While the United States was inaugurating our 47th president, I turned my attention instead to a more palatable if relatively obscure chief executive: the 11th, James K. Polk.
Thus continued my Learn Tennessee Presidential History Tour. By chance it is taking place in reverse chronological order, having started with Andrew Johnson after a trip last June to his home in Greenville, in East Tennessee.
An account of another Andrew and his nearby estate, both of which you may be familiar with, will come at a later date.
As I mentioned in the Johnson column, my store of knowledge about Polk consisted entirely of gaps. I’m not sure I could have even narrowed his time in office to a particular decade; presidential lineage is not a specialty of mine.
Fortunately, I had at my disposal a biography of Polk from the American Presidents series. Even fortunately-er, it was written by John Seigenthaler, the late dean of Nashville journalists and a bit of a hero of mine.
Does the book touch on all aspects of Polk’s life in its modest 156 pages? It does not, thank goodness. But there’s enough biographical detail to put a face on the private man. (You do not want to mentally linger too long on the surgical episode, sans general anesthetic, that removed his kidney stones.)
And enough of the political influences to get a sense of the public man. (He was a devoted Jacksonian Democrat, sometimes known as “Young Hickory.”)
What it chiefly does is tell the story of a man who’d had considerable political success – state representative, congressman, speaker of the House, governor – but who, after two failed attempts to return as governor, was on the downslope and hoping to maybe latch on at the 1844 Democratic convention as the vice-presidential nominee.
If you read up on that contentious gathering, you’ll find that Polk became the top nominee on the ninth ballot and – Bob’s your uncle – then the president. Though not, perhaps, the kind of lighthearted guy you’d want to share a beer with.
“To read his presidential diary is to be retrospectively introduced to a chief magistrate who was tough-minded, strong-willed, egocentric, sometimes petty, usually predictable, often duplicitous and always partisan,” Seigenthaler says on the dust jacket. Elsewhere, he describes him as a “brooding and humorless man.”
On balance, I’d say all that sounds pretty good right now.
And if doing what you say is to be counted as a positive, then these four goals he set for himself and accomplished must be counted to his credit, Seigenthaler says:
• He lowered tariffs, which helped the agrarian middle class
• He re-created an independent treasury, ending the control private banks had of the nation’s money
• He got Oregon from the British
• He got California from Mexico. Combined with Oregon and adding Texas to the Union, it was the largest land expansion in the nation’s history.
“By any analytical standard and by every historian’s poll, Polk belongs in the pantheon of near-great presidents,” Seigenthaler wrote. Polk promised to serve only one term and he kept his word.
“A complete workaholic,” Seigenthaler again, “he left office worn and ill and went home to Nashville to recover his health.”
Three months later he died of cholera.
That Nashville home he’d bought in 1847 and hoped to recover in and beyond, Polk Place, instead became the final abode of his widow, Sarah, who lived 40 more years. It was demolished in 1901.
Instead, the only remaining Polk home is one built in 1816 in Columbia by his father, Samuel, and in which James Polk lived from 1818 to 1824. Still, it houses much stuff owned and used by Polk and his wife, and the site also contains a second dwelling, which used to house Polk’s sisters. It serves as the visitor center.
And if you should arrive on a day like we did – a coronation in the nation’s capital, and a high of 21 degrees in Columbia – you won’t be bothered by any large crowds. Or small ones. The man who proved to be our personal guide – “Dan,” his nametag said – did a fine job giving context to the artifacts and plugging Polk’s historical merits. He mentioned the Naval Academy as part of Polk’s legacy, along with a place in the annals of presidential coiffure.
“He was the first president to have a mullet hairstyle,” Dan said.
There are worse things to be remembered for. As we’ve seen.
Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville.