James K. Polk

The life and career of James K. Polk reflected the country’s westward shift. His path followed the frontier as he moved from his birthplace in North Carolina to Tennessee as a child. After graduating from the University of North Carolina, he returned to Tennessee and began his career as a lawyer, serving in the state legislature. Polk, like most Americans in the nineteenth century, favored western expansion and believed that settlers were destined to expand across North America. As president, he acquired more than a million square miles of territory for the United States, in part by fomenting the Mexican-American War. As one of the most consequential presidents in American history, the vast expansion of territory opened up the question of the future of slavery, an issue that sparked conflict during the period leading up the Civil War. Driven and determined, Polk took office with a limited agenda, accomplished all of it, and left office, as he planned, after only one term.