POLK 



1740 



POLK 



The Oregon Question. While the United 

 States was at war with Mexico, there was also 

 great danger of war with Great Hritain. The 

 United States claimed that the line of 51 W 

 X. latitude was the northern boundary of the 

 territory acquired from France and Spain, 

 whereas Great Britain insisted that the Colum- 

 bia River v. iiulary. The Democratic 

 platform demanded the whole of Oregon, up to 

 54 40', "with or without war with 'England," 

 and "fifty-four forty or fight" was the great 



ELECTION MAP, 1844 



States colored black gave their electoral votes 

 to Polk (Democrat) ; states barred diagonally 

 voted for Clay (Whig). White area represents 

 unorganized territory. 



rallying cry of the campaign. After many ne- 

 itions, however, the Senate, on June 15, 

 1846, accepted the compromise offered by Great 

 Britain, to fix the boundary at the 49th paral- 

 lel. As President Polk had endorsed the plat- 

 form's demand for 54 40', he threw upon the 

 Senate the entire responsibility for accepting 

 the compromise treaty, but he realized with- 

 out a doubt that compromise and not war was 

 necessary. 



President Folk's policy toward the Mexican 

 problem and his open disapproval of the Aboli- 

 tionists were often interpreted to mean that he 

 was a proslavery man. On the contrary, he 

 was not a slavery propagandist, and in the set- 

 tlement of the Oregon question he did every- 

 thing in his power to secure the exclusion of 

 slavery from that territory. In his message ap- 

 proving the bill to establish Oregon as a terri- 

 tory, Polk explained his attitude toward slavery 

 in these words: 



I have an abiding confidence that the sober re- 

 flection and sound patriotism of all the states will 

 bring them to the conclusion that the dictate of 

 wisdom is to follow the example of those who 

 have gone before us, and settle this dangerous 

 question on the Missouri Compromise or some 

 other equitable compromise which would respect 

 the rights of all, and prove satisfactory to the 

 different portions of the Union. 



The Tariff of 1846. The tariff was another 

 leading issue in the campaign of 1844. Polk 

 was pledged to a tariff for revenue only. In 

 accordance with his views a bill was presented 

 to Congress, and was passed after an unusually 

 keen discussion, during which partisanship ran 

 high. In the Senate the bijl was saved from 

 defeat by the vote of Vice-President Dallas, 

 who broke a tie by voting for it. The unusual 

 character of the preceding discussion is indi- 

 cated by his explanation of his vote, as fol- 

 lows : 



If by thus acting it be my misfortune to offend 

 any portion of those who honored me with their 

 suffrages, I have only to say to them, and to my 

 whole country, that I prefer the deepest obscu- 

 rity of private life, with an unwounded conscience, 

 to the glare of official eminence spotted by a 

 sense of moral delinquency. 



President Polk, arguing more concretely, ex- 

 plained his views by saying that all c! 

 the farmer, the manufacturer, the man of com- 

 merce, the navigator, or the mechanic "are 

 equally entitled to the nation's protection." 



Internal Improvements. On the tariff, the 

 President's views coincided with those of the 

 majority in Congress, but on the question of 

 internal improvements they differed. A large 

 majority in both houses favored a liberal use 

 of the nation's funds for such improvements. 

 In vetoing a rivers-and-harbors bill in 1846 

 Polk submitted a message of unusual interest, 

 in which he called attention to the harmfulness 

 of a system which allowed the nation's money 

 to be spent in particular sections, leaving other 

 parts of the country without financial assist- 

 ance from the government. In 1847 Congress 

 again voted large sums for internal improve- 

 ments, but Polk again vetoed the bill. 



Reestablishment of the Independent Treas- 

 ury. Worthy of special mention is the Act of 

 August 6, 1846, reestablishing the independent 

 treasury system. In principle, under this act, 

 the government "pays cash, demands cash, and 

 keeps its funds in a strong box," but in actual 

 practice there have been wide variations from 

 principle. The purpose of the act was to free 

 the treasury from interference by the banks. 



Other Noteworthy Events. One of the re- 

 sults which followed the introduction of the 

 Wilmot Proviso was the development of the 

 doctrine of popular sovereignty. Offsetting this 

 movement was the formation of the Free-Soil 

 Party (which see). Three states were admit- 

 ted to the Union during Folk's administration; 

 these were Texas in 1845, Iowa in 1846, and 



