We know of John’s admiration for James K. Polk, the one-term president and UNC alumnus who brought us Texas, California, and much of the far western United States.
In Bill Bennett’s new book, America: The Last Best Hope, Volume I (Nelson Current, 2006), the former Reagan cabinet secretary offers the following assessment of “Young Hickory.”
James Knox Polk received few thanks for adding vast territories to the American republic. He is the American Bismarck. Just as the “Iron Chancellor” is credited with creating the greater German empire in the 1860s and 1870s, James Knox Polk had three great objects in mind: the harbors of San Diego, San Francisco, and Puget Sound. Like Bismarck, Polk was willing to go to war to achieve his objects. But unlike Bismarck, Polk could rely on the sweep of thousands of settlers to achieve most of his goals without fighting. While the Mexicans in Mexico bravely resisted American invaders, the huge Southwest was seized almost bloodlessly.
