and the prime product rendered by our stolen bodies - cotton - was America's primary export. The richest men in America lived in the Mississippi River Valley, and they made their riches off our stolen bodies. Our bodies were held in bondage by the early presidents. Our bodies were traded from the White House by James K. Polk. Our bodies built the Capitol and the National Mall. The first shot of the Civil War was fired in South Carolina, where our bodies constituted the majority of human bodies in the state. Here is the motive for the great war.

As Coates notes in “The Case for Reparations”: The early American economy was built on slave labor. The Capitol and the White House were built by slaves. President James K. Polk traded slaves from the Oval Office. The laments about “black pathology,” the criticism of black family structures by pundits and intellectuals, ring hollow in a country whose existence was predicated on the torture of black fathers, on the rape of black mothers, on the sale of black children. An honest assessment of America’s relationship to the black family reveals the country to be not its nurturer but its destroyer. And this destruction did not end with slavery.6

Coates notes in “The Case for Reparations”: The early American economy was built on slave labor. The Capitol and the White House were built by slaves. President James K. Polk traded slaves from the Oval Office. The laments about “black pathology,” the criticism of black family structures by pundits and intellectuals, ring hollow in a country whose existence was predicated on the torture of black fathers, on the rape of black mothers, on the sale of black children. An honest assessment of America’s relationship to the black family reveals the country to be not its nurturer but its destroyer. And this destruction did not end with slavery.6

Of course, some captains are more adept at doing so than others. A successful president correctly discerns what existing conditions require and creates the impression that he is the master of circumstance rather than its servant. James Polk, Abraham Lincoln, and William McKinley offer illustrative examples.

However, annexation was extremely popular throughout the South, and the issue was seized upon by former House Speaker and Tennessee Governor James K. Polk, whose strong support for bringing Texas into the Union propelled him to the Democratic nomination and the presidency.

As Coates notes in “The Case for Reparations”: The early American economy was built on slave labor. The Capitol and the White House were built by slaves. President James K. Polk traded slaves from the Oval Office. The laments about “black pathology,” the criticism of black family structures by pundits and intellectuals, ring hollow in a country whose existence was predicated on the torture of black fathers, on the rape of black mothers, on the sale of black children. An honest assessment of America’s relationship to the black family reveals the country to be not its nurturer but its destroyer. And this destruction did not end with slavery.