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TIL that James K. Polk is the only US president who pledged to serve only one term during his campaign. He was known for fulfilling all his major promises and died 3 months after his term ended, making his retirement the shortest. He is also the only speaker of the house to be elected as president.
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View Reddit by LogicBomb69 – View Source
I did a report on this guy, he apparently had no life outside the presidency besides what his wife planned for him
…and since I’d achieved all my goals as President in one term, there was no need for a second. The end.
More information from the article linked by OP:
>With a slender victory in the popular vote, but with a greater victory in the Electoral College (170–105), Polk proceeded to implement his campaign promises. He presided over a country whose population had doubled every twenty years since the American Revolution and which had reached demographic parity with Great Britain. Polk’s tenure saw continued technological improvements, including the continued expansion of railroads and increased use of the telegraph. These improved communications and growing demographics increasingly made the United States into a strong military power, while also stoking expansionism. However, sectional divisions remained and became worse during his tenure.
>Polk set four clearly defined goals for his administration:
>Reestablish the Independent Treasury System – the Whigs had abolished the one created under Van Buren.
>Reduce tariffs.
>Acquire some or all of the Oregon Country.
>Acquire California and its harbors from Mexico.
>While his domestic aims represented continuity with past Democratic policies, successful completion of Polk’s foreign policy goals would represent the first major American territorial gains since the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819.
Fun Fact: Polk was a total workaholic. During White House social functions the music had to stop when he entered the room, and he worked on Sundays because he called taking the day off an “unprofitable use of time.”
He was the first President to be photographed in office. He did this rather than have his portrait painted, not because of the cool technology, but because it was a lot faster and he could get back to work.
Had the best Nickelodeon middle school named after him
The Napoleon of the stump!
“And since I’d achieved all of my goals as President in one term there was no need for a second.”
I actually went to Polk high school. There was a guy on our football team that scored four touchdowns in one game.
Presidential speedrun.
In 1844, the Democrats were split…🎶
There was a documentary on the US presidents I watched a while back and after watching it, hes my second favorite president behind teddy. Dude got shit done and left, just solid.
President Polk, best remembered for being business up front and party in the back.
Shortest retirement is actually shared 8 ways between William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, Warren Harding, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
““With a soldier the flag is paramount . . . I know the struggle with my conscience during the Mexican War. I have never altogether forgiven myself for going into that. I had very strong opinions on the subject. I do not think there was ever a more wicked war than that waged by the United States on Mexico. I thought so at the time, when I was a youngster, only I had not moral courage enough to resign. I had taken an oath to serve eight years, unless sooner discharged, and I considered my supreme duty was to my flag. I had a horror of the Mexican War, and I have always believed that it was on our part most unjust. The wickedness was not in the way our soldiers conducted it, but in the conduct of our government in declaring war. The troops behaved well in Mexico, and the government acted handsomely about the peace. We had no claim on Mexico. Texas had no claim beyond the Nueces River, and yet we pushed on to the Rio Grande and crossed it. I am always ashamed of my country when I think of that invasion.”
~ Ulysses S. Grant to journalist John Russell Young (1879), quoted by Young in Around the World with General Grant (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2002), 376-377”
That was a time when men were made of steel and boats made of wood.
He also had a middle school named after him on a great nickelodeon show.
He also stuck a load of soldiers on the border with Mexico, waited for them to start even the slightest animosity and then used it as an excuse to invade Mexico and take more land.
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