Customer Reviews

The Presidency of James K. Polk (American Presidency Series)

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Polk is frequently ranked in the top third of US presidents. The years of his presidency fall between Jackson and Lincoln - a period where the presidents around him were generally considered among the worst in history. Polk clearly learned lessons about management and control from the failures of Tyler before him and these lessons led to a most effective presidency. While sectionalism begins to tear apart the preceding presidency and those that followed, the Polk presidency sees a chief executive who manages to be in charge of events during his 4 years. This book was a good read about an import man in a dangerous and exciting time and perhaps a lesson in not promising only to serve one term.

There are too few treatments of one of America's most significant presidencies, that of James Knox Polk. A friend asked "what was the deal about Polk" while I was reading the book. The answer is: "well, do you like the American Southwest and Washington state?" Polk was responsible for both being gained for our country in their present forms.

Bergeron's book is a good academic telling of this most significant of times. Arranged by major topic, his biography covers the crisis with Mexico and the war; the crisis with Great Britain over setting the boundary of the Pacific Northwest; the cabinet members Polk chose and worked with (significant because at the time the precedent was for presidents to govern with and through their cabinets; giving secretaries much greater veto power over issues in their sphere than now exists), his relationship with Congress and his emergence as a politician.

Polk's fascinating political personae as well as the personalities he had to deal with are well described. Particularly on the Texas question, the war with Mexico and the negotiations with Great Britain, the reader is given a very good step-by-step picture of the cabinet debates and perspectives surrounding the president's eventual courses of action. I came away feeling the author had researched the topics thoroughly enough to present a fairly complete picture of all three crises; allowing the reader an enjoyable bird's-eye view as the action unfolded. The details of life as a mid-1800's American president are also told. It is hard to imagine in this day and age a president holding twice weekly office hours for any person to visit with their problem (or more often request for office) or cabinet meetings in an age where secretaries had to be dealt with as their own political forces through wooing, placating and managing. In these details, Bergeron helps to paint a presidency that has disappeared but also an environment that exerted strong influences on the way a president executed his office.

This is very much a political-presidential biography. Although a chapter does try to capture his essence as a man, the focus is squarely on the pivotal four years in which he came to epitomize manifest destiny and draw our map to something that would be easily recognized by today's Americans.

The work is told in somewhat of an academic style. For a student of history and politics, it is a fascinating story. One gains a sense of the issues Polk confronted as well as the issues he helped create and successfully dealt with. This is a well documented and enjoyable treatment of a president more should know.

Looking at the structure of the United States in the twenty-first century, your first impression of the presidency of James Polk would be that he should be ranked in the top five presidents of all time. In the short span of his single term in office, Texas was annexed, Mexico defeated in war and the entire American southwest minus the relatively tiny Gadsden purchase annexed and a treaty splitting the Oregon territory between the United States and Great Britain finalized. The area taken from Mexico after their defeat alone is 2/5 of the territory of the continental United States. However, while the Louisiana Purchase under Thomas Jefferson is consistently mentioned in classes in American history, Polk, the architect of the greatest expansion, is rarely mentioned.
Part of this is Polk's own personality, as he is commonly portrayed as a humorless man who seemed aloof from his political peers. His time in office is also considered to be the point where the sectional differences that led to the civil war began in earnest. Both are mentioned and downplayed in this book. While he personally could have been much more sociable, given the strong political personalities of that time, it is unlikely that it would have made a difference. Bergeron is quite correct in emphasizing the strained relationships that Polk had with people like former president John Quincy Adams, and congressmen Henry Clay and John Calhoun. These were powerful men who represented deeply held sectional interests and who had dramatically different visions for the future of the country.
Given the force of the western expansion of the United States, it was inevitable that the only thing that could stop it was the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, the war with Mexico was probably an historical inevitability and once the territory was acquired, it was also inevitable that the question of slavery in that territory would be raised. Therefore, the argument that Polk's policies led to the great break between the states is nonsense. Bergeron takes a position against this nonsense, but it is not made as forcefully as it should have been.
One point about Polk that was not made and that should have been included deals with the comments of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. In 1848, Lincoln rose in the House of Representatives and delivered a fiery speech against Polk. In it, he accused Polk of being a liar, abusing his power as president and assuming the role of a dictator. As he was slowly dying, Grant, who was an officer in the American army during the war with Mexico, said Polk forced the United States into an unholy war against Mexico. He considered the destruction of the civil war to be "God's punishment for Polk's sin." Neither argument was necessarily correct, but their status as being involved in the war and president means that they should have been mentioned.
I consider this book to be an honest appraisal of the presidency of James Polk and first read it over five years ago. I recently made the choice to read it again because it is a case where a successful war planted the seeds for widespread destruction twenty years later. At the time I am writing this review, the United States is one year into the invasion of Iraq, a war that has generated rhetoric similar to that of Lincoln's. Many experts on the Arab world have argued that a victory now may lead to a much greater disaster later. I don't quite agree with that, but certainly consider it a possibility. Without question, like the presidency of Polk, that of George W. Bush will largely be measured by the consequences of an aggressive war launched despite a great deal of opposition and dubious points of justification.

When I point out that James K. Polk and Jerry Ford were the two Presidents who promised only what they could deliver and delivered all they promised, people generally reply "James K. Who?" The man who stretched the USA from sea to shining sea has got to be fascinating. All Kudos to the author for a much-needed book.

Particularly fascinating in it is the hilarious story of the negotiation of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gave us California et al. It proves the Mark Twain saying that God protects fools, drunkards and the United States of America.

This is actually a pretty well-written book on President Polk. It seemed to me though that the author, who wants to be complimentary of Polk and his presidency, has a difficult time being consistent with his appraisal. I am not sure that he has convinced himself of the compliments he pays our 11th President. And while it is admittedly focused on the time spent in office, I would have liked more of Polk's pre-presidential years.

I wrote a book review for my history class on this book. Plenty to write about, good insight, very good quotes!