James K. Polk: Inaugural Address
Table of Contents
James K. Polk: Inaugural Address
Overview
Document Text
You don't have access to this content. Please try to log in with your institution. Sign In
Abstract
When James K. Polk was elected president in 1844, his popular support had arisen largely from four key platforms: territorial expansion, lowering tariffs, fiduciary reforms, and promise to serve a single term as chief executive. His inaugural address was telegraphed to newspapers across the nation and its printing was accompanied by a newspaper illustration – both of these firsts were huge technological leaps. Polk strongly advocated for the expansion of the borders of the United States. Polk emphatically embraced the ideals of the Monroe Doctrine (strong opposition to foreign influence in U.S. policy) and of manifest destiny (the idea that U.S. expansion was inevitable), which translated into a nearly myopic quest to annex both the Oregon territory and Texas, whether by diplomacy or force.
Contents
- Chapter 1: “The destinies of nations and of men”: Conquering the West
- John Winthrop: “A Model of Christian Charity”
- Saukamappee: “Death Came Over Us All”
- Jedidiah Morse: The American Geography
- Western Confederacy: Message to the Commissioners of the United States
- Thomas Jefferson: Second Inaugural Address
- Tecumseh: Address to General William Henry Harrison at Vincennes, Indiana Territory
- Tecumseh: Speech to the Osage
- Cherokee Women Address Their Nation
- Manuel de Mier y Terán: Letter to the Pueblo Viejo Minister of War
- Benjamin Lundy: “Conditions for African Americans in Mexican Texas”
- Andrew Jackson: “To the Cherokee Tribe of Indians”
- Antonio López de Santa Anna: Message to the Inhabitants of Texas
- Stephen F. Austin: Address in Louisville, Kentucky, March 7, 1836
- Juan Nepomuceno Seguín: A Tejano Leader Calls for Support of the Texas Revolution
- John Ross: Letter to Congress
- Juan Nepomuceno Seguín: Personal Memoirs of John N. Seguin
- James K. Polk: Inaugural Address
- Frederick Douglass: “The War with Mexico”
- Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
- U.S. General Land Office Map of the United States
- Oregon Exclusion Law
- The Other Side; or, Notes for the History of the War between Mexico and the United States
- Chapter 2: “From hill to hill and from valley to valley”: Remaking the West
- Joseph Blaney Starkweather: “African Americans Working at Spanish Flat, California Gold Mine”
- “Song of Gold Mountain”
- Mason v. Smith
- Pun Chi: A Chinese Merchant Petitions Congress to Address Anti-Chinese Abuse
- Homestead Act
- Joseph Cramer: Letter to Major Ed Wynkoop about the Sand Creek Massacre
- “George Bent and Magpie”
- Frederick Douglass: “Our Composite Nationality”
- John Gast: American Progress
- “Exodusters: African American Homesteaders”
- “Ho for Kansas” Exoduster Flyer
- Chief Joseph: “An Indian’s View of Indian Affairs”
- John Nicholas Choate: “Before and After”
- Thomas Nast: “Every Dog (No Distinction of His Color) Has His Day”
- Chinese Exclusion Act
- Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins: Life among the Piutes
- Charles Siringo: A Texas Cow Boy
- Ely Parker: Letter to Harriet Maxwell Converse about Indian Policy Reform
- “The Chrisman Sisters Outside Their Nebraska Sod House in 1886”
- Dawes Severalty Act
- John Muir: “The Treasures of the Yosemite”
- “The National Boundary Line at Nogales”
- William T. Selwyn and Kuwapi: “It Is the New Messiah”
- Wounded Knee Massacre: Statements and Eyewitness Accounts
- Richard H. Pratt: “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man”
- Frederick Jackson Turner: “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”
- Two Moons: A Cheyenne Description of the Battle of the Little Bighorn River
- Kimiko Ono: “Working in the Fields and the Home”
- John Muir: “The American Forests”
- Charles Eastman: Indian Boyhood
- American Antiquities Act
- Little Bear: Account of the Sand Creek Massacre
- “Los Padrinos en los Funerales de Don Pedrito”
- Elinore Pruitt Stewart: Letters of a Woman Homesteader
- “Indian Land for Sale” Poster
- Chapter 3: “Invasion of progress…progress of invasion”: Extending Conquest Overseas
- Grover Cleveland: Message to Congress on Hawaiian Sovereignty
- William McKinley: Message to Congress about Cuban Intervention
- William McKinley: “Benevolent Assimilation” Proclamation
- Clara Barton: The Red Cross in Peace and War
- Louis Dalrymple: “School Begins”
- Platform of the American Anti-Imperialist League
- William McKinley: Home Market Club Speech
- William McKinley: Statement to the General Missionary Committee of the Methodist Episcopal Church
- Henry Cabot Lodge: Speech on the Retention of the Philippine Islands
- Emil Flohri: “And, After All, the Philippines Are Only the Stepping-Stone to China”
- William McKinley: Last Speech
- José María Vargas Vila: Facing the Barbarians
- Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
- Chapter 4: “Do not get lost on this new trail”: Remembering and Representing the West
- Ulysses S. Grant: Memoir on the Mexican War
- Sacagawea Monument, Washington Park, Portland, Oregon
- “Death of Custer”
- Charles Eastman: From the Deep Woods to Civilization
- Zitkala-Ša: “The Cutting of My Long Hair”
- Luther Standing Bear: “The Plains Were Covered with Dead Bison”
- Nicholas Black Elk: “The Butchering at Wounded Knee”