James Knox Polk

POLITICAL PARTY
Democrat

RELIGION
Presbyterian then Methodist

EDUCATION
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, BA 1818
Read law with Felix Grundy, Nashville

VITALS
5 ft 8 in / 174 lbs

CAREER
1819-22 Clerk, Tennessee State Senate
1820-25 Practiced law in Maury County, Tennessee
1823-25 Member, Tennessee House of Representatives
1823 Captain (later Colonel), Tennessee militia
1825-39 U.S. Representative, Tennessee
1835-39 Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives
1839-41 Governor of Tennessee
1841 Defeated for reelection, resumed law practice in Columbia
1843 Unsuccessful candidate for Tennessee Governor

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
November 5, 1844
Popular: Polk 1,339,494 (50%) Henry Clay 1,300,004 (48%)
Electoral: Polk 170 Clay 105

VICE PRESIDENT
George M. Dallas (1845-49)

ADMINISTRATION
Mexican-American War, Oregon Territory (1846); California Gold Rush, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848); Department of Interior (1849)

SUPREME COURT APPOINTMENTS
Levi Woodbury, Robert C. Grier

NEW STATES
Texas (1845), Iowa (1846), Wisconsin (1848)

FIRST LADY
Sarah Childress (1845-49)

“We must ever maintain the principle that the people of this continent alone have the right to decide their own destiny.”
First annual message to Congress, December 2, 1845

Portrait of James Polk by George P. A. Healy, 1858.