Henry Clay
Portrait by Matthew Harris Jouett, 1818
8th, 10th and 13th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
In office March 4, 1823 – March 4, 1825 March 4, 1815 – October 28, 1820 March 4, 1811 – January 19, 1814
9th United States Secretary of State
In office March 4, 1825 – March 4, 1829
President	John Quincy Adams
Preceded by	John Quincy Adams
Succeeded by	Martin Van Buren
United States Senator from Kentucky
In office March 5, 1849 – June 29, 1852 November 10, 1831 – March 31, 1842 January 4, 1810 – March 4, 1811 December 29, 1806 – March 4, 1807
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky's 3rd district 2nd district (1813–1821)
In office March 4, 1823 – March 4, 1825 March 4, 1815 – March 3, 1821 March 4, 1811 – January 19, 1814
Personal details
Born	April 12, 1777 (1777-04-12) Hanover County, Virginia
Died	June 29, 1852 (1852-06-30) (aged 75) Washington, D.C.
Political party	Democratic-Republican National Republican Whig
Spouse(s)	Lucretia Hart Clay
Children	Henrietta Theodore Thomas Susan Anne Lucretia Henry, Jr. Eliza Laura James Brown Clay John Morrison Clay
Profession	Law
Religion	Episcopalian
Signature

Henry Clay, Sr. (April 12, 1777 – June 29, 1852), was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives. He served three different terms as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and was also Secretary of State from 1825 to 1829.

Clay was a dominant figure in both the First and Second Party systems. As a leading war hawk, he favored war with Britain and played a significant role in leading the nation to war in 1812.^[1] Later he was involved in the "Corrupt Bargain" of 1824, after which he was appointed Secretary of State by newly elected President John Quincy Adams, earning the scorn of Andrew Jackson. He was the foremost proponent of the American System, fighting for an increase in tariffs to foster industry in the United States, the use of federal funding to build and maintain infrastructure, and a strong national bank. He opposed the annexation of Texas, fearing it would inject the slavery issue into politics. Clay also opposed the Mexican-American War and the "Manifest Destiny" policy of Democrats, which cost him votes in the close 1844 election.

Dubbed the "Great Pacificator," Clay brokered important compromises during the Nullification Crisis and on the slavery issue. As part of the "Great Triumvirate" or "Immortal Trio," along with his colleagues Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun, he was instrumental in formulating the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850. He was viewed as the primary representative of Western interests in this group, and was given the names "Henry of the West" and "The Western Star."^[2] A plantation owner, Clay held slaves during his lifetime but freed them in his Will.^[3]

Abraham Lincoln, the Whig leader in Illinois, was a great admirer of Clay, saying he was "my ideal of a great man." Lincoln wholeheartedly supported Clay's economic programs.^[4] In 1957, a Senate Committee selected Clay as one of the five greatest U.S. Senators, along with Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Robert La Follette, and Robert Taft.^[5]

Early life and education[link]

Childhood[link]

Henry Clay was born on April 12, 1777, at the Clay homestead in Hanover County, Virginia in a story-and-a-half frame house. It was an above-average home for a common Virginia planter of that time. At the time of his death, Clay's father owned more than 22 slaves, making him part of the planter class in Virginia (those men who owned 20 or more slaves).^[6]

Henry was the seventh of nine children of the Reverend John Clay and Elizabeth Hudson Clay.^[7] His father, a Baptist minister nicknamed "Sir John," died four years after his birth (1781).^[6] The father left Henry and his brothers two slaves each, and his wife 18 slaves and 464 acres (188 ha) of land.^[8] Henry Clay was a second cousin of Cassius Marcellus Clay, who became an abolitionist in Kentucky.

The widow Elizabeth Clay married Capt. Henry Watkins, who was an affectionate stepfather. Henry Watkins then moved the family to Richmond, Virginia.^[9] Elizabeth had seven more children with Watkins, bearing a total of sixteen.^[8]

Education[link]

In Richmond, Clay was hired as a shop assistant.^[9] His stepfather secured Clay employment in the office of the Court of Chancery, where he displayed an aptitude for law.^[10] There he became friends with George Wythe.^[10] Hampered by a crippled hand, Wythe chose Clay as his secretary.^[10] After Clay was employed as Wythe's amanuensis for four years, the chancellor took an active interest in Clay's future; he arranged a position for him with the Virginia attorney general, Robert Brooke. Clay received no formal legal education but, as was customary at the time, "read the law" by working and studying with Wythe, Chancellor of the Commonwealth of Virginia (also a mentor to Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall, among others) and Brooke.^[11] Clay studied for the bar for a year under Brooke and was admitted to practice law in 1797.^[9]

Legal career[link]

In November 1797, Clay relocated to Lexington, Kentucky, the growing town near where his family then resided in Woodford County. He soon established a reputation for his legal skills and courtroom oratory.^[12] Some of his clients paid him with horses and others with land. Clay came to own town lots and the Kentucky Hotel.

By 1812, Clay owned a productive 600-acre (240 ha) plantation, which he called "Ashland," and numerous slaves to work the land.^[3] He held 60 slaves at the peak of operations, and likely produced tobacco and hemp, the two chief commodity crops of the Bluegrass Region.

One of Clay's clients was his father-in-law, Colonel Thomas Hart, an early settler of Kentucky and a prominent businessman.^[13] Clay's most notable client was Aaron Burr in 1806, after the US District Attorney Joseph Hamilton Daviess indicted him for planning an expedition into Spanish Territory west of the Mississippi River. Clay and his law partner John Allen successfully defended Burr.^[14] Some years later Thomas Jefferson convinced Clay that Daviess had been right in his charges. Clay was so upset that many years later, when he met Burr again, Clay refused to shake his hand.^[15]

Marriage and family[link]

After beginning his law career, on April 11, 1799, Clay married Lucretia Hart at the Hart home in Lexington, Kentucky. She was a sister to Captain Nathaniel G. S. Hart, who died in the Massacre of the River Raisin in the War of 1812.^[13]

Clay and his wife had eleven children (six daughters and five sons): Henrietta (1800–1801), Theodore (1802–1870), Thomas (1803–1871), Susan (1805–1825), Anne (1807–1835), Lucretia (1809–1823), Henry, Jr.(1811–1847), Eliza (1813–1825), Laura (1815–1817), James Brown (1817–1864), and John (1821–1887).

Seven of Clay's children died before him as well as his wife. By 1835 all six daughters had died of varying causes, two when very young, two as children, the other two as young women: from whooping cough, yellow fever, and complications of childbirth. Henry Clay, Jr. was killed at the Battle of Buena Vista during the Mexican-American War.

Lucretia Hart Clay died in 1864 at the age of 83. She is interred with her husband in the vault of his monument at the Lexington Cemetery. Henry and Lucretia Clay were great-grandparents of the suffragette Madeline McDowell Breckinridge.^[16]

Early political career[link]

State legislator[link]

View of Henry Clay's law office (1803-1810), Lexington, Kentucky

In 1803 Clay was elected to serve as the representative of Fayette County in the Kentucky General Assembly. As a legislator, Clay advocated a liberal interpretation of the state's constitution and initially the gradual emancipation of slavery in Kentucky, although the political realities of the time forced him to abandon that position.^[3] Clay also advocated moving the state capitol from Frankfort to Lexington. He defended the Kentucky Insurance Company, which he saved from an attempt in 1804 by Felix Grundy to repeal its monopolistic charter.^[17]

First Senate appointment and eligibility[link]

Clay's influence in Kentucky state politics was quickly such that in 1806 the Kentucky legislature elected him to the Senate seat of John Breckinridge. He had resigned when appointed as US Attorney General. The legislature first chose John Adair to complete Breckinridge's term, but he had to resign over his alleged role in the Burr Conspiracy.^[18] On December 29, 1806, Clay was sworn in as senator, serving for less than one year that first time.^[19]

When elected by the legislature, Clay was below the constitutionally required age of thirty. His age did not appear to have been noticed by any other Senator, and perhaps not by Clay.^[19] Three months and 17 days into his Senate service, he reached the age of eligibility.^[20] Such an age qualification issue has occurred with only two other U.S. Senators. Joe Biden was also elected to the Senate at the age of 29, but he had reached the required age of 30 before being sworn in.^[21]

Speaker of the State House and duel with Humphrey Marshall[link]

When Clay returned to Kentucky in 1807, he was elected the Speaker of the state House of Representatives.^[22] On January 3, 1809, Clay introduced a resolution to require members to wear homespun suits rather than those made of imported British broadcloth. Two members voted against the measure. One was Humphrey Marshall, an "aristocratic lawyer who possessed a sarcastic tongue," who had been hostile toward Clay in 1806 during the trial of Aaron Burr.^[23]

Clay and Marshall nearly came to blows on the Assembly floor, and Clay challenged Marshall to a duel. The duel took place on January 9 in Shippingport, Kentucky. They each had three turns. Clay grazed Marshall once, just below the chest. Marshall hit Clay once in the thigh.^[23]

Second Senate appointment[link]

In 1810, United States Senator Buckner Thruston resigned to serve as a judge on the United States Circuit Court, and Clay was again selected to fill his seat.

Speaker of the House[link]

Early years[link]

In the summer of 1811, Clay was elected to the United States House of Representatives. He was chosen Speaker of the House on the first day of his first session, something never done before or since. During the fourteen years following his first election, he was re-elected five times to the House and to the speakership.^[24] Like other Southern Congressmen, Clay took slaves to Washington, DC to work in his household. They included Aaron and Charlotte Dupuy, their son Charles and daughter Mary Ann.^[25]

Before Clay's election as Speaker of the House, the position had been that of a rule enforcer and mediator. Clay made the position one of political power second only to the President of the United States. He immediately appointed members of the War Hawk faction (of which he was the "guiding spirit")^[1] to all the important committees, effectively giving him control of the House. This was a singular achievement for a 34-year-old House freshman. During his early House service, Clay strongly opposed the creation of a National Bank, in part because of his personal ownership in several small banks in his hometown of Lexington. Later he changed his position and, when he was seeking the presidency, gave strong support for the Second National Bank.

The War Hawks, mostly from the South and the West, resented British violations of United States (US) maritime rights and its treatment of US sailors; they feared British designs on US territory in the Old Northwest. They advocated a declaration of war against the British.^[26] As the Congressional leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, Clay took charge of the agenda, especially as a "War Hawk" supporting the War of 1812 against the British Empire. Later, as one of the peace commissioners, Clay helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent and signed it on December 24, 1814.^[3] In 1815, while still in Europe, he helped negotiate a commerce treaty with Great Britain.

Henry Clay helped establish and became president in 1816 of the American Colonization Society, a group that wanted to establish a colony for free American blacks in Africa; it founded Monrovia, in what became Liberia, for that purpose. The group was made up of both abolitionists from the North, who wanted to end slavery, and slaveholders, who wanted to deport free blacks to reduce what they considered a threat to the stability of slave society. On the "amalgamation" of the black and white races, Clay said that "The God of Nature, by the differences of color and physical constitution, has decreed against it."^[27] Clay presided at the founding meeting of the ACS on December 21, 1816, at the Davis Hotel in Washington, D.C. Attendees included Robert Finley, James Monroe, Bushrod Washington, Andrew Jackson, Francis Scott Key, and Daniel Webster.

The "American System"[link]

Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun helped to pass the Tariff of 1816 as part of the national economic plan Clay called "The American System," rooted in Alexander Hamilton's American School. Described later by Friedrich List, it was designed to allow the fledgling American manufacturing sector, largely centered on the eastern seaboard, to compete with British manufacturing through the creation of tariffs.

After the conclusion of the War of 1812, British factories were overwhelming American ports with inexpensive goods. To persuade voters in the western states to support the tariff, Clay advocated federal government support for internal improvements to infrastructure, principally roads and canals. These internal improvements would be financed by the tariff and by sale of the public lands, prices for which would be kept high to generate revenue. Finally, a national bank would stabilize the currency and serve as the nexus of a truly national financial system.

Clay's American System ran into strong opposition from President Jackson's administration. One of the most important points of contention between the two men was over the Maysville Road. Jackson vetoed a bill which would authorize federal funding for a project to construct a road linking Lexington and the Ohio River, the entirety of which would be in the state of Kentucky, because he felt that it did not constitute interstate commerce, as specified in the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

Foreign policy[link]

In foreign policy, Clay was the leading American supporter of independence movements and revolutions in Latin America after 1817. Between 1821 and 1826, the U.S. recognized all the new countries, except Uruguay (whose independence was debated and recognized only later). When in 1826 the U.S. was invited to attend the Columbia Conference of new nations, opposition emerged, and the American delegation never arrived. Clay supported the Greek independence revolutionaries in 1824 who wished to separate from the Ottoman Empire, an early move into European affairs.

The Missouri Compromise and 1820s[link]

In 1820 a dispute erupted over the extension of slavery in Missouri Territory. Clay helped settle this dispute by gaining Congressional approval for a plan called the "Missouri Compromise". It brought in Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state (thus maintaining the balance in the Senate, which had included 11 free and 11 slave states), and it forbade slavery north of 36° 30' (the northern boundary of Arkansas and the latitude line) except in Missouri.

Portrait of Henry Clay

Election of 1824 and Secretary of State[link]

By 1824, the unparalleled success of the Democratic-Republican Party had driven all other parties from the field. Four major candidates, including Clay, sought the office of president. Because of the unusually large number of candidates receiving electoral votes, no candidate secured a majority and the tie between the two front runners, Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams, was broken in the House of Representatives.

Clay used his political clout to secure the victory for Adams, who he felt would be both more sympathetic to Clay's political views and more likely to appoint Clay to a cabinet position. When Clay was appointed Secretary of State, his maneuver was called a "corrupt bargain" by many of Jackson's supporters and tarnished Clay's reputation.

Slave freedom suit[link]

As Secretary of State, Clay lived with his family and slaves in Decatur House on Lafayette Square. As he was preparing to return to Lexington in 1829, his slave Charlotte Dupuy sued Clay for her freedom and that of her two children, based on a promise by an earlier owner. Her legal challenge to slavery preceded the more famous Dred Scott case by 17 years. The "freedom suit" received a fair amount of attention in the press at the time. Dupuy's attorney gained an order from the court for her to remain in DC until the case was settled, and she worked for wages for 18 months for Martin Van Buren, the successor to Secretary of State and the Decatur House. Clay returned to Ashland with Aaron, Charles and Mary Ann Dupuy.^[28][29]

The jury ruled against Dupuy, deciding that any agreement with her previous master Condon did not bear on Clay. Because Dupuy refused to return voluntarily to Kentucky, Clay had his agent arrest her. She was imprisoned in Alexandria, Virginia before Clay arranged for her transport to New Orleans, where he placed her with his daughter and son-in-law Martin Duralde. Mary Ann Dupuy was sent to join her mother, and they worked as domestic slaves for the Duraldes for another decade.^[28]

In 1840 Henry Clay finally gave Charlotte and her daughter Mary Ann Dupuy their freedom. He kept her son Charles Dupuy as a personal servant, frequently citing him as an example of how well he treated his slaves. Clay granted Charles Dupuy his freedom in 1844.^[28] While no deed of emancipation has been found for Aron Dupuy, in 1860 he and Charlotte were living together as free black residents in Fayette County, Kentucky. He may have been freed or "given his time" by one of Clay's sons, as Dupuy continued to work at Ashland, for pay.^[25]

Decatur House in Washington, DC, a National Historic Landmark and museum on Lafayette Square near the White House, has exhibits on urban slavery and Charlotte Dupuy's freedom suit against Henry Clay.^[28]

Senate career[link]

The Nullification Crisis[link]

After the passage of the Tariff of 1828, dubbed the "tariff of abominations" which raised tariffs considerably in an attempt to protect fledgling factories built under previous tariff legislation, South Carolina declared its right to nullify federal tariff legislation and stopped assessing the tariff on imports. It threatened to secede from the Union if the Federal government tried to enforce the tariff laws. Furious, President Jackson threatened to lead an army to South Carolina and hang any man who refused to obey the law.

The crisis worsened until 1833 when Clay, again a U.S. Senator re-elected by Kentucky in 1831, helped to broker a deal in Congress to lower the tariff gradually. This measure helped to preserve the supremacy of the Federal government over the states, but the crisis was indicative of the developing conflict between the northern and southern United States over economics and slavery.

Opposition to Jackson and creation of Whig Party[link]

Henry Clay

After the election of Andrew Jackson, Clay led the opposition to Jackson's policies. His supporters included the National Republicans, who were beginning to identify as "Whigs" in honor of ancestors during the Revolutionary War. They opposed the "tyranny" of Jackson, as their ancestors had opposed the tyranny of King George III. Clay strongly opposed Jackson's refusal to renew the charter of the Second Bank of the United States, and advocated passage of a resolution to censure Jackson for his actions.

In 1832 the National Republicans unanimously nominated Clay for the presidency. Jackson was nominated by the Democrats. The main issue was the policy of continuing the Second Bank of the United States. Clay lost by a wide margin to the highly popular Jackson (55% to 37%).

In 1840, Clay was a candidate for the Whig nomination, but he was defeated at the party convention by supporters of war hero William Henry Harrison. Harrison was chosen because his war record was attractive, and he was seen as more likely to win than Clay.

In 1844, Clay was nominated by the Whigs against James K. Polk, the Democratic candidate. Clay lost in part due to national sentiment in favor of Polk's "54°40' or Fight" campaign. This was to settle the northern boundary of the United States with Canada, then under the control of the British Empire. Clay opposed admitting Texas as a state because he believed it would reawaken the slavery issue and provoke Mexico to declare war. Polk took the opposite view, supported by most of the public, especially in the Southern United States. The election was close; New York's 36 electoral votes proved the difference, and went to Polk by a slim 5,000 vote margin. Liberty Party candidate James G. Birney won slightly more than 15,000 votes in New York and likely attracted votes that might have gone to Clay. His warnings about Texas proved prescient. The US annexation of Texas led to the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) (in which his namesake son died). The North and South came to increased tensions during Polk's Presidency over the extension of slavery into Texas and beyond.

The Compromise of 1850[link]

After losing the Whig Party nomination to Zachary Taylor in 1848, Clay decided to retire to his Ashland estate in Kentucky. Retired for less than a year, he was in 1849 again elected to the U.S. Senate from Kentucky. During his term, the controversy over the expansion of slavery in new lands had reemerged with the addition of the lands ceded to the United States by Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the conclusion of the Mexican-American War. David Wilmot, a Northern congressman, had proposed preventing the extension of slavery into any of the new territory in a proposal referred to as the "Wilmot Proviso".^[30]

On January 29, 1850, Clay proposed a series of resolutions, which he considered to reconcile Northern and Southern interests, what would widely be called the Compromise of 1850. While Clay originally intended the resolutions to be voted on separately, at the urging of southerners, Clay agreed to the creation of a Committee of Thirteen to consider the measures. The committee was formed on April 17. Clay as chair of the committee, on May 8 presented an omnibus bill linking all of the resolutions.^[31] The resolutions included:

• Admission of California as a free state, ending the balance of free and slave states in the senate.^[30]
• Organization of the Utah and New Mexico territories without any slavery provisions, giving the right to determine whether to allow slavery to the territorial populations.^[30]
• Prohibition of the slave trade, not the ownership of slaves, in the District of Columbia.^[30]
• A more stringent Fugitive Slave Act.^[30]
• Establishment of boundaries for the state of Texas in exchange for federal payment of Texas's ten million dollar debt.^[30]
• A declaration by Congress that it did not have the authority to interfere with the interstate slave trade.^[32]

The Omnibus bill, despite Clay's efforts, failed in a crucial vote on July 31 with the majority of his Whig Party opposed. He announced on the Senate floor the next day that he intended to persevere and pass each individual part of the bill. Clay was physically exhausted; the tuberculosis that would eventually kill him began to take its toll. Clay left the Senate to recuperate in Newport, Rhode Island. Stephen A. Douglas separated the bills and guided them through the Senate.^[33]

Clay was given much of the credit for the Compromise's success. It quieted the controversy between Northerners and Southerners over the expansion of slavery, and delayed secession and civil war for another decade. Senator Henry S. Foote of Mississippi, who had suggested the creation of the Committee of Thirteen, later said, "Had there been one such man in the Congress of the United States as Henry Clay in 1860–'61 there would, I feel sure, have been no civil war."^[34]

Death and estate[link]

Clay continued to serve both the Union he loved and his home state of Kentucky. On June 29, 1852, he died of tuberculosis in Washington, D.C., at the age of 75. Clay was the first person to lie in state in the United States Capitol.

He was buried in Lexington Cemetery, and Theodore Frelinghuysen, Clay's vice-presidential candidate in the election of 1844, gave the eulogy.^[35] Clay's headstone reads: "I know no North — no South — no East — no West." Even though the 1852 pro-slavery^[36] novel Life at the South; or, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" As It Is, by W.L.G. Smith, is dedicated to his memory,^[37] Clay's Will freed all the slaves he held.^[3]

Ashland, named for the many ash trees on the property, was Clay's plantation and mansion for many years. He held as many as 60 slaves at the peak of the plantation operations. It was there he introduced the Hereford livestock breed to the United States.

By the time of his death, his only surviving sons were James Brown Clay and John Morrison Clay, who inherited the estate and took portions for use. For several years (1866–1878), James Clay allowed the mansion to be used as a residence for the regent of Kentucky University, forerunner of the University of Kentucky and present-day Transylvania University. Later the mansion and estate were rebuilt and remodeled by later descendants. John Clay designated his portion of the estate as Ashland Stud, which he devoted to breeding thoroughbred horses.

Maintained and operated as a museum, today Ashland includes 17 acres (6.9 ha) of the original estate grounds. It is located on Richmond Road (US 25) in Lexington. It is open to the public (admission charged).

Henry Clay is credited with introducing the mint julep drink to Washington, D.C., at the Willard Hotel during his residence as a senator in the city.^[38]

Monuments and memorials[link]

Tomb in Lexington, KY

Henry Clay Monument in New Orleans ca.1890

• Memorial column and statue at his tomb in Lexington, Kentucky
• Henry Clay monument in Pottsville, Pennsylvania^[39]
• Clay Streets in numerous cities, including New Haven, Connecticut, Richmond, Virginia, and Vicksburg, Mississippi
• Mount Clay in the Presidential Range of New Hampshire was named for Clay, since renamed Mount Reagan by the state legislature but not by the federal Board on Geographic Names
• Fifteen Clay counties in the United States, in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. (Clay County, Iowa is named for his son.)
• Ashland Ave. in Chicago, Illinois; Ashland, Virginia, Ashland County in Ohio and Wisconsin were named for his estate, as were the cities of Ashland in Kentucky, Alabama, and Pennsylvania.
• Ashland, Missouri, was named after Clay's Lexington, Kentucky estate, and Henry Clay Blvd was named for him in the same city.
• In New Orleans: Uptown – Henry Clay Avenue, and Downtown – 20-foot-tall monument erected in 1860 at Canal Street and St, Charles/Royal Avenues, and moved to the center of Lafayette Square in 1901.
• Henry Clay High School in Lexington, Kentucky,^[40] Henry Clay Middle School in Los Angeles, California, Henry Clay Elementary School in the Hegewisch neighborhood in Chicago, and Henry Clay Elementary School in his birthplace, Hanover County, Virginia.
• The "Instituto Educacional Henry Clay" in Caracas, Venezuela, a bilingual private school
• The Clay Dormitory at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky
• The Lafayette class submarine USS Henry Clay (SSBN-625), the only ship of the United States Navy named in his honor, although the USS Ashland is named for his estate
• Clay, New York, including the road Henry Clay Blvd.
• Henry Clay Village, on the left bank of Brandywine Creek just outside Wilmington, Delaware, factory and mill worker's residences.
• Clay is one of the many senators honored with a cenotaph in the Congressional Cemetery.
• He has been honored by the United States Postal Service with a 3¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.
• The town of Claysburg in central Pennsylvania is named in honor of Clay.
• Cooper's Rock State Forest in West Virginia features a preserved nineteenth century iron furnace named in commemoration of Henry Clay.

Notes[link]

References[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Life of Henry Clay

• Baxter, Maurice G. Henry Clay and the American System (1995)
• Baxter, Maurice G. Henry Clay the Lawyer (2000).
• Bowman, Shearer Davis. "Comparing Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln," Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 106 (Summer–Autumn 2008), 495–512
• Brown, Thomas. Politics and Statesmanship: Essays on the American Whig Party (1985) ch 5
• Eaton, Clement. Henry Clay and the Art of American Politics (1957)
• Gammon, Samuel R. The Presidential Campaign of 1832 (1922)
• Heidler, David S., and Jeanne T. Heidler. Henry Clay: The Essential American (2010), major scholarly biography; 624pp
• Holt, Michael F. The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (1999)
• Knupfer, Peter B. "Compromise and Statesmanship: Henry Clay’s Union." in Knupfer, The Union As It Is: Constitutional Unionism and Sectional Compromise, 1787–1861 (1991), pp. 119–57.
• Mayo, Bernard. Henry Clay, Spokesman of the West (1937)
• Peterson, Merrill D. The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (1987)
• Poage, George Rawlings. Henry Clay and the Whig Party (1936)
• Remini, Robert. Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (1991), a standard scholarly biography
• Remini, Robert. At the Edge of the Precipice: Henry Clay and the Compromise That Saved the Union (2010) 184 pages; the Compromise of 1850
• Schurz, Carl. Life of Henry Clay, 2 vols., 1899. Outdated biography.
•  Schurz, Carl (1911). "Clay, Henry". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 
• Strahan, Randall. Leading Representatives: The Agency of Leaders in the Politics of the U.S. House. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007
• Strahan, Randall; Moscardelli, Vincent G.; Haspel, Moshe; and Wike, Richard S. "The Clay Speakership Revisited" Polity 2000 32(4): 561–593. ISSN 0032-3497
• Van Deusen, Glyndon G. The Life of Henry Clay (1937), scholarly biography
• Watson, Harry L. ed. Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America (1998)
• Zarefsky, David. "Henry Clay and the Election of 1844: the Limits of a Rhetoric of Compromise" Rhetoric & Public Affairs 2003 6(1): 79–96. ISSN 1094-8392

Primary sources[link]

• Clay, Henry. The Papers of Henry Clay, 1797–1852. Edited by James Hopkins, Mary Hargreaves, Robert Seager II, Melba Porter Hay et al. 11 vols. University Press of Kentucky, 1959–1992. vol 1 online, 1797–1814
• Clay, Henry. Works of Henry Clay, 7 vols. (1897)

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Henry Clay

• Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship (HenryClayCS.org)
• Clay's Ashland Home web site, (HenryClay.org)
• Henry Clay: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
• Works by Henry Clay at Project Gutenberg
• Henry Clay at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Henry Clay at Find a Grave
• A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns 1787–1825 For Henry Clay's election results.
• Henry Clay Letters, 1825-1851 at the Newberry Library
• Letters of Henry Clay
• Abraham Lincoln's Eulogy of Henry Clay at Teaching American History.Org
• Booknotes interview with Robert Remini on Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union, May 5, 1992.
• C-SPAN Q&A interview with David and Jeanne Heidler on Henry Clay: The Essential American, May 30, 2010
• "Henry Clay, Presidential Contender" from C-SPAN's The Contenders
• Texts on Wikisource:
  • Beach, Chandler B., ed. (1914). "Clay, Henry". The New Student's Reference Work. Chicago: F. E. Compton and Co.. Wikisource 
  • Carl Schurz (1911). "Clay, Henry". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 
  • Carl Schurz (1900). "Clay, Henry". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 
  • Carl Schurz. Life of Henry Clay, 2 vols., 1899.
  • "Clay, Henry". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 5 (9th ed.). 1878. 

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v t e Chairmen of the United States Senate Committee on Finance Campbell • Eppes • Sanford • Holmes • Lowrie • Smith • Webster • Wright • Clay • Evans • Woodbury • Calhoun • Lewis • Atherton • Dickinson • Hunter • Pearce • Fessenden • Sherman • Fessenden • Sherman • Morrill • Bayard • Morrill • Voorhees • Morrill • Aldrich • Penrose • Simmons • Penrose • McCumber • Smoot • Harrison • George • Millikin • George • Millikin • Byrd • Long • Dole • Packwood • Bentsen • Moynihan • Packwood • Roth • Baucus • Grassley • Baucus • Grassley • Baucus

v t e State Secretaries of the United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs 1781–1789 R. Livingston Jay Secretary of State 1789–present Jefferson Randolph Pickering J. Marshall Madison Smith Monroe Adams Clay Van Buren E. Livingston McLane Forsyth Webster Upshur Calhoun Buchanan Clayton Webster Everett Marcy Cass Black Seward Washburne Fish Evarts Blaine Frelinghuysen Bayard Blaine Foster Gresham Olney Sherman Day Hay Root Bacon Knox Bryan Lansing Colby Hughes Kellogg Stimson Hull Stettinius Byrnes G Marshall Acheson Dulles Herter Rusk Rogers Kissinger Vance Muskie Haig Shultz Baker Eagleburger Christopher Albright Powell Rice Clinton

v t e Cabinet of President John Quincy Adams (1825–1829) Vice President John C. Calhoun (1825–1829) Secretary of State Henry Clay (1825–1829) Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush (1825–1829) Secretary of War James Barbour (1825–1828) Peter B. Porter (1828–1829) Attorney General William Wirt (1825–1829) Secretary of the Navy Samuel L. Southard (1825–1829)

Henry Clay Work (October 1, 1832 – June 8, 1884) was an American composer and songwriter.

Biography[link]

He was born in Middletown, Connecticut, to Alanson and Amelia (Forbes) Work.^[1] His father opposed slavery, and Work was himself an active abolitionist and Union supporter. His family's home became a stop on the Underground Railroad, assisting runaway slaves to freedom in Canada, for which his father was once imprisoned.

Work was self taught in music. By the time he was 23, he worked as a printer in Chicago, specializing in setting musical type. He allegedly composed in his head as he worked, without a piano, using the noise of the machinery as an inspiration. His first published song was "We Are Coming, Sister Mary", which eventually became a staple in Christy's Minstrels shows.

A bust of Henry Clay Work near his birthplace in Middletown, Connecticut.

Work produced much of his best material during the Civil War. In 1862 he published "Kingdom Coming" using his own lyrics based upon snippets of Negro speech he had heard. This use of slave dialect (Irish too was a favourite) tended to limit the appeal of Work's works and make them frowned upon today. However, "Kingdom Coming" appeared in the Jerome Kern show "Good Morning, Dearie" on Broadway in 1921, and was heard in the background in the 1944 Judy Garland film "Meet Me in St. Louis". 1862 also saw his novelty song "Grafted Into the Army", followed in 1863 by "Babylon is Fallen" ("Don't you see the black clouds risin' ober yonder"), "The Song of a Thousand Years", and "God Save the Nation". His 1864 effort "Wake Nicodemus" was popular in minstrel shows.

In 1865 he wrote his greatest hit, inspired by Sherman's march to the sea, "Marching Through Georgia" at the end of the previous year. Thanks to its lively melody, the song was immensely popular, its million sheet-music sales being unprecedented. It is a cheerful marching song and has since been pressed into service many times, including by Princeton University as a football fight song. Timothy Shay Arthur's play Ten Nights in a Barroom, had Work's 1864 "Come Home, Father", a dirgesome song bemoaning the demon drink: too mawkish for modern tastes, but always sung at Temperance Meetings.

Settling into sentimental balladry, Work had significant post-Civil War success with the "The Lost Letter", and "The Ship That Never Returned"—a tune reused in the "Wreck of the Old 97" and "MTA". A massive hit was "My Grandfather's Clock", published in 1876, which was introduced by Sam Lucas in Hartford, Connecticut, and again secured more than a million sales of the sheet music, along with popularizing the phrase, "grandfather clock."^[2]

By 1880 Work was living in New York City, giving his occupation as a musician.^[3] He died in Hartford two years later at the age of 51. He was survived by his wife, Sarah Parker Work, and one of their four children.^[4]

Henry Clay Work was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. He was a distant cousin to Frances Work, a great-grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Songs[link]

Among the best-known of Henry Clay Work's 75 compositions are:

• "Kingdom Coming" (c. 1863)
• "Come Home, Father" (1864)
• "Wake Nicodemus" (1864)
• "Marching Through Georgia" (1865)
• "The Ship That Never Returned" (1868)
• "My Grandfather's Clock" (1876)

References[link]

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: Eleventh Edition, Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2003, "grandfather clock."
3. ^ 1880 census, 19th Ward, District 7, New York, New York Manhattan
4. ^ [2]

External links[link]

• The Music of Henry Work
• Henry Clay Work at the Songwriters Hall of Fame
• Representative Poetry On-line - "Selected Poetry of Henry Clay Work"
• His page on HierarchyPedia

James K. Polk
11th President of the United States
In office March 4, 1845 – March 4, 1849
Vice President	George Dallas
Preceded by	John Tyler
Succeeded by	Zachary Taylor
Governor of Tennessee
In office October 14, 1839 – October 15, 1841
Preceded by	Newton Cannon
Succeeded by	James Jones
17th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
In office December 7, 1835 – March 4, 1839
President	Andrew Jackson Martin Van Buren
Preceded by	John Bell
Succeeded by	Robert Hunter
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's 9th district
In office March 4, 1833 – March 4, 1839
Preceded by	William Fitzgerald
Succeeded by	Harvey Watterson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's 6th district
In office March 4, 1825 – March 4, 1833
Preceded by	John Cocke
Succeeded by	Balie Peyton
Personal details
Born	James Knox Polk (1795-11-02)November 2, 1795 Pineville, North Carolina, U.S.
Died	June 15, 1849(1849-06-15) (aged 53) Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Sarah Childress
Alma mater	University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Profession	Lawyer Planter
Religion	Presbyterianism
Signature

James Knox Polk ( /ˈpoʊk/ "poke"; November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th President of the United States (1845–1849). Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.^[1] He later lived in and represented Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as the 17th Speaker of the House of Representatives (1835–1839) and Governor of Tennessee (1839–1841). Polk was the surprise (dark horse) candidate for president in 1844, defeating Henry Clay of the rival Whig Party by promising to annex Texas. Polk was a leader of Jacksonian Democracy during the Second Party System.

Polk was the last strong pre–Civil War president, and he is the earliest of whom there are surviving photographs taken during a term in office. He is noted for his foreign policy successes. He threatened war with Britain over the issue of which nation owned the Oregon Country, then backed away and split the ownership of the region with Britain. When Mexico rejected American annexation of Texas, Polk led the nation to a sweeping victory in the Mexican-American War, which gave the United States most of its present Southwest. He secured passage of the Walker tariff of 1846, which had low rates that pleased his native South, and he established a treasury system that lasted until 1913.

Polk oversaw the opening of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Smithsonian Institution, the groundbreaking for the Washington Monument, and the issuance of the first postage stamps in the United States.

He promised to serve only one term and did not run for reelection. He died of cholera three months after his term ended.

Scholars have ranked him favorably on the list of greatest presidents for his ability to set an agenda and achieve all of it. Polk has been called the "least known consequential president"^[2] of the United States.

Early life[link]

James Knox Polk, the first of ten children, was born on November 2, 1795 in a farmhouse (possibly a "log" cabin)^[1] in what is now Pineville, North Carolina in Mecklenburg County, just outside Charlotte.^[3] His father, Samuel Polk, was a slaveholder, successful farmer and surveyor of Scots-Irish descent. His mother, Jane Polk (née Knox), was a descendant of a brother of the Scottish religious reformer John Knox. She named her firstborn after her father James Knox.^[3] Like most early Scots-Irish settlers in the North Carolina mountains, the Knox and Polk families were Presbyterian. While Jane remained a devout Presbyterian her entire life, Samuel (whose father, Ezekiel Polk, was a deist) rejected dogmatic Presbyterianism. When the parents took James to church to be baptized, the father Samuel refused to declare his belief in Christianity, and the minister refused to baptize the child.^[3][4] In 1803, most of Polk's relatives moved to the Duck River area in what is now Maury County, Middle Tennessee; Polk's family waited until 1806 to follow.^[5] The family grew prosperous, with Samuel Polk turning to land speculation and becoming a county judge.^[5]

Polk was home schooled.^[5] His health was problematic and in 1812 his pain became so unbearable that he was taken to Dr. Ephraim McDowell of Danville, Kentucky, who operated to remove urinary stones.^[6] Polk was awake during the operation with nothing but brandy available for anesthetic, but it was successful. The surgery may have left Polk sterile, as he did not sire any children.^[7]

The house where Polk spent his adult life before his presidency, in Columbia, Tennessee, is his only private residence still standing.

When Polk recovered, his father offered to bring him into the mercantile business, but Polk refused.^[6] In July 1813, Polk enrolled at the Zion Church near his home. A year later he attended an academy in Murfreesboro, where he may have met his future wife, Sarah Childress.^[8] At Murfreesboro, Polk proved a promising student. In January 1816, he transferred and was admitted into the University of North Carolina as a second-semester sophomore. The Polks had connections with the university, then a small school of about 80 students: Sam Polk was their land agent for Tennessee, and his cousin, William Polk, was a trustee.^[9] While there, Polk joined the Dialectic Society where he regularly took part in debates and learned the art of oratory. His roommate William Dunn Moseley later became the first governor of Florida. Polk graduated with honors in May 1818.^[10] The University later named the lower quad on its main campus, Polk Place.^[11]

After graduation, Polk traveled to Nashville to study law under renowned Nashville trial attorney Felix Grundy.^[12] Grundy became Polk's first mentor. On September 20, 1819, Polk, with Grundy's endorsement, was elected clerk for the Tennessee State Senate.^[13] Polk was reelected as clerk in 1821 without opposition, and would continue to serve until 1822. Polk was admitted to the bar in June 1820 and his first case was to defend his father against a public fighting charge, and secure his release for a one dollar fine.^[13] Polk's practice was successful as there were many cases arising from debts after the Panic of 1819.^[14]

Early political career[link]

In 1822 Polk joined the local militia and rose to the rank of captain, and was soon promoted to colonel.^[15] Polk's oratory became popular, earning him the nickname "Napoleon of the Stump." In 1822 Polk resigned his position as clerk to run his successful campaign for the Tennessee state legislature in 1823, in which he defeated incumbent William Yancey, becoming the new representative of Maury County.^[15][16] In October 1823 Polk voted for Andrew Jackson to become the next United States Senator from Tennessee.^[17] Jackson won and from then on Polk was a firm supporter of Jackson.^[18]

James K. Polk and Sarah Childress Polk.

Polk courted Sarah Childress, and they married on January 1, 1824.^[16] Polk was then 28, and Sarah was 20 years old. They had no children. During Polk's political career, Sarah assisted her husband with his speeches, gave him advice on policy matters and played an active role in his campaigns. An old story told that Andrew Jackson had encouraged their romance when they began to court.^[19]

In 1824, Jackson ran for President but was defeated.^[20] Though Jackson had won the popular vote, neither he nor any of the other candidates (John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and William H. Crawford) had won a majority of the electoral vote. The House of Representatives then had to select the verdict; Clay, who had received the least amount of electoral votes and dropped from the ballot, supported Adams.^[20] Clay's support proved to be the deciding factor in the House and Adams was elected President.^[20] Adams then offered Clay a position in the Cabinet as Secretary of State.^[20]

Presidential $1 Coin of Polk.

In 1825, Polk ran for the United States House of Representatives for the Tennessee's 6th congressional district.^[21] Polk vigorously campaigned in the district. Polk was so active that Sarah began to worry about his health.^[21] During the campaign, Polk's opponents said that at the age of 29 Polk was too young for a spot in the House, but he won the election and took his seat in Congress.^[21] When Polk arrived in Washington, D.C. he roomed in a boarding house with some other Tennessee representatives, including Benjamin Burch. Polk made his first major speech on March 13, 1826, in which he said that the Electoral College should be abolished and that the President should be elected by the popular vote.^[22] After Congress went into recess in the summer of 1826, Polk returned to Tennessee to see Sarah, and when Congress met again in the autumn, Polk returned to Washington with Sarah. In 1827 Polk was reelected to Congress.^[23] In 1828, Jackson ran for President again and during the campaign Polk and Jackson corresponded, with Polk giving Jackson advice on his campaign. With Jackson's victory in the election Polk began to support the administration's position in Congress.^[24] During this time, Polk continued to be reelected in the House. In August 1833, after being elected to this fifth term, Polk became the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.^[25]

Speaker of the House[link]

In June 1834, Speaker of the House Andrew Stevenson resigned, leaving the spot for speaker open.^[26] Polk ran against fellow Tennessean John Bell for Speaker, and, after ten ballots, Bell won. However, in 1835, Polk ran against Bell for Speaker again and won.^[27]

Polk worked for Jackson's policies as speaker, and Van Buren's when he succeeded Jackson in 1837; he appointed committees with Democratic chairs and majorities, including the New York radical C. C. Cambreleng as Chair of the Ways and Means Committee, although he maintained the facade of traditional bipartisanship.^[28] The two major issues during Polk's speakership were slavery and the economy, after the Panic of 1837. Van Buren and Polk faced pressure to rescind the Specie Circular, an act that had been signed by Jackson to boost the economy. The act required that payment for government lands be in gold and silver. However, with support from Polk and his cabinet, Van Buren chose to stick with the Specie Circular.^[29]

Polk attempted to make a more orderly house. He never challenged anyone to a duel no matter how much they insulted his honor as was customary then.^[30] Polk also issued the gag rule on petitions from abolitionists.^[30]

Polk remains the only president who served as Speaker of the House.

Governor of Tennessee[link]

In 1838, the political situation in Tennessee—where, in 1835, Democrats had lost the governorship for the first time in their party's history—persuaded Polk to return to help the party at home.^[31] Leaving Congress in 1839, Polk became a candidate in the Tennessee gubernatorial election, defeating the incumbent Whig, Newton Cannon by about 2,500 votes, out of about 105,000.^[32]

Polk's three major programs during his governorship; regulating state banks, implementing state internal improvements, and improving education all did not get approval by the legislature.^[33] In the presidential election of 1840, Van Buren was overwhelmingly defeated by a popular Whig, William Henry Harrison. Polk received one electoral vote from Tennessee for Vice President in the election.^[34] Polk lost his own reelection to James C. Jones, in 1841, by 3,243 votes.^[35] He challenged Jones in 1843, campaigning across the state and publicly debating against Jones, but was defeated again, this time by a slightly greater margin of 3,833 votes.^[36][37]

Election of 1844[link]

Results of the 1844 Presidential election

Polk initially hoped to be nominated for vice-president at the Democratic convention, which began on May 27, 1844. The leading contender for the presidential nomination was former President Martin Van Buren, who wanted to stop the expansion of slavery. Other candidates included James Buchanan, General Lewis Cass, Cave Johnson, John C. Calhoun, and Levi Woodbury. The primary point of political contention involved the Republic of Texas, which, after declaring independence from Mexico in 1836, had asked to join the United States. Van Buren opposed the annexation but in doing so lost the support of many Democrats, including former President Andrew Jackson, who still had much influence. Van Buren won a simple majority on the convention's first ballot but did not attain the two-thirds supermajority required for nomination. When it became clear after another six ballots that Van Buren would not win the required majority, Polk emerged as a "dark horse" candidate. After an indecisive eighth ballot, the convention unanimously nominated Polk.

Before the convention, Jackson told Polk that he was his favorite for the nomination of the Democratic Party. Even with this support, Polk instructed his managers at the convention to support Van Buren if he could win the nomination. This assured that if a deadlocked convention occurred, initial supporters of Van Buren would pick Polk as a compromise candidate for the Democrats. In the end, this is exactly what happened as a result of Polk's support of westward expansion.^[38]

When advised of his nomination, Polk replied: "It has been well observed that the office of President of the United States should neither be sought nor declined. I have never sought it, nor should I feel at liberty to decline it, if conferred upon me by the voluntary suffrages of my fellow citizens." Because the Democratic Party was splintered into bitter factions, Polk promised to serve only one term if elected, hoping that his disappointed rival Democrats would unite behind him with the knowledge that another candidate would be chosen in four years.^[39]

1844 campaign banner, produced by Nathaniel Currier.

Polk's Whig opponent in the 1844 presidential election was Henry Clay of Kentucky. (Incumbent Whig President John Tyler—a former Democrat—had become estranged from the Whigs and was not nominated for a second term.) The annexation of Texas, which was at the forefront during the Democratic Convention, again dominated the campaign. Polk was a strong proponent of immediate annexation, while Clay seemed more equivocal and vacillating.

Another campaign issue, also related to westward expansion, involved the Oregon Country, then under the joint occupation of the United States and the United Kingdom. The Democrats had championed the cause of expansion, informally linking the controversial Texas annexation issue with a claim to the entire Oregon Country, thus appealing to both Northern and Southern expansionists. (The slogan "Fifty-four Forty or Fight," often incorrectly attributed to the 1844 election, did not appear until later; see Oregon boundary dispute.) Polk's consistent support for westward expansion—what Democrats would later call "Manifest Destiny"—likely played an important role in his victory, as opponent Henry Clay hedged his position.

In the election, Polk and his running mate, George M. Dallas, won in the South and West, while Clay drew support in the Northeast. Polk lost both his home state, North Carolina, and his state of residence, Tennessee, the most recent successful presidential candidate to do so. but won New York, where Clay lost votes to the antislavery Liberty Party candidate James G. Birney. Also contributing to Polk's victory was the support of new immigrant voters, who opposed the Whigs' policies. Polk won the popular vote by a margin of about 39,000 out of 2.6 million, and took the Electoral College with 170 votes to Clay's 105.^[40] Polk won 15 states, while Clay won 11.^[41]

Presidency (1845–1849)[link]

This section of a biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (May 2012)

Polk's presidential proclamation of war against Mexico.

When he took office on March 4, 1845, Polk, at 49, became the youngest man at the time to assume the presidency. According to a story told decades later by George Bancroft, Polk set four clearly defined goals for his administration:

• Reestablish the Independent Treasury System.
• Reduce tariffs.
• Acquire some or all of Oregon Country.
• Acquire California and New Mexico from Mexico.

Polk and his cabinet in the White House dining room. Secretary of State James Buchanan is absent.

Pledged to serve only one term, he accomplished all these objectives in just four years. By linking acquisition of new lands in Oregon (with no slavery) and Texas (with slavery), he hoped to satisfy both North and South.

During his presidency James K. Polk was known as "Young Hickory", an allusion to his mentor Andrew Jackson, and "Napoleon of the Stump" for his speaking skills.

Fiscal policy[link]

In 1846, Congress approved the Walker Tariff (named after Robert J. Walker, the Secretary of the Treasury), which represented a substantial reduction of the high Whig-backed Tariff of 1842. The new law abandoned ad valorem tariffs and set rates independent of the monetary value of the product. Polk's actions were popular in the South and West; however, they were despised by many protectionists in Pennsylvania.

In 1846, Polk approved a law restoring the Independent Treasury System, under which government funds were held in the Treasury and not in banks or other financial institutions. This established independent treasury deposit offices, separate from private or state banks, to receive all government funds.

Rivers and Harbors Veto[link]

Congress passed the Rivers and Harbors Bill in 1846 to provide $500,000 to improve rivers and harbors, but Polk vetoed the bill. It would have provided for federally funded internal improvements on small harbors. Polk believed that this was unconstitutional because the bill unfairly favored particular areas, including ports which had no foreign trade. Polk believed that these problems were local and not national. Polk feared that passing the Rivers and Harbors Bill would encourage legislators to compete for favors for their home districts – a type of corruption that would spell doom to the virtue of the republic.^[42] In this regard he followed his hero Andrew Jackson, who had vetoed the Maysville Road Bill in 1830 on similar grounds.^[43]

Slavery[link]

President Polk, 1858 portrait, by George Healy

During his presidency, many abolitionists harshly criticized him as an instrument of the "Slave Power", and claimed that spreading slavery was the reason he supported annexing Texas and later war with Mexico.^[44] Polk stated in his diary that he believed slavery could not exist in the territories won from Mexico,^[45] but refused to endorse the Wilmot Proviso that would forbid it there. Polk argued instead for extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean, which would prohibit the expansion of slavery above 36° 30' west of Missouri, but allow it below that line if approved by eligible voters in the territory. William Dusinberre has argued that Polk's diary, which he kept during his presidency, was written for later publication, and does not represent Polk's policy.

Polk was a slaveholder for his entire life. His father, Samuel Polk, had left Polk more than 8,000 acres (32 km²) of land, and divided about 53 slaves to his widow and children after he died. James inherited twenty of his father's slaves, either directly or from deceased brothers. In 1831, he became an absentee cotton planter, sending slaves to clear plantation land that his father had left him near Somerville, Tennessee. Four years later Polk sold his Somerville plantation and, together with his brother-in-law, bought 920 acres (3.7 km²) of land, a cotton plantation near Coffeeville, Mississippi. He ran this plantation for the rest of his life, eventually taking it over completely from his brother-in-law. Polk rarely sold slaves, although once he became President and could better afford it, he bought more. Polk's will stipulated that their slaves were to be freed after his wife Sarah had died. However, the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the 1865 Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution freed all remaining slaves in rebel states long before the death of his wife in 1891.^[46]

Foreign policy[link]

Polk strongly supported expansion. Democrats believed that opening up more land for yeoman farmers was critical for the success of republican virtue. (See Manifest Destiny.) Like most Southerners, he supported the annexation of Texas. To balance the interests of North and South, he wanted to acquire the Oregon Country (present-day Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia) as well. He sought to purchase California, which Mexico had neglected.

Oregon territory[link]

The Oregon Territory, established by the Oregon Treaty

Polk put heavy pressure on Britain to resolve the Oregon boundary dispute. Since 1818, the territory had been under the joint occupation and control of the United Kingdom and the United States. Previous U.S. administrations had offered to divide the region along the 49th parallel, which was not acceptable to Britain, as they had commercial interests along the Columbia River. Although the Democratic platform asserted a claim to the entire region, Polk was willing to compromise. When the British again refused to accept the 49th parallel boundary proposal, Polk broke off negotiations and returned to the Democratic platform "All Oregon" demand (which called for all of Oregon up to the 54-40 line that marked the southern boundary of Russian Alaska). "54-40 or fight!" now became a popular rallying cry among Democrats^[47]

Polk wanted territory, not war, so he compromised with the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 divided the Oregon Country along the 49th parallel, the original American proposal. Although there were many who still clamored for the entire territory, the treaty was approved by the Senate. By settling for the 49th parallel, Polk angered many midwestern Democrats. Many of these Democrats believed that Polk had always wanted the boundary at the 49th, and that he had fooled them into believing he wanted it at the 54th parallel. The portion of Oregon territory acquired by the United States later formed the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, and parts of the states of Montana and Wyoming.

Texas[link]

President Tyler despised Polk as a person and politician.^{[citation needed]} Upon hearing of Polk's election to office, Tyler urged Congress to pass a joint resolution admitting Texas to the Union; Congress complied on February 28, 1845. Texas promptly accepted the offer and officially became a state on December 29, 1845. The annexation angered Mexico, which had lost Texas in 1836. Mexican politicians had repeatedly warned that annexation would lead to war. Nonetheless, just days after the resolution passed Congress, Polk declared in his inaugural address that only Texas and the United States would decide whether to annex.

Mexican-American War[link]

Map of Mexico in 1845, with the Republic of Texas, the Republic of Yucatan and the disputed territory between Mexico and Texas in red. Mexico claimed to own all of Texas.

After the Texas annexation, Polk turned his attention to California, hoping to acquire the territory from Mexico before any European nation did so. The main interest was San Francisco Bay as an access point for trade with Asia. In 1845, he sent diplomat John Slidell to Mexico to purchase California and New Mexico for $24–30 million. Slidell's arrival caused political turmoil in Mexico after word leaked out that he was there to purchase additional territory and not to offer compensation for the loss of Texas. The Mexicans refused to receive Slidell, citing a technical problem with his credentials. In January 1846, to increase pressure on Mexico to negotiate, Polk sent troops under General Zachary Taylor into the area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande—territory that was claimed by both the U.S. and Mexico.

Slidell returned to Washington in May 1846, having been rebuffed by the Mexican government. Polk regarded this treatment of his diplomat as an insult and an "ample cause of war",^[48] and he prepared to ask Congress for a declaration of war. Meanwhile Taylor crossed the Rio Grande River and briefly occupied Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Taylor continued to blockade ships from entering the port of Matamoros. Mere days before Polk intended to make his request to Congress, he received word that Mexican forces had crossed the Rio Grande area and killed eleven American soldiers. Polk then made this the casus belli, and in a message to Congress on May 11, 1846, he stated that Mexico had "invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil."

Some Whigs, such as Abraham Lincoln, challenged Polk's version of events,^[49] but Congress overwhelmingly approved the declaration of war. Many Whigs feared that opposition would cost them politically by casting themselves as unpatriotic for not supporting the war effort.^[50]

In the House, antislavery Whigs led by John Quincy Adams voted against the war; among Democrats, Senator John C. Calhoun was the most notable opponent of the declaration.

The Mexican Cession (in red) was acquired through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The Gadsden Purchase (in orange) was acquired through purchase after Polk left office.

Military action[link]

Polk selected the top generals and set the military strategy of the war. By the summer of 1846, American forces under General Stephen W. Kearny had captured New Mexico. Meanwhile, Army captain John C. Frémont led settlers in northern California to overthrow the Mexican garrison in Sonoma (in the Bear Flag Revolt). General Zachary Taylor, at the same time, was having success on the Rio Grande, although Polk did not reinforce his troops there. The United States also negotiated a secret arrangement with Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican general and dictator who had been overthrown in 1844. Santa Anna agreed that, if given safe passage into Mexico, he would attempt to persuade those in power to sell California and New Mexico to the United States. Once he reached Mexico, however, he reneged on his agreement, declared himself President, and tried to drive the American invaders back. Santa Anna's efforts, however, were in vain, as Generals Taylor and Winfield Scott destroyed all resistance. Scott captured Mexico City in September 1847, and Taylor won a series of victories in northern Mexico. Even after these battles, Mexico did not surrender until 1848, when it agreed to peace terms set out by Polk.

Peace: the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo[link]

Polk sent diplomat Nicholas Trist to negotiate with the Mexicans. Lack of progress prompted the President to order Trist to return to the United States, but the diplomat ignored the instructions and stayed in Mexico to continue bargaining. Trist successfully negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which Polk agreed to ratify, ignoring calls from Democrats who demanded that all Mexico be annexed. The treaty added 1.2 million square miles (3.1 million square kilometers) of territory to the United States; Mexico's size was halved, while that of the United States increased by a third. California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming were all included in the Mexican Cession. The treaty also recognized the annexation of Texas and acknowledged American control over the disputed territory between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. Mexico, in turn, received $15 million. The war claimed fewer than 20,000 American lives but over 50,000 Mexican ones.^[51] It may have cost the United States $100 million.^[52] Finally, the Wilmot Proviso injected the issue of slavery in the new territories, even though Polk had insisted to Congress and in his diary that this had never been a war goal.

The treaty, however, needed ratification by the Senate. In March 1848, the Whigs, who had been so opposed to Polk's policy, suddenly changed position. Two-thirds of the Whigs voted for Polk's treaty. This ended the war and legalized the acquisition of the territories.

The war had serious consequences for Polk and the Democrats. It gave the Whig Party a unifying message of denouncing the war as an immoral act of aggression carried out through abuse of power by the president. In the 1848 election, however, the Whigs nominated General Zachary Taylor, a war hero, and celebrated his victories. Taylor refused to criticize Polk. As a result of the strain of managing the war effort directly and in close detail, Polk's health markedly declined toward the end of his presidency.

Cuba[link]

In mid-1848, President Polk authorized his ambassador to Spain, Romulus Mitchell Saunders, to negotiate the purchase of Cuba and offer Spain up to $100 million, an astounding sum at the time for one territory, equal to $2.69 billion in present day terms.^[53] Cuba was close to the United States and had slavery, so the idea appealed to Southerners but was unwelcome in the North. But Spain was still making huge profits in Cuba (notably in sugar, molasses, rum, and tobacco), and the Spanish government rejected Saunders' overtures.^[54]

Department of the Interior[link]

One of Polk's last acts as President was to sign the bill creating the Department of the Interior (March 3, 1849). This was the first new cabinet position created since the early days of the Republic.

Administration and cabinet[link]

Judicial appointments[link]

Supreme Court[link]

Polk appointed the following Justices to the U.S. Supreme Court:

Woodbury was from New Hampshire, and Grier from Pennsylvania. Polk also nominated George W. Woodward of Pennsylvania in 1846, but the United States Senate rejected the nomination.

Other courts[link]

Polk appointed eight other federal judges, one to the United States Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, and seven to various United States district courts.

Congress[link]

29th Congress (March 4, 1845 – March 4, 1847)

• Senate: 31 Democrats, 31 Whigs, 1 Other (President Pro Tempore – Willie P. Mangum (Whig-NC), Ambrose H. Servier (D-AR), and David R. Atchison (D-MO))
• House: 143 Democrats, 77 Whigs, 6 Others (Speaker – John W. Davis of Indiana)

30th Congress (March 4, 1847 – March 4, 1849)

• Senate: 36 Democrats, 21 Whigs, 1 Other (President Pro Tempore – David R. Atchison (D-MO))
• House: 115 Whigs, 108 Democrats, 4 Others (Speaker – Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts)

States admitted to the Union[link]

• Texas – December 29, 1845
• Iowa – December 28, 1846
• Wisconsin – May 29, 1848

Post-presidency[link]

James K. Polk's tomb lies on the grounds of the state capitol in Nashville, Tennessee.

Polk's time in the White House took its toll on his health. Full of enthusiasm and vigor when he entered office, Polk left on March 4, 1849, exhausted by his years of public service. He lost weight and had deep lines on his face and dark circles under his eyes. He is believed to have contracted cholera in New Orleans, Louisiana, on a goodwill tour of the South.^[56] He died at his new home, Polk Place, in Nashville, Tennessee, at 3:15 pm on June 15, 1849, three months after leaving office. He was buried on the grounds of Polk Place. Polk's last words illustrate his devotion to his wife: "I love you, Sarah. For all eternity, I love you."^[57] She lived at Polk Place for over forty years after his death. She died on August 14, 1891. Polk was also survived by his mother, Jane Knox Polk.^[58]

Polk had the shortest retirement of all Presidents at 103 days. He was the youngest former president to die in retirement at the age of 53. He and his wife are buried in a tomb on the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville, Tennessee. The tomb was moved to this location in 1893 after his home at Polk Place was demolished.

Reputation[link]

Polk's historic reputation was largely formed by the attacks made on him in his own time; the Whigs claimed that he was drawn from a well-deserved obscurity; Senator Tom Corwin of Ohio remarked "James K. Polk, of Tennessee? After that, who is safe?" The Republican historians of the nineteenth century inherited this view. Polk was a compromise between the Democrats of the North, like David Wilmot and Silas Wright, and the plantation owners who were led by John C. Calhoun; the northern Democrats thought that when they did not get their way, it was because he was the tool of the slaveholders, and the conservatives of the South insisted that he was the tool of the northern Democrats. These views were long reflected in the historical literature, until Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr and Bernard De Voto argued that Polk was nobody's tool, but set his own goals and achieved them.^[59]

Polk is now recognized, not only as the strongest president between Jackson and Lincoln, but the president who made the United States a coast-to-coast nation. When historians began ranking the presidents in 1948, Polk ranked 10th in Arthur M. Schlesinger’s poll. and has subsequently ranked 8th in Schlesinger’s 1962 poll, 11th in the Riders-McIver Poll (1996), 11th in the most recent Siena Poll (2002), 9th in the most recent Wall Street Journal Poll (2005), and 12th in the latest C-Span Poll (2009).^[60]

Polk biographers over the years have sized up the magnitude of Polk’s achievements and his legacy, particularly his two most recent. “There are three key reasons why James K. Polk deserves recognition as a significant and influential American president,” Walter Borneman wrote. “First, Polk accomplished the objectives of his presidential term as he defined them; second, he was the most decisive chief executive before the Civil War; and third, he greatly expanded the executive power of the presidency, particularly its war powers, its role as commander-in-chief, and its oversight of the executive branch."^[61] President Harry S. Truman summarized this view by saying that Polk was "a great president. Said what he intended to do and did it."^[62]

While Polk’s legacy thus takes many forms, the most outstanding is the map of the continental United States, whose landmass he increased by a third. “To look at that map,” Robert Merry concluded, “and to take in the western and southwestern expanse included in it, is to see the magnitude of Polk’s presidential accomplishments.”^[63]

Nevertheless, Polk's aggressive expansionism has been criticized on ethical grounds. He believed in "Manifest Destiny" even more than most did. Referencing the Mexican-American War, General Ulysses S. Grant stated that "I was bitterly opposed to the [Texas annexation], and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory."^[64] Whig politicians, including David Wilmot, Abraham Lincoln and John Quincy Adams contended that the Texas Annexation and the Mexican Cession enhanced the pro-slavery factions of the United States.^[65] Unsatisfactory conditions pertaining to the status of slavery in the territories acquired during the Polk administration led to the Compromise of 1850, one of the primary factors in the establishment of the Republican Party and later the beginning of the American Civil War.^[66]

On the other hand, Sam Houston is said to have observed that Polk was "a victim of the use of water as a beverage.^[67]

See also[link]

	Book: Presidents of the United States (1789–1860)
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• James K. Polk Ancestral Home
• Historical rankings of United States Presidents
• List of Presidents of the United States
• US Presidents on US postage stamps

Ancestors[link]