James K. Polk

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Key People

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Key People

John Bell

Tennessee congressman and one of Polk's loudest critics and opponents. He led the effort to nominate Hugh Lawson White rather than Martin Van Buren for president.
James Buchanan

Polk's troublesome and politically ambitious secretary of state. Polk saw Buchanan as too worried about his own future to be of much help in governing. Buchanan later became president after Zachary Taylor.
Henry Clay

Missouri senator and later the crafter of the Compromise of 1850. Clay repeatedly sought the presidency on the Whig ticket and fiercely opposed Polk.
Davy Crockett

Tennessee congressman and famous frontiersman, a harsh critic of Polk's. He died at the Alamo in 1836.
Felix Grundy

Polk's mentor in Tennessee, Grundy–a former chief justice of the Kentucky supreme court–taught Polk law and later helped guide him through Tennessee politics.
William Henry Harrison

The ninth president of the U.S. He caught pneumonia after his rainy inauguration and lived only a month in office.
R.M. Johnson

The unpopular running-mate of Martin Van Buren.
Sarah Childress Polk

Polk's wife of a quarter century. Her cordiality won many friends in Washington for her and her husband and repeatedly she urged her husband to slow down so that he did not work himself to death. She died at age eighty-seven in August 1891 and was buried beside her husband.
Winfield Scott

The ambitious general who led the capture of Mexico City after launching an amphibious invasion at Vera Cruz. He defied repeated orders from Polk in his quest to secure the peace treaty and thus claim greater glory than Zachary Taylor. He hoped to secure the Whig nomination for president in 1848.
Zachary Taylor

The politically ambitious general who started the Mexican War and then captured much of northeastern Mexico. He succeeded Polk to the presidency in 1849.
John Tyler

The reluctant vice president for William Henry Harrison. Upon Harrison's death, he began a long switch from Whig politics to Democratic politics and eventually came to be hated by both parties. He offered Polk the position of secretary of the navy.
Martin Van Buren

The eighth president of the U.S. and the chosen protégé of Andrew Jackson. Van Buren lost reelection in 1842 and his anti-annexation feelings cost him the nomination in 1848.

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