aversion, as an unmanly and cruel "code of honor," which had come as a relic of barbarism from a brutal past. To take this high moral ground touching an immoral practice, in a community which had approved it, and among leading men like Andrew Jackson, his personal friend, who thought they were honored by its practice, was a fine demonstration of the moral courage and character of the man. Hardly anything in his whole life speaks better for his head and heart, or reveals more clearly the richness of his moral nature.

On the first day of January, 1824, Mr. Polk was married to Miss Sarah Childress, daughter of Joel Childress, a successful merchant of Rutherford county, Tennessee. He was now twenty-nine years old, well established in business, in reputation and in character. Mrs. Polk was a woman for her place, able to adorn and honor exalted station, a helpmeet, indeed, to him in the important public career that was opening to him.

MR. POLK THE CONGRESSMAN.

In 1825 Mr. Polk was elected to the Lower House of Congress, and continued in this position for fourteen years. Into his duties as a national legislator he carried his studious habits, methodical ways and honest sense of duty. He was a working man, and he made a working member of Congress. He was elected to Congress the same year John Quincy Adams was inaugurated president. He served through his term, not in direct opposition to the president, but holding in the main quite different views on partisan subjects.

Mr. Adams' election by the House, defeating Jackson, who had the most electoral votes on the first ballot, caused a warm discussion of the constitutional plan of electing the president. Much was said of amending the constitution. Mr. Polk made his first speech in Congress on this subject, advocating an amendment which should give the choice of the president and vice-president directly to the people, without the intervention of an electoral college.

Mr. Polk was put on important committees, and more and

more, as his talents and fidelity became known, were the working oars of Congress put into his hands.

After General Jackson became president, the question of internal improvements by the general government came up for re-discussion. Mr. Adams, as secretary of state under Mr. Monroe, and Mr. Monroe himself, under the strong teaching of Mr. Adams, had favored judicious and important internal improvements, which single states could not make. For twelve years these ideas and practices had prevailed in the government, and prosperity had attended it and the country. The revenues of the government were strong and increasing. The public debt occasioned by the war of 1812 and the Indian wars, was all paid. There was money in the treasury to be distributed among the states. Business was good, commerce prosperous, immigration active. The policy of the government for the twelve years of the Adams-Monroe direction gave great prosperity to the country.

But internal improvement by the general government was contrary to General Jackson's theory. There was danger of national monopoly in too great national prosperity. The power of the general government was to be dreaded and guarded against by the states. And so he with a strong hand instituted a new order of things. The public works, like the Cumberland national road and the Maysville road, he stopped by vetoing the bills for appropriations to continue them. There was money in the treasury and no way to use it; and these roads were vastly important improvements, running through several states and benefiting the whole country; yet they must stop.

Mr. Polk, the warm personal friend, almost the protege of Jackson, took his view, and became the ardent and strong defender of the Jacksonian theory and policy. He had held different views, like most of the rising young men of that time. In Mr. Monroe's time, he saw the need of public improvements -roads, river and harbor improvements, and gave his adherence to the policy that prevailed. A pity he had not held on to his patriotic and statesmanlike views, so honorable to his young mind and consonant with his noble nature. But power

ful forces were in the executive, and he yielded to them, after the Van Buren style. The veto of the national improvements, the veto of the national bank and the removal of the national deposits from that bank to the state banks were all a part of President Jackson's general theory that the states are in danger from the monopolies and oppressions of the general government. Mr. Polk fell so much under the influence of Jackson and his party as to go completely over to their views.

In 1835 Mr. Polk was made speaker of the Twenty-fourth Congress. At the next Congress he was re-elected speaker. He filled this responsible position with great credit to himself and satisfaction to Congress and the country.

At the close of the session, March 4, 1839, Mr. Polk gave a farewell address to the house, in which he had served with signal ability through fourteen years. His deliberative mind, enriched with learning, reading and experience, his considerate respect for men, and courteous manners fitted him well for this trying place.

MR. POLK THE GOVERNOR.

The next August Mr. Polk was made the democratic candidate for governor of Tennessee, and after an unusually warm contest, in which he was the leading speaker in his own behalf, he was elected. He entered upon the discharge of the governor's duties on the fourteenth of October, 1839. He gave an address on this occasion, which was regarded as one of the ablest and best of his life.

Though opposed to internal improvements by the United States, Mr. Polk was in favor of improvements by the states; so in his opening address to the legislature, he advised the "vigorous prosecution of a judicious system of internal improvements." He also advised "a board of public works, to be composed of two or more competent and scientific men, who should be authorized and their duties established by law." He was a man of progress, had much state pride, and would commit his state to all improvements it could prosecute with vigor. He did not seem to see that every argument for improvement by the

state was equally good for improvement by the United States, and that state pride in the true patriot is but the root of a more vigorous pride of country. His political theory fanned the flame of a state pride to the injury of national sentimentsmade the state an object of more personal interest and affection than the country. This was an evil he did not see, though thousands of his countrymen fully apprehended it.

In the same message he recommended the passage of a law "prohibiting betting on elections," and gave many reasons for it which were alike creditable to his head and heart. His moral nature was quick and strong, and he believed legislation had moral interests to subserve. He would put law to the service of conscience as well as property.

Mr. Polk's administration as governor through his term of two years, was so satisfactory as to make him the acknowledged head of his party in his state. Mr. Grundy, his old law teacher and life-long friend had died.. He was now forty-six years old, in the full day of early manhood; had lived a discreet and wellpreserved life; had a national experience in public life, as well as a wide knowledge in state affairs. He was a candidate for another term; but the Harrison canvass for the presidency had swept Tennessee with a heavy majority of the states, into the ranks of the whigs. The strong anti-bank, anti-tariff, antiinternal improvement, and pro-state doctrines and practices of the democratic party had produced a heavy reaction against it. The practical affairs of the country were disastrously deranged, and a new administration of public affairs was demanded by the people. Mr. Polk, therefore, was defeated, on purely political grounds, and his opponent James C. Jones, was elected.

Mr. Polk was again candidate for governor in 1843, but was again defeated. He had now a brief respite from public affairs, which he spent in home enjoyments and hospitalities.

But the political life and issues of the rapidly growing nation were rapidly changing. The death of President Harrison and the defection of President Tyler to the democratic party from which he had come, had lost to the whigs the fruits of their victory. The new question of the annexation of Texas to

the Union, which had long been an object of southern enterprise and ambition, had now come to the front. President Tyler and his Congress were committed to it. It was at bottom a pro-slavery movement, but it had a national glamour in adding an empire of rich virgin soil to the national domain, which captivated many people who did not stop to inquire into the bad faith and immoral policy at the bottom of annexation. The partisan aspect of the subject was pretty well defined. The whigs, for the most part, were opposed to annexation; the democrats in the main were in favor of it.

The sectional aspect was about as well defined. A strong majority in the north were opposed to annexation; an equally strong majority in the south were in favor of it. It was at bottom a sectional matter, the child of the south.

The democratic party had always had its heaviest majorities in the south. Its state-rights doctrine was a favorite southern doctrine. This question of annexation tended strongly to promote the growing sectionalism which slavery had already caused.

The coming democratic national convention to meet at Baltimore, in 1844, was to be shaped to this new issue. Every prominent democrat who had presidential aspirations must avow himself. The prominent names likely to come before that convention, were Martin Van Buren, of New York; Lewis Cass, of Michigan; Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky; James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, and Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire. Mr. Van Buren was opposed to annexation, and were it not for this, stood the best chance of the nomination. The rest were in favor of annexation.

Mr. Polk's friends, who for some years had presidential aspirations for him, were quick to see the possible prospect for him, and had him called out in a letter on the political issues. In that letter he took his stand for annexation. He was thus

made ready for an emergency. The convention came. The rule of former conventions requiring a two-thirds majority to nominate was adopted. For several ballots Mr. Van Buren had a strong majority, but not two thirds. It was soon found that Mr. Van Buren's friends would not vote for any of the named candi