The Diary of James K. Polk During His Presidency, 1845 to 1849 - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Diary of James K. Polk During His Presidency, 1845 to 1849 write by James Knox Polk. This book was released on 1910. The Diary of James K. Polk During His Presidency, 1845 to 1849 available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
A Country of Vast Designs
A Country of Vast Designs - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook A Country of Vast Designs write by Robert W. Merry. This book was released on 2010-11-02. A Country of Vast Designs available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. ROBERT MERRY’S BRILLIANT AND HIGHLY ACCLAIMED HISTORY OF A CRUCIAL EPOCH IN U.S. HISTORY. In a one-term presidency, James K. Polk completed the story of America’s Manifest Destiny—extending its territory across the continent by threatening England with war and manufacturing a controversial and unpopular two-year war with Mexico.
The Presidency of James K. Polk
The Presidency of James K. Polk - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Presidency of James K. Polk write by Paul H. Bergeron. This book was released on 1987. The Presidency of James K. Polk available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. James K. Polk was one of the strongest and most active presidents ever to occupy the office. In the nineteenth century only Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln matched his overall leadership and domination of national government. Bergeron's crisp, insightful narrative shows how and why Polk achieved such stature and yet failed to attract the kind of popular support or retrospective recognition granted other presidential luminaries. A native of North Carolina, Polk prepared for the presidency by honing his leadership skills as a seven-term congressman, speaker of the house, and governor of Tennessee. Bergeron's summary and analysis of those years shed light on the foundations of the presidency that followed. He provides fresh new perspectives on Polk's relationship with his cabinet, his skirmishes with Congress over domestic economic legislation, and the curse of presidential patronage. But perhaps the most fascinating portions of this study are devoted to Polk's role as the western expansionist. By the end of his term, the United States had acquired enormous territories in the Southwest and far West. Bergeron demonstrates that Polk adroitly used both war and diplomacy to acquire and protect these lands. When the annexation of Texas led to the outbreak of war with Mexico, Polk was forced to become commander-in-chief of the American forces. In contrast, the potentially explosive dispute with Great Britain over Oregon's borders was settled through purely diplomatic means. Norman A. Graebner, in America's Top Ten Presidents, declares, "Polk's achievements in diplomacy were among the most remarkable in American history." Drawing upon a careful review of the extensive literature on our eleventh president, as well as Polk's personal diary, Bergeron has written a significant and balanced reassessment of the Polk presidency. In the process, he has also created a revealing portrait of a complex man who led the nation with imperial determination tempered with compassion, generosity, and even humor.
The Diary of James K. Polk During His Presidency, 1845 to 1849
The Diary of James K. Polk During His Presidency, 1845 to 1849 - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Diary of James K. Polk During His Presidency, 1845 to 1849 write by United States. President (1845-1849 : Polk). This book was released on 1910. The Diary of James K. Polk During His Presidency, 1845 to 1849 available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Slavemaster President
Slavemaster President - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Slavemaster President write by William Dusinberre. This book was released on 2007-10-01. Slavemaster President available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. James Polk was President of the United States from 1845 to 1849, a time when slavery began to dominate American politics. Polk's presidency coincided with the eruption of the territorial slavery issue, which within a few years would lead to the catastrophe of the Civil War. Polk himself owned substantial cotton plantations-- in Tennessee and later in Mississippi-- and some 50 slaves. Unlike many antebellum planters who portrayed their involvement with slavery as a historical burden bestowed onto them by their ancestors, Polk entered the slave business of his own volition, for reasons principally of financial self-interest. Drawing on previously unexplored records, Slavemaster President recreates the world of Polk's plantation and the personal histories of his slaves, in what is arguably the most careful and vivid account to date of how slavery functioned on a single cotton plantation. Life at the Polk estate was brutal and often short. Fewer than one in two slave children lived to the age of fifteen, a child mortality rate even higher than that on the average plantation. A steady stream of slaves temporarily fled the plantation throughout Polk's tenure as absentee slavemaster. Yet Polk was in some respects an enlightened owner, instituting an unusual incentive plan for his slaves and granting extensive privileges to his most favored slave. Startlingly, Dusinberre shows how Polk sought to hide from public knowledge the fact that, while he was president, he was secretly buying as many slaves as his plantation revenues permitted. Shortly before his sudden death from cholera, the president quietly drafted a new will, in which he expressed the hope that his slaves might be freed--but only after he and his wife were both dead. The very next day, he authorized the purchase, in strictest secrecy, of six more very young slaves. By contrast with Senator John C. Calhoun, President Polk has been seen as a moderate Southern Democratic leader. But Dusinberre suggests that the president's political stance toward slavery-- influenced as it was by his deep personal involvement in the plantation system-- may actually have helped precipitate the Civil War that Polk sought to avoid.
