47 Fun Facts About James K. Polk

Which president did Polk succeed in 1845?

John Tyler. In his last days in office he pushed the annexation of Texas through Congress, handing Polk the quarrel with Mexico that would dominate his term.

In which state was Polk born in 1795, the eldest of ten children?

North Carolina. He was born on a farm near Charlotte, and when he was ten his family crossed the mountains by covered wagon to carve a plantation out of the frontier.

Polk was known as "Young Hickory" as a protégé of which president?

Andrew Jackson. From retirement at the Hermitage, 'Old Hickory' steered the deadlocked 1844 Democratic convention toward his protégé as the man who would annex Texas.

Polk remains the only president to have also held which office?

Speaker of the House. He held the gavel from 1835 to 1839, then gave it up to run for governor, which he saw as a better springboard to higher office.

Which Whig did Polk narrowly defeat in the 1844 presidential election?

Henry Clay. Whigs jeered 'Who is James K. Polk?', but the Democrat ran openly on expansion and beat a man making his third run for the presidency.

Before the White House, Polk served as governor of which state?

Tennessee. He won in 1839 but lost his re-election bids in 1841 and 1843, so the future president arrived at the 1844 convention fresh from two straight defeats at home.

Who served as Polk's vice president?

George M. Dallas. In 1846 the Pennsylvanian broke a 27-27 tie in the Senate to pass Polk's tariff cut, although his own state's manufacturers wanted high tariffs kept.

As a teenager, Polk had surgery for urinary stones with reportedly only what to dull the pain?

Brandy. Dr. Ephraim McDowell cut out the stones in 1812 with the patient awake; the operation restored his health but may have left him sterile, and he never had children.

Which island crossing the 49th parallel stayed wholly British in 1846?

Vancouver Island. The border ran along the 49th parallel to the coast and then bent south through the straits, so the island's southern tip, where Victoria stands, stayed British.

Which 1848 agreement ended Polk's war with Mexico?

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico signed away more than half its territory, California included, on February 2, 1848, nine days after gold had been found at Sutter's Mill.

Who negotiated the peace with Mexico despite being recalled by Polk?

Nicholas Trist. The State Department's chief clerk ignored the order to come home, kept bargaining, and signed a treaty so close to Polk's terms that the angry president sent it to the Senate anyway.

How much did the United States pay Mexico for its vast cession under the 1848 peace treaty?

$15 million. That matched the price of the Louisiana Purchase 45 years earlier, and Polk had cleared his envoy to offer up to twice as much.

Which envoy, later seized in the Trent Affair, did Polk send to Mexico in 1845 to buy California?

John Slidell. Mexico's government refused even to receive him, and Polk had decided to ask Congress for war over the snub before news of any fighting reached Washington.

The April 1846 skirmish that gave Polk his case for war was fought beside which river?

Rio Grande. Mexico held that Texas ended at the Nueces River farther north, so when its cavalry attacked Captain Seth Thornton's patrol each side could say the other had invaded.

What was the first major engagement of the Mexican–American War?

Battle of Palo Alto. Fast-moving American 'flying artillery' won it on the Texas prairie on May 8, 1846, days before Congress had even declared war.

Which Whig congressman introduced the "exact spot" resolutions challenging Polk?

Abraham Lincoln. The first-term Illinois Whig challenged Polk to show him the very spot where blood was shed; the stand proved unpopular with his constituents, and he left Congress after one term.

Which general landed at Veracruz in 1847 and went on to capture Mexico City in Polk's war?

Winfield Scott. He fought his way from the coast to the capital in five months, and the Whigs, who were already talking of him for president, nominated him in 1852; he lost.

Which general, a hero of Buena Vista, succeeded Polk as president?

Zachary Taylor. The war that Polk, a Democrat, had begun made a national hero of this Whig general, who then won the White House for the opposition in 1848.

Which 1846 measure sought to ban slavery in any land Polk gained from Mexico?

Wilmot Proviso. With Polk opposed, it passed the House again and again but never the Senate, and the quarrel over slavery in the new lands outlasted his presidency.

Who was Polk's Secretary of State?

James Buchanan. The ambitious Pennsylvanian put his name to the treaty with Britain that settled Oregon, and eight years after leaving Polk's cabinet he became president himself.

Polk's 1846 tariff cut bore the name of which Treasury Secretary?

Robert J. Walker. The former Mississippi senator's bill cut import duties, and it cleared a tied Senate only on the vice president's casting vote.

Polk's Independent Treasury kept federal funds out of what?

Private banks. The government held its money in its own Treasury vaults instead, an arrangement that lasted until the Federal Reserve replaced it after 1913.

Which body did Polk sign into existence in 1846, funded by an English scientist's bequest?

Smithsonian Institution. James Smithson, who never visited America, left it his fortune; the money arrived as more than 100,000 gold sovereigns, and Congress haggled for eight years before Polk signed the act.

Polk's 1845 inauguration was the first to be reported by what means?

Telegraph. Samuel Morse had opened the country's first line less than a year earlier, so this was the first swearing-in whose news could outrun the mail.

Polk died in June 1849, most likely of which disease?

Cholera. He is thought to have picked it up on his long homeward tour through the South, where an epidemic was spreading, and he fell ill soon after settling into his new house.

Polk kept which 1844 campaign promise?

Serve one term. He declined to run again in 1848 and left office in poor health; he died 103 days later, and as of 2025 no former president has had a shorter retirement.

Which pastime did First Lady Sarah Polk ban from White House receptions?

Dancing. The devout Presbyterian kept her receptions sedate, yet she was no mere hostess: she was her husband's closest political adviser, and she outlived him by more than forty years.

Which nickname did Polk earn early in his career?

Napoleon of the Stump. Small in stature but an eloquent orator, he won the name as a young man campaigning for a seat in the state legislature.

Which alternative rock band recorded a history-lesson song titled 'James K. Polk'?

They Might Be Giants. First released in 1990 on the back of their 'Istanbul (Not Constantinople)' single, it opens at the deadlocked 1844 convention and races through his presidency.

In 1846 Polk gave which exiled Mexican general safe passage home, hoping he would make peace?

Santa Anna. He had promised to make peace on American terms, but once home he was named commander of the Mexican army and president, and led the fight against the United States instead.

Which everyday item did the US government issue for the first time in 1847, during Polk's presidency?

Postage stamps. The first two, a five-cent Benjamin Franklin and a ten-cent George Washington, went on sale that July, and clerks cut them from the sheet with scissors.

Polk's first major House speech in 1826 urged abolishing what?

The Electoral College. He wanted presidents elected directly by the people, still bitter at the 'Corrupt Bargain' by which the House had made John Quincy Adams president.

Polk's Mississippi plantation, worked by enslaved people, grew which crop?

Cotton. Polk ran the plantation from afar and, while president, secretly bought 19 more enslaved people for it through agents, at least 13 of them children.

The 1844 "Roorback" forgery smeared Polk by claiming he had done what?

Branded slaves with his initials. A Whig paper printed the charge as a passage from the travels of a 'Baron von Roorback', who never existed, and 'roorback' became an American word for an election smear.

In which city was the 1844 Democratic convention that nominated Polk held?

Baltimore. Polk had stayed at home in Columbia throughout, and the letters and newspapers telling him he was the nominee reached him about a week after the vote.

In 1848 Polk tried to buy which island from Spain, only to be turned down?

Cuba. Spanish national pride would not hear of a sale, and Polk, who wanted the island only by purchase, refused to back a private army that planned to invade it instead.

Polk's Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty secured American transit rights across what?

Isthmus of Panama. New Granada, as Colombia was then called, granted the crossing, and nearly sixty years later Theodore Roosevelt leaned on the same treaty when he helped Panama break away.

Which state joined the Union under Polk in 1848, after Texas and Iowa?

Wisconsin. It came in as a free state in May 1848, which brought the free states level again with the slave states after two slave states had been admitted in 1845.

Polk's cabinet member George Bancroft, a noted historian, founded which school in 1845?

US Naval Academy. As Secretary of the Navy he opened it at Annapolis that October on the executive's own initiative, without waiting for Congress to create it.

On his last full day in office, Polk signed a bill creating which new executive body?

Department of the Interior. It was set up to organise and administer the vast western lands that his four years had just added to the country.

In which city did Polk die?

Nashville. He died at Polk Place, the town house he had just moved into, and was buried in the city cemetery within a day; his remains were later moved twice, most recently in 1893 to the state capitol grounds.

On his deathbed Polk was baptized into which church?

Methodist. He had gone unbaptised as a baby after a family quarrel with the local Presbyterian minister, and a camp meeting at 38 had won him over to Methodism long before his deathbed.

During Polk's war with Mexico, which army explorer took command of California's Bear Flag rebels in 1846?

John C. Frémont. He then quarrelled with General Kearny over who governed California and was court-martialed for mutiny; Polk commuted the sentence, but Frémont resigned from the army.

Texas spent the nine years before statehood as what?

Independent republic. Mexico had never accepted its independence and broke off relations with Washington over the annexation, and within months of statehood the two countries were at war.

Polk's successor took the oath late, on March 5, 1849, for what reason?

Inauguration day was a Sunday. The ceremony moved to Monday, and the one-day gap gave rise to the legend that Senator David Rice Atchison was 'president for a day'.

Which state, won by about 5,000 votes, decided the 1844 election for Polk after an anti-slavery party split his opponents?

New York. James G. Birney of the anti-slavery Liberty Party took votes there that might have gone to the Whig candidate, who would have won the presidency had he carried the state.

Polk's first case as a lawyer, settled for a one-dollar fine, defended whom?

His father. Samuel Polk had been charged with public fighting, and the newly qualified lawyer got him released for a one-dollar fine before building a busy practice on debt cases.