Existing comment:
James K. Polk, 1795-1849
In explaining the transformation of the American presidency from the limited executive of the Constitution to Lincoln's expansion of the office, historians point to Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. However, James K. Polk may have been the strongest president in antebellum America. Polk, the youngest to occupy that office up to that time, had his cabinet officers sign a form letter agreeing to support his program and made it clear that although he desired harmony, "I intend to by myself President of the U.S." He confronted the two most difficult boundary issues in American history. In the matter of the disputed northern border, Polk looked John Bull "straight in the eye" and secured more of the Oregon Territory than the British wanted to give up. On the southern border, his resoluteness, seen by many as bellicosity, led to war with Mexico, resulting in the new American states of California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona.
Charles Fenderich, 1838 |