Posted on 11/13/2009 6:04:17 AM PST by Kaslin
I grew up in Polk county FL, named after the president.
bttt
Thanks! This is a must read for me. As stated, too many historians decry the war with Mexico as a bad war and failed diplomacy.
I polka (poorly).
Stopped reading right there.
And all this time I thought it was named after the salad. (spent too much time passing through Bradley Junction).
Is it true Mexico offered the U.S. all of Baja for an additional $8 million and we turned them down?
Personally, I also rank Polk in the top 10 US Presidents; Washington, Lincoln, T.Roosevelt, Jackson, Reagan, Polk, Truman, FDR, Jefferson & Eisenhower.
Pat’s got it right about Polk. He was one of our greatest POTUS’s. He said he would only serve one term, and he lived up to his word, and didn’t run although the history of the country would have been different had he run and won re-election in the general election of 1848. Of course, it would have been much different for Polk as well because he died a couple months after leaving office, when he was doing a victory tour lap through the South and he got sick from something he ate down in NewOrleans.
I don’t think that Mr.Buchanan would think much of Polk’s domestic agenda, specifically the way Polk handled the tariff issue. Polk was instrumental in reducing tariffs, while his political opponents, the Whigs, favored higher tariffs.
I specifically remember every time I hear about President Polk, being in 5th grade when all the students drew Presidents from a hat to do a report on. I drew James Polk and my teacher pulled me aside and told me to draw again because he was boring. So I drew again and I drew Ronald Reagan. Then my teacher said to draw again because he was too recent of a president to find any research on. But this time I told her I wanted to keep him because my parents loved President Reagan and I’m sure there’s a reason why.
I saw an interesting film made about the St. Patrick’s brigade (artillery) led by, what I got out of the film a deserter from the U.S. Army, a sergent, of Irish decent...
They fought for the Mexican army and were defeated, and all but the Sergent, played by the actor Tom Berringer were hanged, while viewing the fall of the Mexican flag in the last big battle of that war...
I foget right off the top of my head what the name of that film was...Somebody will find it...
My gut feeling is that the film was skewed to show empathy to the Mexican side of the war, but it was still interesting to watch...
OHHHH OHHHHH I KNOW, I KNOW Mistah Kottah!!!
If you read up on the history of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of Soviet Russia and the Warsaw Pact, you will find the man who led the nation to that great moment.
Where one man, with one speech, ended the Cold War.
Interesting article, interesting book....
Of course, you can bet the Jeraldo Rivera/La Raza/Hispano-Racists will whine about this time in American history....but, Polk’s decision spared many people living in over 1 million square miles of territory from living in a Third World cesspool called Mexico....
Thanks for posting this.
That's because the Mexican War was the first war about slavery.
I live in Polk country.
Williamson County TN...Polk was big in Maury County too.
the signs of he and his family...Leonidis, their kin the McGavocks, Childresses etc are everywhere...their plantations and churchs and what not from here down into northern Mississippi.
and for the overly sensitive here, he freed his many slaves at his death and rarely if ever sold off any and if he did, he did it by families
he was like Jackson’s protege and dealt with the clash that was brewing while trying to expand the nation
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.