title: James K. Polk

text: Polk's three major programs during his governorship; regulating state banks, implementing state internal improvements, and improving education all failed to win the approval of the legislature. His only major success as governor was his politicking to secure the replacement of Tennessee's two Whig U.S. senators with Democrats. Polk's tenure was hindered by the continuing nationwide economic crisis that had followed the Panic of 1837 and which had caused Van Buren to lose the 1840 election.


title: James K. Polk

text: Encouraged by the success of Harrison's campaign, the Whigs ran a freshman legislator from frontier Wilson County, James C. Jones against Polk in 1841. "Lean Jimmy" had proven one of their most effective gadflies against Polk, and his lighthearted tone at campaign debates was very effective against the serious Polk. The two debated the length of Tennessee, and Jones's support of distribution to the states of surplus federal revenues, and of a national bank, struck a chord with Tennessee voters. On election day in August 1841, Polk was defeated by 3,000 votes, the first time he had been beaten at the polls. Polk returned to Columbia and the practice of law and prepared for a rematch against Jones in 1843, but though the new governor took less of a joking tone, it made little difference to the outcome, as Polk was beaten again, this time by 3,833 votes. In the wake of his second statewide defeat in three years, Polk faced an uncertain political future.


title: James K. Polk

text: Despite his loss, Polk was determined to become the next vice president of the United States, seeing it as a path to the presidency. Van Buren was the frontrunner for the 1844 Democratic nomination, and Polk engaged in a careful campaign to become his running mate. The former president faced opposition from Southerners who feared his views on slavery, while his handling of the Panic of 1837—he had refused to rescind the Specie Circular—aroused opposition from some in the West (today's Midwestern United States) who believed his hard money policies had hurt their section of the country. Many Southerners backed Calhoun's candidacy, Westerners rallied around Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan, and former Vice President Johnson also maintained a strong following among Democrats. Jackson assured Van Buren by letter that Polk in his campaigns for governor had "fought the battle well and fought it alone". Polk hoped to gain Van Buren's support, hinting in a letter that a Van Buren/Polk ticket could carry Tennessee, but found him unconvinced.


title: James K. Polk

text: The biggest political issue in the United States at that time was territorial expansion. The Republic of Texas had successfully revolted against Mexico in 1836. With the republic largely populated by American emigres, those on both sides of the Sabine River border between the U.S. and Texas deemed it inevitable that Texas would join the United States, but this would anger Mexico, which considered Texas a breakaway province, and threatened war if the United States annexed it. Jackson, as president, had recognized Texas independence, but the initial momentum toward annexation had stalled. Britain was seeking to expand her influence in Texas: Britain had abolished slavery, and if Texas did the same, it would provide a western haven for runaways to match one in the North. A Texas not in the United States would also stand in the way of what was deemed America's Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent.


title: James K. Polk

text: Clay was nominated for president by acclamation at the April 1844 Whig National Convention, with New Jersey's Theodore Frelinghuysen his running mate. A Kentucky slaveholder at a time when opponents of Texas annexation argued that it would give slavery more room to spread, Clay sought a nuanced position on the issue. Jackson, who strongly supported a Van Buren/Polk ticket, was delighted when Clay issued a letter for publication in the newspapers opposing Texas annexation, only to be devastated when he learned Van Buren had done the same thing. Van Buren did this because he feared losing his base of support in the Northeast, but his supporters in the old Southwest were stunned at his action. Polk, on the other hand, had written a pro-annexation letter that had been published four days before Van Buren's. Jackson wrote sadly to Van Buren that no candidate who opposed annexation could be elected, and decided Polk was the best person to head the ticket. Jackson met with Polk at the Hermitage on May 13, 1844, and explained to his visitor that only an expansionist from the South or Southwest could be elected—and, in his view, Polk had the best chance. Polk was at first startled, calling the plan "utterly abortive", but he agreed to accept it. Polk immediately wrote to instruct his lieutenants at the convention to work for his nomination as president.


title: James K. Polk

text: Despite Jackson's quiet efforts on his behalf, Polk was skeptical that he could win. Nevertheless, because of the opposition to Van Buren by expansionists in the West and South, Polk's key lieutenant at the 1844 Democratic National Convention in Baltimore, Gideon Johnson Pillow, believed Polk could emerge as a compromise candidate. Publicly, Polk, who remained in Columbia during the convention, professed full support for Van Buren's candidacy and was believed to be seeking the vice presidency. Polk was one of the few major Democrats to have declared for the annexation of Texas.


title: James K. Polk

text: The convention opened on May 27, 1844. A crucial question was whether the nominee needed two-thirds of the delegate vote, as had been the case at previous Democratic conventions, or merely a majority. A vote for two-thirds would doom Van Buren's candidacy due to the opposition to him. With the support of the Southern states, the two-thirds rule was passed. Van Buren won a majority on the first presidential ballot but failed to win the necessary two-thirds, and his support slowly faded on subsequent ballots. Cass, Johnson, Calhoun and James Buchanan had also received votes on the first ballot, and Cass took the lead on the fifth ballot. After seven ballots, the convention remained deadlocked: Cass could not attract the support necessary to reach two-thirds, and Van Buren's supporters were more and more discouraged about the former president's chances. Delegates were ready to consider a new candidate who might break the stalemate.


title: James K. Polk

text: When the convention adjourned after the seventh ballot, Pillow, who had been waiting for an opportunity to press Polk's name, conferred with George Bancroft of Massachusetts, a politician and historian who was a longtime Polk correspondent, and who had planned to nominate Polk for vice president. Bancroft had supported Van Buren's candidacy and was willing to see New York Senator Silas Wright head the ticket, but Wright would not consider taking a nomination that Van Buren wanted. Pillow and Bancroft decided if Polk were nominated for president, Wright might accept the second spot. Before the eighth ballot, former Attorney General Benjamin F. Butler, head of the New York delegation, read a pre-written letter from Van Buren to be used if he could not be nominated, withdrawing in Wright's favor. But Wright (who was in Washington) had also entrusted a pre-written letter to a supporter, in which he refused to be considered as a presidential candidate, and stated in the letter that he agreed with Van Buren's position on Texas. Had Wright's letter not been read he most likely would have been nominated, but without him, Butler began to rally Van Buren supporters for Polk as the best possible candidate, and Bancroft placed Polk's name before the convention. On the eighth ballot, Polk received only 44 votes to Cass's 114 and Van Buren's 104, but the deadlock showed signs of breaking. Butler formally withdrew Van Buren's name, many delegations declared for the Tennessean, and on the ninth ballot, Polk received 233 ballots to Cass's 29, making him the Democratic nominee for president. The nomination was then made unanimous.


title: James K. Polk

text: This left the question of the vice-presidential candidate. Butler urged Wright's nomination, and the convention agreed to this, with only some Georgia delegates dissenting. As the convention waited, word of Wright's nomination was sent to him in Washington via telegraph. Having by proxy declined an almost certain presidential nomination, Wright would not accept the second place. Senator Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, a close Polk ally, suggested former senator George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania. Dallas was acceptable enough to all factions and gained the vice-presidential nomination on the next ballot. The delegates passed a platform and adjourned on May 30.


title: James K. Polk

text: Although many contemporary politicians, including Pillow and Bancroft, claimed the credit in the years to come for getting Polk the nomination, Walter R. Borneman felt that most of the credit was due to Jackson and Polk, "the two who had done the most were back in Tennessee, one an aging icon ensconced at the Hermitage and the other a shrewd lifelong politician waiting expectantly in Columbia". Whigs mocked Polk with the chant "Who is James K. Polk?", affecting never to have heard of him. Though he had experience as Speaker of the House and Governor of Tennessee, all previous presidents had served as vice president, Secretary of State, or as a high-ranking general. Polk has been described as the first "dark horse" presidential nominee, although his nomination was less of a surprise than that of future nominees such as Franklin Pierce or Warren G. Harding. Despite his party's gibes, Clay recognized that Polk could unite the Democrats.


title: James K. Polk

text: Rumors of Polk's nomination reached Nashville on June 4, much to Jackson's delight; they were substantiated later that day. The dispatches were sent on to Columbia, arriving the same day, and letters and newspapers describing what had happened at Baltimore were in Polk's hands by June 6. He accepted his nomination by letter dated June 12, alleging that he had never sought the office, and stating his intent to serve only one term. Wright was embittered by what he called the "foul plot" against Van Buren, and demanded assurances that Polk had played no part; it was only after Polk professed that he had remained loyal to Van Buren that Wright supported his campaign. Following the custom of the time that presidential candidates avoid electioneering or appearing to seek the office, Polk remained in Columbia and made no speeches. He engaged in extensive correspondence with Democratic Party officials as he managed his campaign. Polk made his views known in his acceptance letter and through responses to questions sent by citizens that were printed in newspapers, often by arrangement.


title: James K. Polk

text: A potential pitfall for Polk's campaign was the issue of whether the tariff should be for revenue only, or with the intent to protect American industry. Polk finessed the tariff issue in a published letter. Recalling that he had long stated that tariffs should only be sufficient to finance government operations, he maintained that stance but wrote that within that limitation, government could and should offer "fair and just protection" to American interests, including manufacturers. He refused to expand on this stance, acceptable to most Democrats, despite the Whigs pointing out that he had committed himself to nothing. In September, a delegation of Whigs from nearby Giles County came to Columbia, armed with specific questions on Polk's views regarding the current tariff, the Whig-passed Tariff of 1842, and with the stated intent of remaining in Columbia until they got answers. Polk took several days to respond and chose to stand by his earlier statement, provoking an outcry in the Whig papers.


title: James K. Polk

text: Another concern was the third-party candidacy of President Tyler, which might split the Democratic vote. Tyler had been nominated by a group of loyal officeholders. Under no illusions he could win, he believed he could rally states' rights supporters and populists to hold the balance of power in the election. Only Jackson had the stature to resolve the situation, which he did with two letters to friends in the Cabinet, that he knew would be shown to Tyler, stating that the President's supporters would be welcomed back into the Democratic fold. Jackson wrote that once Tyler withdrew, many Democrats would embrace him for his pro-annexation stance. The former president also used his influence to stop Francis Preston Blair and his "Globe" newspaper, the semi-official organ of the Democratic Party, from attacking Tyler. These proved enough; Tyler withdrew from the race in August.


title: James K. Polk

text: Party troubles were a third concern. Polk and Calhoun made peace when a former South Carolina congressman, Francis Pickens visited Tennessee and came to Columbia for two days and to the Hermitage for sessions with the increasingly ill Jackson. Calhoun wanted the "Globe" dissolved, and that Polk would act against the 1842 tariff and promote Texas annexation. Reassured on these points, Calhoun became a strong supporter.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk was aided regarding Texas when Clay, realizing his anti-annexation letter had cost him support, attempted in two subsequent letters to clarify his position. These angered both sides, which attacked Clay as insincere. Texas also threatened to divide the Democrats sectionally, but Polk managed to appease most Southern party leaders without antagonizing Northern ones. As the election drew closer, it became clear that most of the country favored the annexation of Texas, and some Southern Whig leaders supported Polk's campaign due to Clay's anti-annexation stance.


title: James K. Polk

text: The campaign was vitriolic; both major party candidates were accused of various acts of malfeasance; Polk was accused of being both a duelist and a coward. The most damaging smear was the Roorback forgery; in late August an item appeared in an abolitionist newspaper, part of a book detailing fictional travels through the South of a Baron von Roorback, an imaginary German nobleman. The Ithaca "Chronicle" printed it without labeling it as fiction, and inserted a sentence alleging that the traveler had seen forty slaves who had been sold by Polk after being branded with his initials. The item was withdrawn by the "Chronicle" when challenged by the Democrats, but it was widely reprinted. Borneman suggested that the forgery backfired on Polk's opponents as it served to remind voters that Clay too was a slaveholder, John Eisenhower, in his journal article on the election, stated that the smear came too late to be effectively rebutted, and likely cost Polk Ohio. Southern newspapers, on the other hand, went far in defending Polk, one Nashville newspaper alleging that his slaves preferred their bondage to freedom. Polk himself implied to newspaper correspondents that the only slaves he owned had either been inherited or had been purchased from relatives in financial distress; this paternalistic image was also painted by surrogates like Gideon Pillow. This was not true, though not known at the time; by then he had bought over thirty slaves, both from relatives and others, mainly for the purpose of procuring labor for his Mississippi cotton plantation.


title: James K. Polk

text: There was no uniform election day in 1844; states voted between November 1 and 12. Polk won the election with 49.5% of the popular vote and 170 of the 275 electoral votes. Becoming the first president elected despite losing his state of residence (Tennessee), Polk also lost his birth state, North Carolina. However, he won Pennsylvania and New York, where Clay lost votes to the antislavery Liberty Party candidate James G. Birney, who got more votes in New York than Polk's margin of victory. Had Clay won New York, he would have been elected president.


title: James K. Polk

text: 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 encouraged a zest for expansionism. However, sectional divisions became worse during his tenure.


title: James K. Polk

text: 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.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk formed a geographically balanced Cabinet. He consulted Jackson and one or two other close allies, and decided that the large states of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia should have representation in the six-member Cabinet, as should his home state of Tennessee. At a time when an incoming president might retain some or all of his predecessor's department heads, Polk wanted an entirely fresh Cabinet, but this proved delicate. Tyler's final Secretary of State was Calhoun, leader of a considerable faction of the Democratic Party, but, when approached by emissaries, he did not take offense and was willing to step down.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk did not want his Cabinet to contain presidential hopefuls, though he chose to nominate James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, whose ambition for the presidency was well-known, as Secretary of State. Tennessee's Cave Johnson, a close friend and ally of Polk, was nominated for the position of Postmaster General, with George Bancroft, the historian who had placed a crucial role in Polk's nomination, as Navy Secretary. Polk's choices met with the approval of Andrew Jackson, with whom Polk met for the last time in January 1845, as Jackson died that June.


title: James K. Polk

text: Tyler's last Navy Secretary, John Y. Mason of Virginia, Polk's friend since college days and a longtime political ally, was not on the original list. As Cabinet choices were affected by factional politics and President Tyler's drive to resolve the Texas issue before leaving office, Polk at the last minute chose him as Attorney General. Polk also chose Mississippi Senator Walker as Secretary of the Treasury and New York's William Marcy as Secretary of War. The members worked well together, and few replacements were necessary. One reshuffle was required in 1846 when Bancroft, who wanted a diplomatic posting, became U.S. minister to Britain.


title: James K. Polk

text: In his last days in office President Tyler sought to complete the annexation of Texas. After the Senate had defeated an earlier treaty that required a two-thirds majority, Tyler urged Congress to pass a joint resolution, relying on its constitutional power to admit states. There were disagreements about the terms under which Texas would be admitted and Polk became involved in negotiations to break the impasse. With Polk's help, the annexation resolution narrowly cleared the Senate. Tyler was unsure whether to sign the resolution or leave it for Polk and sent Calhoun to consult with Polk, who declined to give any advice. On his final evening in office, March 3, 1845, Tyler offered annexation to Texas according to the terms of the resolution.


title: James K. Polk

text: Even before his inauguration, Polk wrote to Cave Johnson, "I intend to be President of the U.S." He would gain a reputation as a hard worker, spending ten to twelve hours at his desk, and rarely leaving Washington. Polk wrote, "No President who performs his duty faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure. I prefer to supervise the whole operations of the government myself rather than intrust the public business to subordinates, and this makes my duties very great." When he took office on March 4, 1845, Polk, at 49, became the youngest president to that point. Polk's inauguration was the first inaugural ceremony to be reported by telegraph, and first to be shown in a newspaper illustration (in "The Illustrated London News").


title: James K. Polk

text: In his inaugural address, delivered in a steady rain, Polk made clear his support for Texas annexation by referring to the 28 states of the U.S., thus including Texas. He proclaimed his fidelity to Jackson's principles by quoting his famous toast, "Every lover of his country must shudder at the thought of the possibility of its dissolution and will be ready to adopt the patriotic sentiment, 'Our Federal Union—it must be preserved.'" He stated his opposition to a national bank, and repeated that the tariff could include incidental protection. Although he did not mention slavery specifically, he alluded to it, decrying those who would tear down an institution protected by the Constitution.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk devoted the second half of his speech to foreign affairs, and specifically to expansion. He applauded the annexation of Texas, warning that Texas was no affair of any other nation, and certainly none of Mexico's. He spoke of the Oregon Country, and of the many who were migrating, pledging to safeguard America's rights there and to protect the settlers.


title: James K. Polk

text: As well as appointing Cabinet officers to advise him, Polk made his sister's son, J. Knox Walker, his personal secretary, an especially important position because, other than his slaves, Polk had no staff at the White House. Walker, who lived at the White House with his growing family (two children were born to him while living there), performed his duties competently through his uncle's presidency. Other Polk relatives visited at the White House, some for extended periods.


title: James K. Polk

text: Britain and the U.S. each derived claims to the Oregon Country from the voyages of explorers. Russia and Spain had waived their weak claims. Claims of the indigenous peoples of the region to their traditional lands were not a factor.


title: James K. Polk

text: Rather than war over the distant and unsettled territory, Washington and London negotiated amicably. Previous U.S. administrations had offered to divide the region along the 49th parallel, which was not acceptable to Britain, as it had commercial interests along the Columbia River. Britain's preferred partition was unacceptable to Polk, as it would have awarded Puget Sound and all lands north of the Columbia River to Britain, and Britain was unwilling to accept the 49th parallel extended to the Pacific, as it meant the entire opening to Puget Sound would be in American hands, isolating its settlements along the Fraser River.


title: James K. Polk

text: Edward Everett, Tyler's minister in London, had informally proposed dividing the territory at the 49th parallel with the strategic Vancouver Island granted to the British, thus allowing an opening to the Pacific. But when the new British minister in Washington, Richard Pakenham arrived in 1844 prepared to follow up, he found that many Americans desired the entire territory. Oregon had not been a major issue in the 1844 election. However, the heavy influx of settlers, mostly American, to the Oregon Country in 1845, and the rising spirit of expansionism in the United States as Texas and Oregon seized the public's eye, made a treaty with Britain more urgent. Many Democrats believed that the United States should span from coast to coast, a philosophy described as Manifest Destiny.


title: James K. Polk

text: Though both sides sought an acceptable compromise, each also saw the territory as an important geopolitical asset that would play a large part in determining the dominant power in North America. In his inaugural address, Polk announced that he viewed the U.S. claim to the land as "clear and unquestionable", provoking threats of war from British leaders should Polk attempt to take control of the entire territory. Polk had refrained in his address from asserting a claim to the entire territory, which extended north to 54 degrees, 40 minutes north latitude, although the Democratic Party platform called for such a claim. Despite Polk's hawkish rhetoric, he viewed war over Oregon as unwise, and Polk and Buchanan began negotiations with the British. Like his predecessors, Polk again proposed a division along the 49th parallel, which was immediately rejected by Pakenham. Secretary of State Buchanan was wary of a two-front war with Mexico and Britain, but Polk was willing to risk war with both countries in pursuit of a favorable settlement. In his annual message to Congress in December 1845, Polk requested approval of giving Britain a one-year notice (as required in the Treaty of 1818) of his intention to terminate the joint occupancy of Oregon. In that message, he quoted from the Monroe Doctrine to denote America's intention of keeping European powers out, the first significant use of it since its origin in 1823. After much debate, Congress eventually passed the resolution in April 1846, attaching its hope that the dispute would be settled amicably.


title: James K. Polk

text: When the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen, learned of the proposal rejected by Pakenham, Aberdeen asked the United States to re-open negotiations, but Polk was unwilling unless a proposal was made by the British. With Britain moving towards free trade with the repeal of the Corn Laws, good trade relations with the United States were more important to Aberdeen than a distant territory. In February 1846, Louis McLane, the American minister in London, was told that Washington would look favorably on a British proposal to divide the continent at the 49th parallel. In June 1846, Pakenham presented an offer calling for a boundary line at the 49th parallel, with the exception that Britain would retain all of Vancouver Island, and there would be limited navigation rights for British subjects on the Columbia River until the expiration of the charter of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1859. Polk and most of his Cabinet were prepared to accept the proposal. The Senate ratified the Oregon Treaty in a 41–14 vote. Polk's willingness to risk war with Britain had frightened many, but his tough negotiation tactics may have gained the United States concessions from the British (particularly regarding the Columbia River) that a more conciliatory president might not have won.


title: James K. Polk

text: The annexation resolution signed by Tyler gave the president the choice of asking Texas to approve annexation, or reopening negotiations; Tyler immediately sent a messenger with the first option. Polk allowed the messenger to continue. He also sent assurance that the United States would defend Texas, and would fix its southern border at the Rio Grande, as claimed by Texas, rather than at the Nueces River, as claimed by Mexico. Public sentiment in Texas favored annexation. In July 1845, a Texas convention ratified annexation, and thereafter voters approved it. In December 1845, Texas became the 28th state. However Mexico had broken diplomatic relations with the United States on passage of the joint resolution in March 1845; now annexation escalated tensions as Mexico had never recognized Texan independence.


title: James K. Polk

text: Following annexation in 1845, Polk began preparations for a potential war, sending an army to Texas, led by Brigadier General Zachary Taylor. American land and naval forces were both ordered to respond to any Mexican aggression but to avoid provoking a war. Polk thought Mexico would give in under duress.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk hoped that a show of force would lead to negotiations. In late 1845, He sent John Slidell to Mexico to purchase New Mexico and California for $30 million, as well as securing Mexico's agreement to a Rio Grande border. Mexican opinion was hostile and President José Joaquín de Herrera refused to receive Slidell. Herrera soon was deposed by a military coup led by General Mariano Paredes, a hard-liner who pledged to take back Texas. Dispatches from Slidell warned Washington that war was near.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk regarded the treatment of Slidell as an insult and an "ample cause of war", and he prepared to ask Congress to declare it. Meanwhile, in late March, General Taylor had reached the Rio Grande, and his army camped across the river from Matamoros, Tamaulipas. In April, after Mexican general Pedro de Ampudia demanded that Taylor return to the Nueces River, Taylor began a blockade of Matamoros. A skirmish on the northern side of the Rio Grande on April 25 ended in the death or capture of dozens of American soldiers and became known as the Thornton Affair. Word reached Washington until May 9, and Polk sent a war message to Congress on the ground that Mexico had, "shed American blood on the American soil". The House overwhelmingly approved a resolution declaring war and authorizing the president to accept 50,000 volunteers into the military. In the Senate, war opponents led by Calhoun questioned Polk's version of events. Nonetheless, the House resolution passed the Senate in a 40–2 vote, with Calhoun abstaining, marking the beginning of the Mexican–American War.


title: James K. Polk

text: After the initial skirmishes, Taylor and much of his army marched away from the river to secure the supply line, leaving a makeshift base, Fort Texas. On the way back to the Rio Grande, Mexican forces under General Mariano Arista attempted to block Taylor's way as other troops laid siege to Fort Texas, forcing the U.S. Army general to the attack if he hoped to relieve the fort. In the Battle of Palo Alto, the first major engagement of the war, Taylor's troops forced Arista's from the field, suffering only four dead to hundreds for the Mexicans. The next day, Taylor led the army to victory in the Battle of Resaca de la Palma, putting the Mexican Army to rout. The early successes boosted support for the war, which despite the lopsided votes in Congress had deeply divided the nation. Many Northern Whigs opposed the war, as did others; they felt Polk had used patriotism to manipulate the nation into fighting a war the goal of which was to give slavery room to expand.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk distrusted the two senior officers, Major General Winfield Scott and Taylor, as both were Whigs, and would have replaced them with Democrats, but felt Congress would not approve it. He offered Scott the position of top commander in the war, which the general accepted. Polk and Scott already knew and disliked each other: the President made the appointment despite the fact that Scott had sought his party's presidential nomination for the 1840 election. Polk came to believe that Scott was too slow in getting himself and his army away from Washington and to the Rio Grande, and was outraged to learn Scott was using his influence in Congress to defeat the administration's plan to expand the number of generals. The news of Taylor's victory at Resaca de la Palma arrived then, and Polk decided to have Taylor take command in the field, and Scott to remain in Washington. Polk also ordered Commodore Conner to allow Antonio López de Santa Anna to return to Mexico from his exile in Havana, thinking that he would negotiate a treaty ceding territory to the U.S. for a price. Polk sent representatives to Cuba for talks with Santa Anna.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk sent an army expedition led by Stephen W. Kearny towards Santa Fe, to territory beyond the original claims in Texas. In 1845, Polk, fearful of French or British intervention, had sent Lieutenant Archibald H. Gillespie to California with orders to foment a pro-American rebellion that could be used to justify annexation of the territory. After meeting with Gillespie, Army captain John C. Frémont led settlers in northern California to overthrow the Mexican garrison in Sonoma in what became known as the Bear Flag Revolt. In August 1846, American forces under Kearny captured Santa Fe, capital of the province of New Mexico, without firing a shot. Almost simultaneously, Commodore Robert F. Stockton landed in Los Angeles and proclaimed the capture of California. After American forces put down a revolt, the United States held effective control of New Mexico and California. Nevertheless, the Western theater of the war would prove to be a political headache for Polk, since a dispute between Frémont and Kearny led to a break between Polk and the powerful Missouri senator (and father-in-law of Frémont), Thomas Hart Benton.


title: James K. Polk

text: The initial public euphoria over the victories at the start of the war slowly dissipated. In August 1846, Polk asked Congress to appropriate $2 million as a down payment for the potential purchase of Mexican lands. Polk's request ignited opposition, as he had never before made public his desire to annex parts of Mexico (aside from lands claimed by Texas). It was unclear whether such newly acquired lands would be slave or free, and there was fierce and acrimonious sectional debate. A freshman Democratic Congressman, David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, previously a firm supporter of Polk's administration, offered an amendment to the bill, the Wilmot Proviso, that would ban slavery in any land acquired using the money. The appropriation bill, with the Wilmot Proviso attached, passed the House, but died in the Senate. This discord cost Polk's party, with Democrats losing control of the House in the 1846 elections. In early 1847, though, Polk was successful in passing a bill raising further regiments, and he also finally won approval for the appropriation.


title: James K. Polk

text: To try to bring the war to a quick end, in July 1846 Polk considered supporting a potential coup led by the exiled Mexican former president, General Antonio López de Santa Anna, with the hope that Santa Anna would sell parts of California. Santa Anna was in exile in Cuba, still a colony of Spain. Polk sent an envoy to have secret talks with Santa Anna. The U.S. Consul in Havana, R.B. Campbell, began seeking a way to engage with Santa Anna. A U.S. citizen of Spanish birth, Col. Alejandro José Atocha, knew Santa Anna and acted initially as an intermediary. Polk noted his contacts with Atocha in his diary, who said that Santa Anna was interested in concluding a treaty with the U.S. gaining territory while Mexico received payment that would include settling its debts. Polk decided that Atocha was untrustworthy and sent his own representative, Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, (a relative of John Slidell) to meet with Santa Anna. Mackenzie told Santa Anna that Polk wished to see him in power and that if they came to an agreement that the U.S. naval blockade would be lifted briefly to allow Santa Anna to return to Mexico. Polk requested $2 million from Congress to be used to negotiate a treaty with Mexico or payment to Mexico before a treaty was signed. The blockade was indeed briefly lifted and Santa Anna returned to Mexico, not to head a government that would negotiate a treaty with the U.S., but rather to organize a military defense of his homeland. Santa Anna gloated over Polk's naïveté; Polk had been "snookered" by Santa Anna. Instead of coming to a negotiated settlement with the U.S., Santa Anna mounted a defense of Mexico and fought to the bitter end. "His actions would prolong the war for at least a year, and more than any other single person, it was Santa Anna who denied Polk's dream of short war."


title: James K. Polk

text: This caused Polk to harden his position on Mexico, and he ordered an American landing at Veracruz, the most important Mexican port on the Gulf of Mexico. From there, troops were to march through Mexico's heartland to Mexico City, which it was hoped would end the war. Continuing to advance in northeast Mexico, Taylor defeated a Mexican army led by Ampudia in the September 1846 Battle of Monterrey, but allowed Ampudia's forces to withdraw from the town, much to Polk's consternation. Polk believed Taylor had not aggressively pursued the enemy and offered command of the Veracruz expedition to Scott.


title: James K. Polk

text: The lack of trust Polk had in Taylor was returned by the Whig general, who feared the partisan president was trying to destroy him. Accordingly, Taylor disobeyed orders to remain near Monterrey. In March 1847, Polk learned that Taylor had continued to march south, capturing the northern Mexican town of Saltillo. Continuing beyond Saltillo, Taylor's army fought a larger Mexican force, led by Santa Anna, in the Battle of Buena Vista. Initial reports gave the victory to Mexico, with great rejoicing, but Santa Anna retreated. Mexican casualties were five times that of the Americans, and the victory made Taylor even more of a military hero in the American public's eyes, though Polk preferred to credit the bravery of the soldiers rather than the Whig general.


title: James K. Polk

text: The U.S. changed the course of the war with its invasion of Mexico's heartland through Veracruz and ultimately the capture of Mexico City, following hard fighting. In March 1847, Scott landed in Veracruz, and quickly won control of the city. The Mexicans expected that yellow fever and other tropical diseases would weaken the U.S. forces. With the capture of Veracruz, Polk dispatched Nicholas Trist, Buchanan's chief clerk, to accompany Scott's army and negotiate a peace treaty with Mexican leaders. Trist was instructed to seek the cession of Alta California, New Mexico, and Baja California, recognition of the Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas, and U.S. access across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Trist was authorized to make a payment of up to $30 million in exchange for these concessions.


title: James K. Polk

text: In August 1847, as he advanced towards Mexico City, Scott defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of Contreras and the Battle of Churubusco. With the Americans at the gates of Mexico City, Trist negotiated with commissioners, but the Mexicans were willing to give up little. Scott prepared to take Mexico City, which he did in mid-September. In the United States, a heated political debate emerged regarding how much of Mexico the United States should seek to annex, Whigs such as Henry Clay arguing that the United States should only seek to settle the Texas border question, and some expansionists arguing for the annexation of all of Mexico. War opponents were also active; Whig Congressman Abraham Lincoln of Illinois introduced the "exact spot" resolutions, calling on Polk to state exactly where American blood had been shed on American soil to start the war, but the House refused to consider them.


title: James K. Polk

text: Frustrated by a lack of progress in negotiations, Polk ordered Trist to return to Washington, but the diplomat, when the notice of recall arrived in mid-November 1847, ignored the order, deciding to remain and writing a lengthy letter to Polk the following month to justify his decision. Polk considered having Butler, designated as Scott's replacement, forcibly remove him from Mexico City. Though outraged by Trist's defiance, Polk decided to allow him some time to negotiate a treaty.


title: James K. Polk

text: Throughout January 1848, Trist regularly met with officials in Mexico City, though at the request of the Mexicans, the treaty signing took place in Guadalupe Hidalgo, a small town near Mexico City. Trist was willing to allow Mexico to keep Baja California, as his instructions allowed, but successfully haggled for the inclusion of the important harbor of San Diego in a cession of Alta California. Provisions included the Rio Grande border and a $15 million payment to Mexico. On February 2, 1848, Trist and the Mexican delegation signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Polk received the document on February 19, and, after the Cabinet met on the 20th, decided he had no choice but to accept it. If he turned it down, with the House by then controlled by the Whigs, there was no assurance Congress would vote funding to continue the war. Both Buchanan and Walker dissented, wanting more land from Mexico, a position with which the President was sympathetic, though he considered Buchanan's view motivated by his ambition.


title: James K. Polk

text: Some senators opposed the treaty because they wanted to take no Mexican territory; others hesitated because of the irregular nature of Trist's negotiations. Polk waited in suspense for two weeks as the Senate considered it, sometimes hearing that it would likely be defeated and that Buchanan and Walker were working against it. He was relieved when the two Cabinet officers lobbied on behalf of the treaty. On March 10, the Senate ratified the treaty in a 38–14 vote, on a vote that cut across partisan and geographic lines. The Senate made some modifications to the treaty before ratification, and Polk worried that the Mexican government would reject them. On June 7, Polk learned that Mexico had ratified the treaty. Polk declared the treaty in effect as of July 4, 1848, thus ending the war. With the acquisition of California, Polk had accomplished all four of his major presidential goals. With the exception of the territory acquired by the 1853 Gadsden Purchase, and some later minor adjustments, the territorial acquisitions under Polk established the modern borders of the Contiguous United States.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk was anxious to establish a territorial government for Oregon but the matter became embroiled in the arguments over slavery, though few thought Oregon suitable for that institution. Bills to establish a territorial government passed the House twice but died in the Senate. By the time Congress met again in December, California and New Mexico were in U.S. hands, and Polk in his annual message urged the establishment of territorial governments in all three. The Missouri Compromise had settled the issue of the geographic reach of slavery within the Louisiana Purchase by prohibiting slavery in states north of 36°30′ latitude, and Polk sought to extend this line into the newly acquired territory. This would have made slavery illegal in Oregon and San Francisco but allowed it in Los Angeles. Such an extension of slavery was defeated in the House by a bipartisan alliance of Northerners. In 1848 Polk signed a bill to establish the Territory of Oregon and prohibit slavery in it.


title: James K. Polk

text: In December 1848, Polk sought to establish territorial governments in California and New Mexico, a task made especially urgent by the onset of the California Gold Rush. The divisive issue of slavery blocked the idea. Finally in the Compromise of 1850 the issue was resolved.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk had misgivings about a bill creating the Department of the Interior (March 3, 1849). He feared the federal government usurping power over public lands from the states. Nevertheless he signed the bill.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk's ambassador to the Republic of New Granada, Benjamin Alden Bidlack, negotiated the Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty. Though Washington had initially only sought to remove tariffs on American goods, Bidlack and New Granadan Foreign Minister negotiated a broad agreement that deepened military and trade ties. The U.S. guaranteed New Granada's sovereignty over the Isthmus of Panama. The treaty was ratified in 1848 and in the long run it facilitated the Panama Canal, built in the early 20th century. It allowed for the construction of the Panama Railway, which opened in 1855. The railway, built and operated by Americans and protected by the U.S. military, gave a quicker, safer journey to California and Oregon. The agreement was the only alliance Washington made in the 19th century. It established a strong American role in Central America and was a counterweight to British influence there.


title: James K. Polk

text: In mid-1848, President Polk authorized his ambassador to Spain, Romulus Mitchell Saunders, to negotiate the purchase of Cuba and offer Spain up to $100 million, a large sum at the time for one territory, equal to $ in present-day terms. Cuba was close to the United States and had slavery, so the idea appealed to Southerners but was unwelcome in the North. However, Spain was still making profits in Cuba (notably in sugar, molasses, rum and tobacco), and thus the Spanish government rejected Saunders's overtures. Though Polk was eager to acquire Cuba, he refused to support the filibuster expedition of Narciso López, who sought to invade and take over the island as a prelude to annexation.


title: James K. Polk

text: In his inaugural address, Polk called upon Congress to re-establish the Independent Treasury System under which government funds were held in the Treasury and not in banks or other financial institutions. President Van Buren had previously established a similar system, but it had been abolished during the Tyler administration. Polk made clear his opposition to a national bank in his inaugural address, and in his first annual message to Congress in December 1845, he called for the government to keep its funds itself. Congress was slow to act; the House passed a bill in April 1846 and the Senate in August, both without a single Whig vote. Polk signed the Independent Treasury Act into law on August 6, 1846. The act provided that the public revenues were to be retained in the Treasury building and in sub-treasuries in various cities, separate from private or state banks. The system would remain in place until the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk's other major domestic initiative was the lowering of the tariff. Polk directed Secretary of the Treasury Robert Walker to draft a new and lower tariff, which Polk submitted to Congress. After intense lobbying by both sides, the bill passed the House and, in a close vote that required Vice President Dallas to break a tie, the Senate in July 1846. Dallas, although from protectionist Pennsylvania, voted for the bill, having decided his best political prospects lay in supporting the administration. Polk signed the Walker Tariff into law, substantially reducing the rates that had been set by the Tariff of 1842. The reduction of tariffs in the United States and the repeal of the Corn Laws in Great Britain led to a boom in Anglo-American trade.


title: James K. Polk

text: Congress passed the Rivers and Harbors Bill in 1846 to provide $500,000 to improve port facilities, but Polk vetoed it. Polk believed that the bill was unconstitutional because it unfairly favored particular areas, including ports that had no foreign trade. Polk considered internal improvements to be matters for the states, and feared that passing the bill would encourage legislators to compete for favors for their home district—a type of corruption that he felt would spell doom to the virtue of the republic. In this regard he followed his hero Jackson, who had vetoed the Maysville Road Bill in 1830 on similar grounds.


title: James K. Polk

text: Opposed by conviction to Federal funding for internal improvements, Polk stood strongly against all such bills. Congress, in 1847, passed another internal improvements bill; he pocket vetoed it and sent Congress a full veto message when it met in December. Similar bills continued to advance in Congress in 1848, though none reached his desk. When he came to the Capitol to sign bills on March 3, 1849, the last day of the congressional session and his final full day in office, he feared that an internal improvements bill would pass Congress, and he brought with him a draft veto message. The bill did not pass, so it was not needed, but feeling the draft had been ably written, he had it preserved among his papers.


title: James K. Polk

text: Authoritative word of the discovery of gold in California did not arrive in Washington until after the 1848 election, by which time Polk was a lame duck. Polk's political adversaries had claimed California was too far away to be useful and was not worth the price paid to Mexico. The President was delighted by the news, seeing it as validation of his stance on expansion, and referred to the discovery several times in his final annual message to Congress that December. Shortly thereafter, actual samples of the California gold arrived, and Polk sent a special message to Congress on the subject. The message, confirming less authoritative reports, caused large numbers of people to move to California, both from the U.S. and abroad, thus helping to spark the California Gold Rush.


title: James K. Polk

text: The 1844 death of Justice Henry Baldwin left a vacant place on the Supreme Court, but Tyler had been unable to get the Senate to confirm a nominee. At the time, it was the custom to have a geographic balance on the Supreme Court, and Baldwin had been from Pennsylvania. Polk's efforts to fill Baldwin's seat became embroiled in Pennsylvania politics and the efforts of factional leaders to secure the lucrative post of Collector of Customs for the Port of Philadelphia. As Polk attempted to find his way through the minefield of Pennsylvania politics, a second position on the high court became vacant with the death, in September 1845, of Justice Joseph Story; his replacement was expected to come from his native New England. Because Story's death had occurred while the Senate was not in session, Polk was able to make a recess appointment, choosing Senator Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire, and when the Senate reconvened in December 1845, Woodbury was confirmed. Polk's initial nominee for Baldwin's seat, George W. Woodward, was rejected by the Senate in January 1846, in large part due to the opposition of Buchanan and Pennsylvania Senator Simon Cameron.


title: James K. Polk

text: Despite Polk's anger at Buchanan, he eventually offered the Secretary of State the seat, but Buchanan, after some indecision, turned it down. Polk subsequently nominated Robert Cooper Grier of Pittsburgh, who won confirmation. Justice Woodbury died in 1851, but Grier served until 1870 and in the slavery case of "Dred Scott v. Sandford" (1857) wrote an opinion stating that slaves were property and could not sue.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk appointed eight other federal judges, one to the United States Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, and seven to various United States district courts.


title: James K. Polk

text: Honoring his pledge to serve only one term, Polk declined to seek re-election. At the 1848 Democratic National Convention, Lewis Cass was nominated. The 1848 Whig National Convention nominated Zachary Taylor for president and former congressman Millard Fillmore of New York for vice president. Martin Van Buren led a breakaway Free Soil group from the Democrats. Polk was surprised and disappointed by his former ally's political conversion and worried about the divisiveness of a sectional party devoted to abolition. Polk did not give speeches for Cass, remaining at his desk at the White House. He did remove some Van Buren supporters from federal office during the campaign.


title: James K. Polk

text: Taylor won the election with 47.3% of the popular vote and a majority of the electoral vote. Polk was disappointed by the outcome as he had a low opinion of Taylor, seeing the general as someone with poor judgment and few opinions on important public matters. Nevertheless, Polk observed tradition and welcomed President-elect Taylor to Washington, hosting him at a gala White House dinner. Polk departed the White House on March 3, leaving behind him a clean desk, though he worked from his hotel or the Capitol on last-minute appointments and bill signings. He attended Taylor's inauguration on March 5 (March 4, the presidential inauguration day until 1937, fell on a Sunday, and thus the ceremony was postponed a day), and though he was unimpressed with the new president, wished him the best.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk's time in the White House took its toll on his health. Full of enthusiasm and vigor when he entered office, Polk left the presidency exhausted by his years of public service. He left Washington on March 6 for a pre-arranged triumphal tour of the Southern United States, to end in Nashville. Polk had two years previously arranged to buy a house there, afterwards dubbed Polk Place, that had once belonged to his mentor, Felix Grundy.


title: James K. Polk

text: James and Sarah Polk progressed down the Atlantic coast, and then westward through the Deep South. He was enthusiastically received and banqueted. By the time the Polks reached Alabama, he was suffering from a bad cold, and soon became concerned by reports of cholera—a passenger on Polk's riverboat died of it, and it was rumored to be common in New Orleans, but it was too late to change plans. Worried about his health, he would have departed the city quickly but was overwhelmed by Louisiana hospitality. Several passengers on the riverboat up the Mississippi died of the disease, and Polk felt so ill that he went ashore for four days, staying in a hotel. A doctor assured him he did not have cholera, and Polk made the final leg, arriving in Nashville on April 2 to a huge reception.


title: James K. Polk

text: After a visit to James's mother in Columbia, the Polks settled into Polk Place. The exhausted former president seemed to gain new life, but in early June, he fell ill again, by most accounts of cholera. Attended by several doctors, he lingered for several days and chose to be baptized into the Methodist Church, which he had long admired, though his mother arrived from Columbia with her Presbyterian clergyman, and his wife was also a devout Presbyterian. On the afternoon of Friday, June 15, Polk died at his Polk Place home in Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 53. According to traditional accounts, his last words before he died were "I love you, Sarah, for all eternity, I love you", spoken to Sarah Polk. Borneman noted that whether or not they were spoken, there was nothing in Polk's life that would make the sentiment false.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk's funeral was held at the McKendree Methodist Church in Nashville. Following his death, Sarah Polk lived at Polk Place for 42 years and died on August 14, 1891, at the age of 87. Their house, Polk Place, was demolished in 1901, a decade after Sarah's death.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk's remains have been moved twice. After his death, he was buried in what is now Nashville City Cemetery, due to a legal requirement related to his infectious disease death. Polk was then moved to a tomb on the grounds of Polk Place (as specified in his will) in 1850.


title: James K. Polk

text: Then, in 1893, the bodies of James and Sarah Polk were relocated to their current resting place on the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville. In March 2017, the Tennessee Senate approved a resolution considered a "first step" toward relocating the Polks' remains to the family home in Columbia. Such a move would require approval by state lawmakers, the courts, and the Tennessee Historical Commission. A year later, a renewed plan to reinter Polk was defeated by Tennessee lawmakers before being taken up again and approved, and allowed to go through by the non-signature of Tennessee governor Bill Haslam. The state's Capitol Commission heard arguments over the issue in November 2018, during which the THC reiterated its opposition to the tomb relocation, and a vote was delayed indefinitely.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk owned slaves for most of his adult life. His father, Samuel Polk, in 1827 left Polk more than 8,000 acres (32 km) of land and divided about 53 enslaved people among his widow and children in his will. James inherited twenty slaves, either directly or from deceased brothers. In 1831, he became an absentee cotton planter, sending enslaved people to clear plantation land that his father had left him near Somerville, Tennessee. Four years later Polk sold his Somerville plantation and, together with his brother-in-law, bought 920 acres (3.7 km) of land, a cotton plantation near Coffeeville, Mississippi, hoping to increase his income. The land in Mississippi was richer than that in Somerville, and Polk transferred slaves there, taking care to conceal from them that they were to be sent south. From the start of 1839, Polk, having bought out his brother-in-law, owned all of the Mississippi plantations, and ran it on a mostly absentee basis for the rest of his life. He occasionally visited—for example, he spent much of April 1844 on his Mississippi plantation, right before the Democratic convention.


title: James K. Polk

text: Adding to the inherited enslaved people, in 1831, Polk purchased five more, mostly buying them in Kentucky, and expending $1,870; the youngest had a recorded age of 11. As older children sold for a higher price, slave sellers routinely lied about age. Between 1834 and 1835, he bought five more, aged from 2 to 37, the youngest a granddaughter of the oldest. The amount expended was $2,250. In 1839, he bought eight enslaved people from his brother William at a cost of $5,600. This represented three young adults and most of a family, though not including the father, whom James Polk had previously owned, and who had been sold to a slave trader as he had repeatedly tried to escape his enslavement.


title: James K. Polk

text: The expenses of four campaigns (three for governor, one for the presidency) in six years kept Polk from making more slave purchases until after he was living in the White House. In an era when the presidential salary was expected to cover wages for the White House servants, Polk replaced them with enslaved people from his home in Tennessee. Polk did not purchase enslaved people with his presidential salary, likely for political reasons. Instead, he reinvested earnings from his plantation in the purchase of enslaved people, enjoining secrecy on his agent: "that as my "private business" does not concern the public, you will keep it to yourself".


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk saw the plantation as his route to a comfortable existence after his presidency for himself and his wife; he did not intend to return to the practice of law. Hoping the increased labor force would increase his retirement income, he purchased seven slaves in 1846, through an agent, aged roughly between 12 and 17. The 17-year-old and one of the 12-year-olds were purchased together at an estate sale; the agent within weeks resold the younger boy to Polk's profit. The year 1847 saw the purchase of nine more. Three he purchased from Gideon Pillow, and his agent purchased six enslaved people aged between 10 and 20. By the time of the purchase from Pillow, the Mexican War had begun and Polk sent payment with the letter in which he offered Pillow a commission in the Army. The purchase from Pillow was a man Polk had previously owned and had sold for being a disruption, and his wife and child. None of the other enslaved people Polk purchased as president, all younger than 20, came with a parent, and as only in the one case were two slaves bought together, most likely none had an accompanying sibling as each faced life on Polk's plantation.


title: James K. Polk

text: Discipline for those owned by Polk varied over time. At the Tennessee plantation, he employed an overseer named Herbert Biles, who was said to be relatively indulgent. Biles's illness in 1833 resulted in Polk replacing him with Ephraim Beanland, who tightened discipline and increased work. Polk backed his overseer, returning escapees who complained of beatings and other harsh treatment, "even though every report suggested that the overseer was a heartless brute". Beanland was hired for the Mississippi plantation but was soon dismissed by Polk's partner, who deemed Beanland too harsh as the slaves undertook the arduous task of clearing the timber from the new plantation so it could be used for cotton farming. His replacement was discharged after a year for being too indulgent; the next died of dysentery in 1839. Others followed, and it was not until 1845 that Polk found a satisfactory overseer, John Mairs, who remained the rest of Polk's life and was still working at the plantation for Sarah Polk in 1860 when the widow sold a half-share in many of her slaves. There had been a constant stream of runaways under Mairs' predecessors, many seeking protection at the plantation of Polk relatives or friends; only one ran away between the time of Mairs' hiring and the end of 1847, but the overseer had to report three absconded slaves (including the one who had fled earlier) to Polk in 1848 and 1849.


title: James K. Polk

text: Polk's will, dated February 28, 1849, a few days before the end of his presidency, contained the nonbinding expectation that his slaves were to be freed when both he and Sarah Polk were dead. The Mississippi plantation was expected to be the support of Sarah Polk during her widowhood. Sarah Polk lived until 1891, but the slaves were freed in 1865 by the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States. By selling a half-interest in the slaves in 1860, Sarah Polk had given up the sole power to free them, and it is unlikely that her new partner, having paid $28,500 for a half-interest in the plantation and its slaves, would have allowed the laborers to go free had she died while slavery was legal.


title: James K. Polk

text: Like Jackson, Polk saw the politics of slavery as a side issue compared to more important matters such as territorial expansion and economic policy. The issue of slavery became increasingly polarizing during the 1840s, and Polk's expansionary policies increased its divisiveness. During his presidency, many abolitionists harshly criticized him as an instrument of the "Slave Power", and claimed that spreading slavery was the reason he supported Texas Annexation and later war with Mexico. Polk did support the expansion of slavery's realm, with his views informed by his own family's experience of settling Tennessee, bringing slaves with them. He believed in Southern rights, meaning both the right of slave states not to have that institution interfered with by the Federal government and the right of individual Southerners to bring their slaves with them into the new territory. Though Polk opposed the Wilmot Proviso, he also condemned southern agitation on the issue, and he accused both northern and southern leaders of attempting to use the slavery issue for political gain.


title: James K. Polk

text: On March 4, 2017, new tombstones for three of his slaves, Elias Polk, Mary Polk and Matilda Polk, were placed in the Nashville City Cemetery. Elias and Mary Polk both survived slavery, dying in the 1880s; Matilda Polk died still in slavery in 1849, at the age of about 110.


title: James K. Polk

text: After his death, Polk's historic reputation was initially formed by the attacks made on him in his own time. Whig politicians claimed that he was drawn from well-deserved obscurity. Sam Houston is said to have observed that Polk, a teetotaler, was "a victim of the use of water as a beverage". Little was published about him but two biographies released in the wake of his death. Polk was not again the subject of a major biography until 1922 when Eugene I. McCormac published "James K. Polk: A Political Biography". McCormac relied heavily on Polk's presidential diary, first published in 1909. When historians began ranking the presidents in 1948, Polk ranked tenth in Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr.'s poll, and has subsequently ranked eighth in Schlesinger's 1962 poll, 11th in the Riders-McIver Poll (1996), and 14th in the 2017 survey by C-SPAN.


title: James K. Polk

text: James Polk is today widely seen as a successful president; he is regarded as a man of destiny and a political chess master, who, through extraordinary diligence, worked to promote American democracy. Borneman deemed Polk the most effective president prior to the Civil War and noted that Polk expanded the power of the presidency, especially in its power as commander in chief and its oversight over the Executive Branch. Steven G. Calabresi and Christopher S. Yoo, in their history of presidential power, praised Polk's conduct of the Mexican War, "it seems unquestionable that his management of state affairs during this conflict was one of the strongest examples since Jackson of the use of presidential power to direct specifically the conduct of subordinate officers."


title: James K. Polk

text: Harry S. Truman called Polk "a great president. Said what he intended to do and did it." Bergeron noted that the matters that Polk settled, he settled for his time. The questions of the banking system, and of the tariff, which Polk had made two of the main issues of his presidency, were not significantly revised until the 1860s. Similarly, the Gadsden Purchase, and that of Alaska (1867), were the only major U.S. expansions until the 1890s.


title: James K. Polk

text: Paul H. Bergeron wrote in his study of Polk's presidency: "Virtually everyone remembers Polk and his expansionist successes. He produced a new map of the United States, which fulfilled a continent-wide vision." "To look at that map," Robert W. Merry concluded, "and to take in the western and southwestern expanse included in it, is to see the magnitude of Polk's presidential accomplishments." Amy Greenberg, in her history of the Mexican War, found Polk's legacy to be more than territorial, "during a single brilliant term, he accomplished a feat that earlier presidents would have considered impossible. With the help of his wife, Sarah, he masterminded, provoked and successfully prosecuted a war that turned the United States into a world power." Borneman noted that in securing this expansion, Polk did not consider the likely effect on Mexicans and Native Americans, "That ignorance may well be debated on moral grounds, but it cannot take away Polk's stunning political achievement." James A. Rawley wrote in his "American National Biography" piece on Polk, "he added extensive territory to the United States, including Upper California and its valuable ports, and bequeathed a legacy of a nation poised on the Pacific rim prepared to emerge as a superpower in future generations".


title: James K. Polk

text: Historians have criticized Polk for not perceiving that his territorial gains set the table for civil war. Pletcher stated that Polk, like others of his time, failed "to understand that sectionalism and expansion had formed a new, explosive compound". Fred I. Greenstein, in his journal article on Polk, noted that Polk "lacked a far-seeing awareness of the problems that were bound to arise over the status of slavery in the territory acquired from Mexico" William Dusinberre, in his volume on Polk as slave owner, suggested "that Polk's deep personal involvement in the plantation slavery system ... colored his stance on slavery-related issues".


title: Cigarette

text: A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opposite end. Cigarette smoking is the most common method of tobacco consumption. The term "cigarette", as commonly used, refers to a tobacco cigarette, but the word is sometimes used to refer to other substances, such as a cannabis cigarette or an herbal cigarette. A cigarette is distinguished from a cigar by its usually smaller size, use of processed leaf, and paper wrapping, which is typically white.


title: Cigarette

text: Since the 1920s, scientists and doctors have been able to link smoking with respiratory illness. Researchers have identified negative health effects from smoking cigarettes such as cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease, and other health problems relating to nearly every organ of the body. Nicotine, the psychoactive drug in tobacco, makes cigarettes highly addictive. About half of cigarette smokers die of tobacco-related disease and lose on average 14 years of life. Every year, tobacco cigarettes kill more than 8 million people worldwide; with 1.2 million of those being non-smokers dying as the result of exposure to second-hand smoke. Second-hand smoke from cigarettes causes many of the same health problems as smoking, including cancer, which has led to legislation and policy that has prohibited smoking in many workplaces and public areas. Cigarette smoke contains over 7,000 chemical compounds, including arsenic, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, lead, carbon monoxide, acrolein, and other poisonous substances. Over 70 of these are carcinogenic. Most modern cigarettes are filtered, although this does not make the smoke inhaled from them contain fewer carcinogens and harmful chemicals. Cigarette use by pregnant women has also been shown to cause birth defects, including low birth weight, fetal abnormalities, and premature birth. Smoking rates have generally declined in the developed world, but continue to rise in some developing nations.


title: Cigarette

text: Because of their adverse health effects many countries have strict legislation concerning the marketing and purchasing age of tobacco. Most nations outright ban commercials on cigarettes and have levied taxes on them to dissuade smokers to continue the habit. The first country to introduce a large scale anti-smoking campaign was Nazi Germany and despite its minimal success it did create a blueprint for many other nations to follow.


title: Cigarette

text: In the 21st century, a product called an electronic cigarette (e-cigarette or vape) was developed, in which the substance contained within it (typically a liquid solution containing nicotine) is vaporized by a battery-powered heating element, as opposed to being burned. Such devices are commonly promoted by their manufacturers as safer alternatives to conventional cigarettes, although there are some health risks associated with their use. Since e-cigarettes are a relatively new product, scientists do not possess data on their possible long-term health effects.


title: Cigarette

text: The earliest forms of cigarettes were similar to their predecessor, the cigar. Cigarettes appear to have had antecedents in Mexico and Central America around the 9th century in the form of reeds and smoking tubes. The Maya, and later the Aztecs, smoked tobacco and other psychoactive drugs in religious rituals and frequently depicted priests and deities smoking on pottery and temple engravings. The cigarette and the cigar were the most common methods of smoking in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central and South America until recent times.


title: Cigarette

text: The North American, Central American, and South American cigarette used various plant wrappers; when it was brought back to Spain, maize wrappers were introduced, and by the 17th century, fine paper. The resulting product was called "papelate" and is documented in Goya's paintings "La Cometa", "La Merienda en el Manzanares", and "El juego de la pelota a pala" (18th century).


title: Cigarette

text: By 1830, the cigarette had crossed into France, where it received the name "cigarette"; and in 1845, the French state tobacco monopoly began manufacturing them. The French word was adopted by English in the 1840s. Some American reformers promoted the spelling "cigaret", but this was never widespread and is now largely abandoned. Cigarettes are sometimes also called a "fag" in British slang.


title: Cigarette

text: The first patented cigarette-making machine was invented by Juan Nepomuceno Adorno of Mexico in 1847. In the 1850s, Turkish cigarette leaves had become popular. However, production climbed markedly when another cigarette-making machine was developed in the 1880s by James Albert Bonsack, which vastly increased the productivity of cigarette companies, which went from making about 40,000 hand-rolled cigarettes daily to around 4 million. At the time, these imported cigarettes from America had significant sales among the British smokers.


title: Cigarette

text: In the English-speaking world, the use of tobacco in cigarette form became increasingly widespread during and after the Crimean War, when British soldiers began emulating their Ottoman Turkish comrades and Russian enemies, who had begun rolling and smoking tobacco in strips of old newspaper for lack of proper cigar-rolling leaf. This was helped by the development of tobaccos suitable for cigarette use, and by the development of the Egyptian cigarette export industry.


title: Cigarette

text: Cigarettes may have been initially used in a manner similar to pipes, cigars, and cigarillos and not inhaled; for evidence, see the Lucky Strike ad campaign asking


title: Cigarette

text: consumers "Do You Inhale?" from the 1930s. As cigarette tobacco became milder and more acidic, inhaling may have become perceived as more agreeable. However, Moltke noticed in the 1830s (cf. "Unter dem Halbmond") that Ottomans (and he himself) inhaled the Turkish tobacco and Latakia from their pipes (which are both initially sun-cured, acidic leaf varieties).


title: Cigarette

text: The widespread smoking of cigarettes in the Western world is largely a 20th-century phenomenon. At the start of the 20th century, the "per capita" annual consumption in the U.S. was 54 cigarettes (with less than 0.5% of the population smoking more than 100 cigarettes per year), and consumption there peaked at 4,259 per capita in 1965. At that time, about 50% of men and 33% of women smoked (defined as smoking more than 100 cigarettes per year). By 2000, consumption had fallen to 2,092 per capita, corresponding to about 30% of men and 22% of women smoking more than 100 cigarettes per year, and by 2006 per capita consumption had declined to 1,691; implying that about 21% of the population smoked 100 cigarettes or more per year.


title: Cigarette

text: By the late 19th century cigarettes were known as "coffin nails" but the link between lung cancer and smoking wasn't established until the 20th century. German doctors were the first to make the link, and it led to the first antitobacco movement in Nazi Germany.


title: Cigarette

text: During World War I and World War II, cigarettes were rationed to soldiers. During the Vietnam War, cigarettes were included with C-ration meals. In 1975, the U.S. government stopped putting cigarettes in military rations. During the second half of the 20th century, the adverse health effects of tobacco smoking started to become widely known and text-only health warnings became common on cigarette packets.


title: Cigarette

text: The United States has not implemented graphical cigarette warning labels, which are considered a more effective method to communicate to the public the dangers of cigarette smoking. Canada, Mexico, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Hungary, the United Kingdom, France, Romania, Singapore, Egypt, Jordan, Nepal and Turkey, however, have both textual warnings and graphic visual images displaying, among other things, the damaging effects tobacco use has on the human body.


title: Cigarette

text: The cigarette has evolved much since its conception; for example, the thin bands that travel transverse to the "axis of smoking" (thus forming circles along the length of the cigarette) are alternate sections of thin and thick paper to facilitate effective burning when being drawn, and retard burning when at rest. Synthetic particulate filters may remove some of the tar before it reaches the smoker.


title: Cigarette

text: The "holy grail" for cigarette companies has been a cancer-free cigarette. On record, the closest historical attempt was produced by scientist James Mold. Under the name project TAME, he produced the XA cigarette. However, in 1978, his project was terminated.


title: Cigarette

text: Since 1950, the average nicotine and tar content of cigarettes has steadily fallen. Research has shown that the fall in overall nicotine content has led to smokers inhaling larger volumes per puff.


title: Cigarette

text: Manufacturers have described the cigarette as "a drug administration system for the delivery of nicotine in acceptable and attractive form". Modern commercially manufactured cigarettes are seemingly simple objects consisting mainly of a tobacco blend, paper, PVA glue to bond the outer layer of paper together, and often also a cellulose acetate–based filter. While the assembly of cigarettes is straightforward, much focus is given to the creation of each of the components, in particular the tobacco blend. A key ingredient that makes cigarettes more addictive is the inclusion of reconstituted tobacco, which has additives to make nicotine more volatile as the cigarette burns.


title: Cigarette

text: The paper for holding the tobacco blend may vary in porosity to allow ventilation of the burning ember or contain materials that control the burning rate of the cigarette and stability of the produced ash. The papers used in tipping the cigarette (forming the mouthpiece) and surrounding the filter stabilize the mouthpiece from saliva and moderate the burning of the cigarette, as well as the delivery of smoke with the presence of one or two rows of small laser-drilled air holes.


title: Cigarette

text: The process of blending gives the end product a consistent taste from batches of tobacco grown in different areas of a country that may change in flavor profile from year to year due to different environmental conditions.


title: Cigarette

text: Modern cigarettes produced after the 1950s, although composed mainly of shredded tobacco leaf, use a significant quantity of tobacco processing byproducts in the blend. Each cigarette's tobacco blend is made mainly from the leaves of flue-cured brightleaf, burley tobacco, and oriental tobacco. These leaves are selected, processed, and aged prior to blending and filling. The processing of brightleaf and burley tobaccos for tobacco leaf "strips" produces several byproducts such as leaf stems, tobacco dust, and tobacco leaf pieces ("small laminate"). To improve the economics of producing cigarettes, these byproducts are processed separately into forms where they can then be added back into the cigarette blend without an apparent or marked change in the cigarette's quality. The most common tobacco byproducts include:


title: Cigarette

text: According to data from the World Health Organization, the amount of tobacco per 1000 cigarettes fell from in 1960 to in 1999, largely as a result of reconstituting tobacco, fluffing, and additives.


title: Cigarette

text: A recipe-specified combination of brightleaf, burley-leaf, and oriental-leaf tobacco is mixed with various additives to improve its flavors. Most commercially available cigarettes today contain tobacco that is treated with sugar to counter the harshness of the smoke.


title: Cigarette

text: Various additives are combined into the shredded tobacco product mixtures, with humectants such as propylene glycol or glycerol, as well as flavoring products and enhancers such as cocoa solids, licorice, tobacco extracts, and various sugars, which are known collectively as "casings". The leaf tobacco is then shredded, along with a specified amount of small laminate, expanded tobacco, BL, RL, ES, and IS. A perfume-like flavor/fragrance, called the "topping" or "toppings", which is most often formulated by , is then blended into the tobacco mixture to improve the consistency in flavor and taste of the cigarettes associated with a certain brand name. Additionally, they replace lost flavors due to the repeated wetting and drying used in processing the tobacco. Finally, the tobacco mixture is filled into cigarette tubes and packaged.


title: Cigarette

text: A list of 599 cigarette additives, created by five major American cigarette companies, was approved by the Department of Health and Human Services in April 1994. None of these additives is listed as an ingredient on the cigarette pack(s). Chemicals are added for organoleptic purposes and many boost the addictive properties of cigarettes, especially when burned.


title: Cigarette

text: One of the classes of chemicals on the list, ammonia salts, convert bound nicotine molecules in tobacco smoke into free nicotine molecules. This process, known as freebasing, could potentially increase the effect of nicotine on the smoker, but experimental data suggests that absorption is, in practice, unaffected.


title: Cigarette

text: Cigarette tubes are prerolled cigarette paper usually with an acetate or paper filter at the end. They have an appearance similar to a finished cigarette, but are without any tobacco or smoking material inside. The length varies from Regular (70 mm) to King Size (84 mm) as well as 100s (100 mm) and 120s (120 mm).


title: Cigarette

text: Filling a cigarette tube is usually done with a cigarette injector (also known as a shooter). Cone-shaped cigarette tubes, known as cones, can be filled using a packing stick or straw because of their shape. Cone smoking is popular because as the cigarette burns, it tends to get stronger and stronger. A cone allows more tobacco to be burned at the beginning than the end, allowing for an even flavor


title: Cigarette

text: The United States Tobacco Taxation Bureau defines a cigarette tube as "Cigarette paper made into a hollow cylinder for use in making cigarettes."


title: Cigarette

text: A cigarette filter or filter tip is a component of a cigarette. Filters are typically made from cellulose acetate fibre. Most factory-made cigarettes are equipped with a filter; those who roll their own can buy them separately. Filters can reduce some substances from smoke but do not make cigarettes any safer to smoke.


title: Cigarette

text: The common name for the remains of a cigarette after smoking is a "cigarette butt". The butt is typically about 30% of the cigarette's original length. It consists of a tissue tube which holds a filter and some remains of tobacco mixed with ash. They are the most numerically frequent litter in the world. Cigarette butts accumulate outside buildings, on parking lots, and streets where they can be transported through storm drains to streams, rivers, and beaches. It is also called a fag-end or dog-end.


title: Cigarette

text: In a 2013 trial, the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, partnered with TerraCycle to create a system for recycling of cigarette butts. A reward of 1¢ per collected butt was offered to determine the effectiveness of a deposit system similar to that of beverage containers.


title: Cigarette

text: An electronic cigarette is a handheld battery-powered vaporizer that simulates smoking by providing some of the behavioral aspects of smoking, including the hand-to-mouth action of smoking, but without combusting tobacco. Using an e-cigarette is known as "vaping" and the user is referred to as a "vaper". Instead of cigarette smoke, the user inhales an aerosol, commonly called vapor. E-cigarettes typically have a heating element that atomizes a liquid solution called e-liquid. E-cigarettes are automatically activated by taking a puff; others turn on manually by pressing a button. Some e-cigarettes look like traditional cigarettes, but they come in many variations. Most versions are reusable, though some are disposable. There are first-generation, second-generation, third-generation, and fourth-generation devices. E-liquids usually contain propylene glycol, glycerin, nicotine, flavorings, additives, and differing amounts of contaminants. E-liquids are also sold without propylene glycol, nicotine, or flavors.


title: Cigarette

text: The benefits and the health risks of e-cigarettes are uncertain. There is moderate-certainty evidence that e-cigarettes with nicotine may help people quit smoking when compared with e-cigarettes without nicotine and nicotine replacement therapy. However, other studies have not supported the finding that e-cigarettes are proven to be more effective than smoking cessation medicine. There is concern with the possibility that non-smokers and children may start nicotine use with e-cigarettes at a rate higher than anticipated than if they were never created. Following the possibility of nicotine addiction from e-cigarette use, there is concern children may start smoking cigarettes. Youth who use e-cigarettes are more likely to go on to smoke cigarettes. Their part in tobacco harm reduction is unclear, while another review found they appear to have the potential to lower tobacco-related death and disease. Regulated US Food and Drug Administration nicotine replacement products may be safer than e-cigarettes, but e-cigarettes are generally seen as safer than combusted tobacco products. It is estimated their safety risk to users is similar to that of smokeless tobacco. The long-term effects of e-cigarette use are unknown. The risk from serious adverse events was reported in 2016 to be low. Less serious adverse effects include abdominal pain, headache, blurry vision, throat and mouth irritation, vomiting, nausea, and coughing. Nicotine itself is associated with some health harms. In 2019 and 2020, an outbreak of severe lung illness throughout the US was linked to the use of vaping products


title: Cigarette

text: E-cigarettes create vapor made of fine and ultrafine particles of particulate matter, which have been found to contain propylene glycol, glycerin, nicotine, flavors, small amounts of toxicants, carcinogens, and heavy metals, as well as metal nanoparticles, and other substances. Its exact composition varies across and within manufacturers, and depends on the contents of the liquid, the physical and electrical design of the device, and user behavior, among other factors. E-cigarette vapor potentially contains harmful chemicals not found in tobacco smoke. E-cigarette vapor contains fewer toxic chemicals, and lower concentrations of potential toxic chemicals than cigarette smoke. The vapor is probably much less harmful to users and bystanders than cigarette smoke, although concern exists that the exhaled vapor may be inhaled by non-users, particularly indoors.


title: Cigarette

text: The harm from smoking comes from the many toxic chemicals in the natural tobacco leaf and those formed in smoke from burning tobacco. People keep smoking because the nicotine, the primary psychoactive chemical in cigarettes, is highly addictive. Cigarettes, like narcotics, have been described as "strategically addictive", with the addictive properties being a core component of the business strategy. About half of smokers die from a smoking-related cause. Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body. Smoking leads most commonly to diseases affecting the heart, liver, and lungs, being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (including emphysema and chronic bronchitis), and cancer (particularly lung cancer, cancers of the larynx and mouth, and pancreatic cancer). It also causes peripheral vascular disease and hypertension. Children born to women who smoke during pregnancy are at higher risk of congenital disorders, cancer, respiratory disease, and sudden death. On average, each cigarette smoked is estimated to shorten life by 11 minutes. Starting smoking earlier in life and smoking cigarettes higher in tar increases the risk of these diseases. The World Health Organization estimates that tobacco kills 8 million people each year as of 2019 and 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th century. Cigarettes produce an aerosol containing over 4,000 chemical compounds, including nicotine, carbon monoxide, acrolein, and oxidant substances. Over 70 of these are carcinogens.


title: Cigarette

text: The most important chemical compounds causing cancer are those that produce DNA damage since such damage appears to be the primary underlying cause of cancer. Cunningham et al. combined the microgram weight of the compound in the smoke of one cigarette with the known genotoxic effect per microgram to identify the most carcinogenic compounds in cigarette smoke. The seven most important carcinogens in tobacco smoke are shown in the table, along with DNA alterations they cause.


title: Cigarette

text: "Ulcerative colitis is a condition of nonsmokers in which nicotine is of therapeutic benefit." A recent review of the available scientific literature concluded that the apparent decrease in Alzheimer disease risk may be simply because smokers tend to die before reaching the age at which it normally occurs. "Differential mortality is always likely to be a problem where there is a need to investigate the effects of smoking in a disorder with very low incidence rates before age 75 years, which is the case of Alzheimer's disease", it stated, noting that smokers are only half as likely as nonsmokers to survive to the age of 80.


title: Cigarette

text: A very strong argument has been made about the association between adolescent exposure to nicotine by smoking conventional cigarettes and the subsequent onset of using other dependence-producing substances. Strong, temporal, and dose-dependent associations have been reported, and a plausible biological mechanism (via rodent and human modeling) suggests that long-term changes in the neural reward system take place as a result of adolescent smoking. Adolescent smokers of conventional cigarettes have disproportionately high rates of comorbid substance use, and longitudinal studies have suggested that early adolescent smoking may be a starting point or "gateway" for substance use later in life, with this effect more likely for persons with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Although factors such as genetic comorbidity, innate propensity for risk-taking, and social influences may underlie these findings, both human neuroimaging and animal studies suggest a neurobiological mechanism also plays a role. In addition, behavioral studies in adolescent and young adult smokers have revealed an increased propensity for risk-taking, both generally and in the presence of peers, and neuroimaging studies have shown altered frontal neural activation during a risk-taking task as compared with nonsmokers. In 2011, Rubinstein and colleagues used neuroimaging to show decreased brain response to a natural reinforcer (pleasurable food cues) in adolescent light smokers (1–5 cigarettes per day), with their results highlighting the possibility of neural alterations consistent with nicotine dependence and altered brain response to reward even in adolescent low-level smokers.


title: Cigarette

text: Second-hand smoke is a mixture of smoke from the burning end of a cigarette and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. It is involuntarily inhaled, lingers in the air for hours after cigarettes have been extinguished, and can cause a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma. Nonsmokers who are exposed to second-hand smoke at home or work increase their heart disease risk by 25–30% and their lung cancer risk by 20–30%. Second-hand smoke has been estimated to cause 38,000 deaths per year, of which 3,400 are deaths from lung cancer in nonsmokers. Sudden infant death syndrome, ear infections, respiratory infections, and asthma attacks can occur in children who are exposed to second-hand smoke. Scientific evidence shows that no level of exposure to second-hand smoke is safe.


title: Cigarette

text: Many governments impose restrictions on smoking tobacco, especially in public areas. The primary justification has been the negative health effects of second-hand smoke. Laws vary by country and locality. Nearly all countries have laws restricting places where people can smoke in public, and over 40 countries have comprehensive smoke-free laws that prohibit smoking in virtually all public venues. Bhutan is currently the only country in the world to completely outlaw the cultivation, harvesting, production, and sale of tobacco and tobacco products under the Tobacco Control Act of Bhutan 2010. However, small allowances for personal possession are permitted as long as the possessors can prove that they have paid import duties. The Pitcairn Islands had previously banned the sale of cigarettes, but it now permits sales from a government-run store. The Pacific island of Niue hopes to become the next country to prohibit the sale of tobacco. Iceland is also proposing banning tobacco sales from shops, making it prescription-only and therefore dispensable only in pharmacies on doctor's orders. New Zealand hopes to achieve being tobacco-free by 2025 and Finland by 2040. Singapore and the Australian state of Tasmania have proposed a 'tobacco free millennium generation initiative' by banning the sale of all tobacco products to anyone born in and after the year 2000.


title: Cigarette

text: In March 2012, Brazil became the world's first country to ban all flavored tobacco including menthols. It also banned the majority of the estimated 600 additives used, permitting only eight. This regulation applies to domestic and imported cigarettes. Tobacco manufacturers had 18 months to remove the noncompliant cigarettes, 24 months to remove the other forms of noncompliant tobacco. Under sharia law, the consumption of cigarettes by Muslims is prohibited.


title: Cigarette

text: Similar laws exist in many other countries. In Canada, most of the provinces require smokers to be 19 years of age to purchase cigarettes (except for Quebec and the prairie provinces, where the age is 18). However, the minimum age only concerns the purchase of tobacco, not use. Alberta, however, does have a law which prohibits the possession or use of tobacco products by all persons under 18, punishable by a $100 fine. Australia, New Zealand, Poland, and Pakistan have a nationwide ban on the selling of all tobacco products to people under the age of 18.


title: Cigarette

text: Since October 1, 2007, it has been illegal for retailers to sell tobacco in all forms to people under the age of 18 in three of the UK's four constituent countries (England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland), rising from 16. It is also illegal to sell lighters, rolling papers, and all other tobacco-associated items to people under 18. It is not illegal for people under 18 to buy or smoke tobacco, just as it was not previously for people under 16; it is only illegal for the said retailer to sell the item. The age increase from 16 to 18 came into force in Northern Ireland on September 1, 2008. In the Republic of Ireland, bans on the sale of the smaller 10-packs and confectionery that resembles tobacco products (candy cigarettes) came into force on May 31, 2007, in a bid to cut underaged smoking.


title: Cigarette

text: Most countries in the world have a legal vending age of 18. In North Macedonia, Italy, Malta, Austria, Luxembourg, and Belgium, the age for legal vending is 16. Since January 1, 2007, all cigarette machines in public places in Germany must attempt to verify a customer's age by requiring the insertion of a debit card. Turkey, which has one of the highest percentage of smokers in its population, has a legal age of 18. Japan is one of the highest tobacco-consuming nations, and requires purchasers to be 20 years of age. Since July 2008, Japan has enforced this age limit at cigarette vending machines through use of the taspo smart card. In other countries, such as Egypt, it is legal to use and purchase tobacco products regardless of age. Germany raised the purchase age from 16 to 18 on September 1, 2007.


title: Cigarette

text: Some police departments in the United States occasionally send an underaged teenager into a store where cigarettes are sold, and have the teen attempt to purchase cigarettes, with their own or no ID. If the vendor then completes the sale, the store is issued a fine. Similar enforcement practices are regularly performed by Trading Standards officers in the UK, Israel, and the Republic of Ireland.


title: Cigarette

text: Cigarettes are taxed both to reduce use, especially among youth, and to raise revenue. Higher prices for cigarettes discourage smoking. Every 10% increase in the price of cigarettes reduces youth smoking by about 7% and overall cigarette consumption by about 4%. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that globally cigarettes be taxed at a rate of three-quarters of cigarettes sale price as a way of deterring cancer and other negative health outcomes.


title: Cigarette

text: Cigarette sales are a significant source of tax revenue in many localities. This fact has historically been an impediment for health groups seeking to discourage cigarette smoking, since governments seek to maximize tax revenues. Furthermore, some countries have made cigarettes a state monopoly, which has the same effect on the attitude of government officials outside the health field.


title: Cigarette

text: In the United States, states are a primary determinant of the total tax rate on cigarettes. Generally, states that rely on tobacco as a significant farm product tend to tax cigarettes at a low rate. Coupled with the federal cigarette tax of $1.01 per pack, total cigarette-specific taxes range from $1.18 per pack in Missouri to $8.00 per pack in Silver Bay, New York. As part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, the federal government collects user fees to fund Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory measures over tobacco.


title: Cigarette

text: Cigarettes are a frequent source of deadly fires in private homes, which prompted both the European Union and the United States to require cigarettes to be fire-standard compliant.


title: Cigarette

text: According to Simon Chapman, a professor of public health at the University of Sydney, reduction of burning agents in cigarettes would be a simple and effective means of dramatically reducing the ignition propensity of cigarettes. Since the 1980s, prominent cigarette manufacturers such as Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds have developed fire safe cigarettes, but Phillip Morris was later the subject of a government lawsuit for allegedly hiding the even greater dangers associated with their brand of such cigarettes.


title: Cigarette

text: The burn rate of cigarette paper is regulated through the application of different forms of microcrystalline cellulose to the paper. Cigarette paper has been specially engineered by creating bands of different porosity to create "fire-safe" cigarettes. These cigarettes have a reduced idle burning speed which allows them to self-extinguish. This fire-safe paper is manufactured by mechanically altering the setting of the paper slurry.


title: Cigarette

text: New York was the first U.S. state to mandate that all cigarettes manufactured or sold within the state comply with a fire-safe standard. Canada has passed a similar nationwide mandate based on the same standard. All U.S. states are gradually passing fire-safe mandates.