James K. Polk
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47 free James K. Polk trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
James K. Polk is the president most people forget and historians keep ranking near the top. In a single term from 1845 to 1849 he settled the Oregon boundary with Britain, annexed Texas, won a war with Mexico that delivered California and the Southwest, cut tariffs and rebuilt the Independent Treasury. He promised to serve one term, kept the promise, and died of cholera just over three months after leaving the White House. This quiz covers the whole arc: the sickly North Carolina boy operated on with only brandy for anesthetic, the Jackson protégé nicknamed Young Hickory, the only Speaker of the House ever to reach the presidency, the dark-horse nomination on the ninth ballot, and the generals, diplomats and treaties of the Mexican War. It also asks about his slaveholding, his cabinet and the odd afterlife of his remains. Fifty questions run from easy to genuinely hard. Every answer is sourced, and each explanation adds one more detail, so you leave knowing more about Polk than when you started.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which president did Polk succeed in 1845?
John Tyler
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.
Q 02In which state was Polk born in 1795, the eldest of ten children?
North Carolina
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.
Q 03Polk was known as "Young Hickory" as a protégé of which president?
Andrew Jackson
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.
Q 04Polk remains the only president to have also held which office?
Speaker of the House
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.
Q 05Which Whig did Polk narrowly defeat in the 1844 presidential election?
Henry Clay
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.
Q 06Before the White House, Polk served as governor of which state?
Tennessee
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.
Q 07Who served as Polk's vice president?
George M. Dallas
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.
Q 08As a teenager, Polk had surgery for urinary stones with reportedly only what to dull the pain?
Brandy
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.
Q 09Which island crossing the 49th parallel stayed wholly British in 1846?
Vancouver Island
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.
Q 10Which 1848 agreement ended Polk's war with Mexico?
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
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.
Q 11Who negotiated the peace with Mexico despite being recalled by Polk?
Nicholas Trist
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.
Q 12How much did the United States pay Mexico for its vast cession under the 1848 peace treaty?
$15 million
$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.
Q 13Which envoy, later seized in the Trent Affair, did Polk send to Mexico in 1845 to buy California?
John Slidell
Q 21Polk's 1846 tariff cut bore the name of which Treasury Secretary?
Robert J. Walker
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.
Q 22Polk's Independent Treasury kept federal funds out of what?
Private banks
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.
Q 23Which body did Polk sign into existence in 1846, funded by an English scientist's bequest?
Smithsonian Institution
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.
Q 14The April 1846 skirmish that gave Polk his case for war was fought beside which river?
Rio Grande
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.
Q 15What was the first major engagement of the Mexican–American War?
Battle of Palo Alto
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.
Q 16Which Whig congressman introduced the "exact spot" resolutions challenging Polk?
Abraham Lincoln
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.
Q 17Which general landed at Veracruz in 1847 and went on to capture Mexico City in Polk's war?
Winfield Scott
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.
Q 18Which general, a hero of Buena Vista, succeeded Polk as president?
Zachary Taylor
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.
Q 19Which 1846 measure sought to ban slavery in any land Polk gained from Mexico?
Wilmot Proviso
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.
Q 20Who was Polk's Secretary of State?
James Buchanan
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.
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.
Q 24Polk's 1845 inauguration was the first to be reported by what means?
Telegraph
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.
Q 25Polk died in June 1849, most likely of which disease?
Cholera
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.
Q 26Polk kept which 1844 campaign promise?
Serve one term
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.
Q 27Which pastime did First Lady Sarah Polk ban from White House receptions?
Dancing
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.
Q 28Which nickname did Polk earn early in his career?
Napoleon of the Stump
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.
Q 29Which alternative rock band recorded a history-lesson song titled 'James K. Polk'?
They Might Be Giants
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.
Q 30In 1846 Polk gave which exiled Mexican general safe passage home, hoping he would make peace?
Santa Anna
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.