James K. Polk, Vol. 2: Continentalist, 1843-1846

Writing in the Saturday Review, Charles M. Wiltse described the first volume of James K. Polk as "at once an important contribution to American political history, a fascinating study of the interaction of state and national policies, and an illuminating delineation of the pre-Presidential career of one of our least-known Presidents." This new volume of Professor Sellers' biography begins in 1843, when Polk had just suffered his second defeat for re-election to the governorship of Tennessee. From this low point Polk looked forward to the Democratic nominating convention of 1844, where he ardently sought the vice presidential nomination but came out with the presidency instead.The first eighteen months of the Polk administration turned out to be one of the most important periods in the history of the United States. Texas was annexed after a ten-year period of independence, the thirty-year dispute with Great Britain over Oregon was settled, and the war with Mexico that was shortly to result in the annexation of California and the Southwest was begun. These months also included the first session of twenty-ninth Congress, which did more in the way of important domestic legislation than any other Congress of the nineteenth century.