Bloodless Victory

Around the time of his inauguration as eleventh president of the United States -- March 2,1845 -- James K. Polk sat down for a conversation with his new Secretary of the Navy, George Bancroft -- the same Massachusetts historian who had helped orchestrate Polk's unlikely nomination at the Democratic convention ten months earlier.

Looking back forty years, Bancroft wrote that Polk, in a burst of uncharacteristic animation, slapped his thigh and confided to him the "four great measures" of his administration. (Borneman, p. 150.)

On the domestic front he would move expeditiously to reduce the protectionist Tariff of 1842, so detested by southerners, to a pure revenue basis, and then, reviving a project of Martin Van Buren's, to establish an independent treasury or depository for federal monies. (Merry, p. 131)

More lofty were his foreign policy goals, "almost breathtaking in design." (Merry, p. 131) Building on the expansionist spirit that had motivated his predecessor, John Tyler, he intended first to settle the Oregon boundary dispute with Great Britain, extending the Union to the Pacific Ocean, and second to acquire California from Mexico and, along with it, "a large district on the coast." (Borneman, p. 150)

Polk would utilize his cabinet to assist him in governance and advise him in decision-making; his appointments included two loyal friends -- Tennessee confidante Cave Johnson (Postmaster General) and college mate John Mason (Attorney General) -- two Washington newcomers -- the estimable Bancroft and the anti-Van Burenite New Yorker William Marcy (Secretary of the Army) -- and two political veterans -- Mississippi land speculator Robert Walker (Secretary of the Treasury) and the self-serving Pennsylvanian James Buchanan (Secretary of State). (Merry, pp. 134-135)

Polk's single-minded work ethic translated into a hands-on management style. He planned "to remain constantly in Washington," and, expecting no less a level of dedication from his subordinates, decried the common practice of cabinet officers "absenting themselves for long periods of time." In four years, he left the capital only four times. Nor would he allow the cabinet to become a breeding ground for presidential aspirants and would demand the resignation of any presumptive candidate. (Borneman, p.151)

The new administration's first order of business was to resolve the complex matter of Texas. Although Congress had voted for annexation and President Tyler had dispatched an emissary, Andrew Jackson Donelson, with an offer of immediate statehood, a group of senators including Thomas Hart Benton believed they had received a pre-inaugural commitment from Polk to engage in further negotiations over key issues such as slavery and boundaries. They felt betrayed when the president made a "momentous first decision"; Buchanan instructed Donelson that Texas should accept Tyler's original terms without modification or delay. (Merry, p. 136)

While general sentiment throughout Texas favored annexation, the republic's leadership -- particularly its current president, Anson Jones, and its most prominent and beloved citizen, Sam Houston -- harbored misgivings about the cession of public lands without compensation and about the future impact of abolitionist agitation. Through a British intermediary, Jones initiated discussions with Mexico regarding recognition of Texas independence.

Thus when he convened a special session of Congress on June 16, 1845, he was able to present two options: admission to the United States; or independence under a treaty with Mexico with the condition that Texas never annex itself to another country. Both Houses promptly spurned Jones's machinations and voted unanimously for annexation. Nineteen days later a state convention ratified the decision.

"Once the outcome of this vote and a state constitution were transmitted to the U. S. Congress, a final resolution was passed -- and signed by President Polk on December 29, 1845 -- admitting Texas to the union as the twenty-eighth state." (Borneman, p. 148)

"By then one voice among the chorus who had sought the annexation of Texas was silent." On June 6, 1845, two days before his death, Andrew Jackson -- "the greatest man of the age in which he lived," wrote Polk to a friend -- penned his own last letter; it was to his protege, the second man besides himself whom he had made president, warning him of possible fraud in the Treasury Department. (Borneman, p. 148)

As enumerated to Bancroft and promulgated in his inaugural address, Polk had insisted that "Our title to the country of Oregon is clear and unquestionable." He was now determined to establish the legitimacy of that title, where so many prior diplomatic efforts had failed, even if it meant bringing the nation to the brink of war. (Borneman, p. 161)

With both British and American explorers having seized portions of the Pacific Northwest in the late eighteenth century, the two countries, and their surrogate settlers, missionaries, and traders, had clashed repeatedly over territorial rights to its vast riches of beaver pelts, fish, timber, and farmland. A series of treaties had managed to forestall hostilities, but by 1845 a dangerous impasse had been reached.

The Treaty of 1818 had fixed the American-Canadian border east of the Rockies at the 49th parallel and provided for joint occupancy of the Oregon country for ten years. The Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 had extinguished Spanish claims north of the 42nd parallel, the boundary of California. In separate treaties with the United States in 1824 and with Great Britain in 1825, Russia had agreed on latitude 54*40' as the southern demarcation of its Alaska territory.

By 1827 the area of dispute had narrowed to an irregular rectangle of land between the Columbia River on the east and south, the Pacific Ocean on the west, and the 49th parallel on the north. On the verge of confrontation, "the two powers agreed to extend the joint occupancy formula indefinitely into the future, subject to abrogation by either party with a year's notice." During the next nineteen years, neither side would yield the "strategic imperatives driving its stance," each vying for continental dominance. (Merry, pp. 168-169)

While Britain clung stubbornly to the Columbia River as the dividing line and the United States to the 49th parallel, an irrepressible wave of immigration was rendering the former's interests problematic. Americans were flooding the territory at the rate of ten for every Englishman. Outgoing Secretary of State John Calhoun stated that all that was needed was patience, and that sooner or later the stampede of wagon trains westward would solidify for the United States "a clear title to the whole region drained by the Columbia." (Merry, p. 170)

Polk's dilemma was that too many in the country, and across the Atlantic, were taking his Democratic platform literally; it had laid claim to the "whole" of Oregon north to the 54*40' parallel. Both the British Prime Minister and his opposition leader hinted at war in the face of such provocative assertions. Legislatures in expansionist states like Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota passed resolutions echoing the land lust. Journalists "trumpeted the unquestioned right of the American people to expand westward," most notably John L. O'Sullivan, who elucidated the national psyche in a memorable catch phrase.

"It was the fulfillment of our manifest destiny," he wrote, "to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions." (Borneman, pp. 164-165)

Polk had no interest in going to war over Oregon. Having been advised by British Ambassador Richard Pakenham that, if negotiations were to be resumed, the United States would have to make the first move, he had Secretary of State Buchanan deliver a letter to Pakenham on July 16, 1845. While restating claims to the whole of Oregon, Polk found himself "embarrassed, if not committed by the acts of his predecessors," and, in that spirit was willing to accept a compromise at the 49th parallel and to give Britain free harbors on Vancouver Island lying south of that line. Reversing a concession of previous administrations, he did not include navigation rights on the Columbia River. (Merry, p. 173)

Polk was stunned and furious at the response. Pakenham scorned the proposal, refuted every claim to Oregon that Buchanan had advanced, refused to submit the letter to his superiors in London, and made no counterproposal. Further, he hoped for another offer "more consistent with fairness and equity, and with the reasonable expectations of the British government." (Merry, p. 174)

Buchanan's irritating and erratic temperament surfaced in the ensuing discussion. At a cabinet meeting on August 26, Polk seized on Pakenham's lack of a counterproposal as an opportunity to withdraw his own proposal. "The ever-cautious Buchanan argued with the president at some length that at the very least their response should encourage a British offer. But Polk was adamant. If the British chose to make an offer, let them do so, with or without invitation." (Borneman, p. 163)

When Buchanan fretted that war might result, Polk replied, 'If we do have war, it will not be our fault." When Buchanan suggested that the administration should delay sending the letter because of an increasing volatile situation in Mexico, Polk said he did not see any connection between the two issues. And when, on the next day, the cabinet presented a final draft, which Polk pronounced "able and admirable," he rebuffed another Buchanan plea for postponement. (Merry, pp. 190-191)

Polk was so incensed by Buchanan's obstinacy that he retreated to his writing desk and recorded the episode for posterity -- his first entry in a presidential diary in which he would transcribe daily the events, conversations, and his own internal musings of the next three-and-a-half years. (Merry, p. 191)

In his State of the Union Address of December 2, 1845, hand-delivered in print, Polk asked Congress to give notice to Britain of U. S. intent to abrogate the 1827 Treaty of Joint Occupation. Now that the 49th parallel compromise had been rudely rejected, he invoked U.S. rights to the whole territory. He recommended that Congress take steps to extend the protection and jurisdiction of U. S. law to Americans residing in Oregon. And, in what some have labeled the Polk Corollary, he reaffirmed the Monroe Doctrine as the basic tenet of American foreign policy, declaring that "the peoples of this continent alone have the right to decide their destiny." (Borneman, pp. 167-168)

Polk was in a political vise -- caught between southern senators who feared a war with Britain would destroy their cotton trade and hawkish westerners hungry for all of Oregon. (Merry, p. 212) At the behest of Buchanan, who peppered him with hypotheticals, he made a concession: If Britain proposed a compromise at the 49th parallel, leaving itself the southern tip of Vancouver Island but giving the U. S. full rights to the Columbia, "he might submit the matter to the Senate for its advice prior to seeking its constitutionally mandated consent." (Borneman, p. 218)

On February 9, 1846, the House of Representatives passed a resolution giving notice to Great Britain terminating the joint occupancy agreement. The president was encouraged to reopen "negotiations for an amicable settlement" but not to compromise. (Merry, p. 223)

In the Senate, debate was acrimonious and frenzied, its heat intensified by accelerating 54*40' fervor. Contrary to popular belief, the battle cry "54*40' or fight" had not been sounded during Polk's 1844 election campaign. The exact phrase seems to have been coined by Senator Reverdy Johnson of Maryland; on March 11 he referred to his associates William Allen and Edward Hannegan as the "hotspurs of the Senate" and gentleman who "were all for 54*40' or fight." (Borneman, p. 219)

On April 8, the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper suggested that the abbreviation "P.P.P.P." should stand for "Phifty-Phour Phorty or Phight," and it was in this form that the most widely-remembered slogan of Polk's presidency swept the nation -- in 1846, not 1844.

As the Senate -- and his own Democratic Party -- sunk into bitter political discord, Polk struggled to remain firm, while playing a delicate diplomatic game. "The only way to treat John Bull [is] to look him straight in the eye," he had told South Carolina's John Black in January. (Merry, p. 217) When both Allen and Hannegan demanded of him whether he was for the whole of Oregon at 54*40' or would compromise at 49 degrees, he replied blandly -- and disingenuously -- that he held no views beyond his Annual Message and that no Senator was authorized to speak for him. (Merry, p. 229)

His ambiguity mollified no one. In the words of one senator, he would be cursed for making peace at forty-nine or damned for yielding an inch short of fifty-four. Polk's own opinion was that "in all this Oregon discussion . . . too many Democratic Senators have been more concerned about the presidential election in '48 than they have been about settling Oregon either at 49* or 54*40'." (Borneman, p. 221) "He would not be swayed by such maneuverings, he vowed with characteristic self-righteousness." (Merry, p. 230)

When Thomas Hart Benton advocated making an offer of 49* as part of the notice of termination, Polk begrudgingly agreed to "consider" doing so, but insisted that "notice should be given speedily" and that Britain must make the first move. (Borneman, p. 220)

On April 16, 1846, some sixty-five days after Allen had opened the debate, the Senate passed a resolution giving the required one-year notice of termination. Not the "naked notice" Polk had requested, it expressed the hope that the United States and Great Britain might reach an "amicable settlement of all their differences and disputes in respect to [Oregon]." (Borneman, p. 221)

With a belligerent France on one flank, the British were no more inclined than Polk to resort to armed force until all options had been exhausted. On May 19, only four days after the termination notice reached London, the government dispatched a compromise offer to Ambassador Pakenham. It indeed settled on the 49th parallel but "with a southern jog to give all of Vancouver Island to the British."

Foreign Secretary Lord Aberdeen had originally stipulated full navigation rights on the Columbia River for all British subjects -- a source of perennial friction, to which Polk was adamantly opposed -- but U. S. envoy Louis McLane convinced him to limit such rights to the Hudson's Bay Company. A loophole was identified when Treasury Secretary Walker and Secretary of War advised that the Company's charter expired in 1859. (Borneman , p. 222)

With the terms now deemed acceptable, Polk polled his cabinet and found all but one in favor of submitting the treaty to the Senate. Incredibly, the holdout was Secretary of State Buchanan. The obsequious dove who had patronized the British ever since assuming office suddenly turned militant, claiming that "the 54*40' men were the true friends of the administration and he wished no backing out on the subject." When Buchanan refused to draft a treaty message to Congress, Polk attributed his recalcitrance to more cynical motives. Looking to 1848, Buchanan wasn't going to be the presidential candidate who had surrendered half of Oregon. (Borneman, p. 222)

Polk wrote to the Senate asking its advice before he accepted or rejected the British offer, cleverly shifting the onus of compromise to that august body. On June 12 the Senate advised acceptance, and six days later, when Polk formally submitted the treaty, gave its consent 41 to 14. In a rather anticlimactic denouement, the thirty-year-old controversy had been resolved in thirty days.

President Polk's apparent willingness to chance warfare had kept everyone -- including himself -- guessing as to his true intentions. But ultimately he had bluffed his way past both the British and American political establishments, and earned a bloodless victory. "His nerve and defiance had yielded up a choice and strategically priceless stretch of land -- 'about three degrees of seacoast on the Pacific, with the eventual exclusive navigation of the chief river on the western slope of our continent,' as the Daily Union put it." With the acquisition of Texas, he had moved the country one giant step closer to full conquest of the continental midsection. (Merry, p. 267.)

As the Oregon negotiations were coming to fruition, so too were Polk's domestic policy objectives: tariff reduction and the independent treasury.

In the summer of 1845, Secretary of the Treasury Robert Walker produced a voluminous analysis of the tariff as a revenue-producing tool; it attempted to show "at what rate duties on various articles would produce the maximum revenue" before becoming so onerous as to have a counter effect. (Borneman, p. 225)

The subsequent bill, reported out of the House Ways and Means Committee on April 14, 1846, substituted the specific dollar tariffs of 1842 with ad valorem percentage rates; instead of remaining fixed, tariffs would rise and fall as an item's price fluctuated. While the rates on some products would increase -- rising as high as 100% -- the vast majority would carry rates of just 30%, a substantial decrease. And the principle that import taxes should be imposed strictly for the purpose of protecting particular industries would be repudiated. (Merry, p. 274)

The bill's passage was not assured. When several Ohio Democratic congressmen threatened to oppose it unless tea and coffee were excluded, the administration acquiesced, much to Walker's dismay. Whigs argued that the revisions would damage the economy and slash revenues just when the Mexican situation was turning violent. North Carolina Senator William Heywood resigned rather that follow his state's instructions to vote in the affirmative.

Despite these fulminations, the bill passed the Democratic-controlled House on July 3, 114 t0 95, and the Senate three weeks later, when Vice-President George Dallas broke a tie and cast the deciding vote, enraging many of his home-state Pennsylvanians. But with the British soon to open its own ports, the traditional rationale for protectionism would become obsolete and Polk's economic progressivism the harbinger of an international free trade movement. (Merry, p. 277)

Polk's independent treasury initiative followed a similar uneven path.

Whereas Alexander Hamilton had conceptualized a shareholder-owned national bank whose corporate executives would manage federal funds, and Andrew Jackson, regarding such private centralization as inherently corrupt, looked to state "pet banks" as more sanitized, Polk's approach -- with Walker again as his principal architect -- was for the government to hold its own funds in newly constructed vaults until until they were ready to be disbursed. Further, all transactions were to be conveyed in specie, that is, in gold and silver. (Borneman, p. 226)

On April 2, 1846, the measure passed the House by a comfortable margin. It proceeded to languish in the Senate until Polk summoned Finance Committee Chairman Dixon Lewis to the White House for an arm-twisting session. Expressing anxiety about the fate of two of his priorities -- his tariff and monetary bills -- Polk told Lewis that the power and glory of his presidency depended on their passage. The ploy worked. Lewis shepherded the bill through his committee, and the Senate approved it on August 1. (Merry, p. 269)

"The people's money would now be in the hands of the people's government" -- a tenet of Jacksonian democracy. The discovery of huge California gold reserves and a large influx of British investment capital would assure the viability and stability of Polk's system for seventy years -- until the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. (Merry, p. 276)

"The episode with Lewis reflected Polk's presidential temperament. He was his own chief lobbyist. He was also his own chief political strategist, chief speechwriter, chief policy analyst, and chief scheduler. He insisted upon being involved in the minutiae of the departments represented in his cabinet. He delegated little and pulled a vast expanse of administration and decision-making into his own ambit, particularly on military matters." (Merry, p. 269)

"In part this stemmed from his congenital affinity for the martyrdom of duty, in part from his lack of confidence in the competence of others . . . 'If [the president] entrusts details and smaller matters to subordinates, errors will occur,' he wrote. 'I prefer to supervise the whole operations of the government myself . . . and this makes my duties very great.' " (Merry, p. 269)

Stubborn yet patient, confrontational yet conciliatory, laconic yet persuasive, secretive yet boldly visionary, the chameleon-like Polk continued to frustrate and perplex friend and foe alike.

Yet, after only eighteen months in office, he had delivered on three of the four pledges he had made to his friend George Bancroft, drawing on mysterious reserves of determination, stamina, resourcefulness, and political acumen. Consummating the fourth, however -- the acquisition of California -- would prove to be more costly, deadly, and agonizing than he could ever have anticipated.

REFERENCES

Borneman, Walter R. Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency. New York: Random House, 2008.

Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America: 1815-1848. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Merry, Robert W. A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009.