A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, The Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent

Simon & Schuster America Collection

by Robert W. Merry

James K. Polk, The Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent. Brand New. Hardcover. Original jacket. Number line counts down to 1. Fine/Fine condition.

Genres: History, Biography, Presidents, American History, Nonfiction, Politics, Us Presidents

575 pages, Hardcover

First published November 3, 2008

About the author

Robert W. Merry is an American journalist, publishing executive, commentator, and author. He is the editor of The American Conservative.

Robert W. Merry was born in 1946 in Tacoma, WA. He served three years in the U.S. Army, including two years as a counterintelligence special agent in West Germany. He graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1968 and earned a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1972.

Merry started his career as a reporter for The Denver Post and became a Washington-based political reporter in 1974 when he joined the staff of the National Observer, a Dow Jones weekly newspaper. When the Observer folded in 1977, he became a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and spent twelve years there covering Congress, national politics, and the White House, among other beats. In 1987 Merry became managing editor of Congressional Quarterly. He was promoted to Executive Editor in 1990 and became President and Editor-in-Chief in 1997. He held that position for 12 years and led CQ into the digital age.

Reviews

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can visit the home of President James K. Polk, it’s near downtown Columbia Tennessee.

It’s on a modest lot, a nice older home that has been well maintained. On a back stair way is a portrait of what looks like a Spanish conquistador. When asked the tour guide will tell you that this is THE Spanish Conquistador, Cortez himself. Further inquiry as to why such an evil man’s picture can be found in humble Columbia, in the modest home of a long-ago president will lead to other questions about the Mexican American war, the annexations of much of the western states and the transfiguration of the United States.

Robert W. Merry’s excellent 2008 biography of the eleventh president, thoroughly researched and documented, is not just a glimpse into this successful but oft forgotten man, but also an important history of the nation after Andrew Jackson and before the Civil War.

Polk, a Tennessee protégé of Jackson, was a dark horse Democratic candidate who led his nation in the time of great legislators like Henry Clay, Calhoun, Webster and Thomas Hart Benton. His single term administration oversaw the annexation of Texas, the taking of the western states including what is now New Mexico, Arizona, California and the Oregon territory.

We also get to know the generals in the war, Scott and Taylor, the latter who would ascend to the presidency after the 1848 election. Merry also provides a unique description of James Buchanan, Polk’s secretary of state, who would himself reach the presidency eight years later.

Highlighting the legislative intrigues of the day, this book is a fascinating look at the 1840s in Washington and a look at a intense, dry man who was driven to work himself to death; rarely leaving his office in the four years of his term and who died a few months after returning to Tennessee, having greatly expanded the nation both internally and in the world’s eye.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

When asked the greatest president, how do you respond? There are a lot of ways to answer. You can go the obvious route and pick Lincoln. Or you can go with the original, and choose Washington. After those two, the question gets trickier, more subjective, and tends to say as much about the answerer as it does about the president. Old liberals will say Roosevelt (Franklin, that is), while modern conservatives would go with Reagan. Someone with a Shakespearian bent might choose LBJ, while a person who loves national parks, and shooting whatever is in those parks, might pick Roosevelt (Teddy).

For all the potential answers - and perhaps a grim William Henry Harrison joke - I'd venture that the name James Knox Polk would seldom appear. Yet pound-for-pound, based on efficiency and results, Polk needs to be in the discussion.

One of the nation's first dark horse presidential candidates, the Democratic Polk was an intense, private, hardworking protege of Andrew Jackson. When he was elected in 1845, he vowed to serve only one term, and made a to-do list for those four years. The list included: (1) annexing California from Mexico; (2) securing the Oregon Territory from Great Britain; (3) lowering tariffs; and (4) creating an independent treasury. (Also on the list was annexing Texas, but the lame-duck John Tyler had managed to accomplish that task in the waning days of his otherwise-forgettable administration).

Robert Merry's A Country of Vast Designs tells the story of Polk's eventful presidency, with a focus on his territorial ambitions, which led to the Mexican-American War of 1847. There are a couple brief chapters devoted to Polk's domestic policy, with regards to the tariffs and the Treasury, but most of the book's length is devoted to the creation of an American Empire (this is fortunate, since an in-depth discussion on early 19th-century tariffs would make my eyes bleed).

The consolidation of the American West is a story brimming with larger than life personalities. It is history that would make Tolstoy cringe, as it turned on the actions of complex, volatile men who were often acting on whims and without portfolio. This was the age of giants: Calhoun and Clay; Stockton and Fremont; Kearny and Scott. At the center of all these personalities was the inscrutable, laborious Polk, and his duplicitious, ever-scheming secretary of state, James Buchanan (Buchanan used his time in Polk's cabinet to prepare for his own presidential run; of course, he got more than he bargained for, and later fiddled like Nero in his final months in office as the South seceded).

A Country of Vast Designs works as a clear, understandable, balanced account of Polk's presidency. Even today, the Mexican-American War is freighted with controversy. Polk's role is still being debated. Did he orchestrate the war by sending Zachary Taylor to the Rio Grande? If so, why? Was he a proud nationalist, or a closet slaver who wanted to spread human bondage to the Pacific coast? And what are we to think of America? Was she fulfilling her destined role in wresting California from Mexico? Or was she acting the bully towards a weaker nation? Just by asking the questions, I (unintentionally) suggest the answers, and it's a testament to Merry's fairness that the book never comes close to a polemic. It uses contemporary sources from both the Democratic and Whig parties, and does a fine job presenting an even-handed assessment of Polk's actions.

In Merry's view, Polk clearly wanted the California territory, and he was willing to fight (but not start) a war with Mexico in order to achive that, especially after Mexico refused his offer to purchase the land. Some might find culpability in those actions. On the other hand, Mexico was ridden with internal strife, lacked the population base to control those lands, and was foolishly intransigent when it came to the United States.

The end result, for good or ill (I'm speaking of you, California), is that the country that James Polk dreamt is (mostly) the country we now have. A Country of Vast Designs gives you the political story of how it happened. My problem, though, is that the story is dry as dirt and slow moving as cold molasses (to use some hillbilly phrasing).

As mentioned above, American expansionism in the 1840s was marked by colorful, larger-than-life figures. You have John C. Fremont invading California with 100 men and no orders from his commanding officers. You have Nicholas Trist in Mexico City negotiating a peace treaty, despite the fact that he has no diplomatic portfolio and is essentially acting as a private citizen (which beautifully exemplifes the huge communication problems hampering 19th century statecraft). You have Santa Anna returning from exhile with Polk's blessing, then turning on Polk and fighting the Americans. These are men of courage and cunning and bravado. These are men who are ambitious and duplicitious and self-serving and self-sacrificng. There are great military leaders and great scallywags and somehow, Merry fails to bring any of them to life. His strict focus on the political (the Mexican-American War itself is barely sketeched) leaves the various personalities on the sidelines. Except for a few moments (I liked Merry's description of Clay's visit to Polk as Polk is leaving office), there is no humanity to the story, and therefore, no life in the book.


I found A Country of Vast Designs to be informative. In some areas, notably Polk's handling of the disputed Oregon Territory, and his clever avoidance of a third war with Great Britain, I learned much that I've never known before. I wanted to learn all these things, but I wanted to learn them in a livelier fashion. Dryness is to be expected in work by an academic. Merry, however, is a journalist, not an academic, and I expected something far more compelling.

It's saying something (I'm not sure what) that the one thing I'm likely to most remember from the book is the brief-yet-graphic description of Polk's bladder stone surgery. The doctor, without anesthesia, cut through Polk's perineum (yikes!) and removed the stones. The crude surgery likely left Polk sterile and impotent. Ironically, he turned out to be our hardest working president, and died from exhaustion and poor health shortly after leaving office.

So maybe the takeaway is that for a politician to be focused and successful, all sexual desire must be surgically excised.

[James Thane · Rating 4 out of 5]

While historians have generally ranked James K. Polk on the list of America's greatest presidents, he remains largely unknown and unappreciated by the vast majority of American citizens, dwarfed in reputation by Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, the two Roosevelts et al., who also populate the list. Robert W. Merry speculates that this is due in part to the fact that Polk lacked personal magnetism and was, even in his own day, largely unable "to pull large numbers of fond acolytes to his side....Unlike other successful presidents, he had no appreciable personal following to breathe life into his story and promote his standing in history."

Despite the fact that he is not better known these days, Polk had, by almost any standard, one of the most successful of American presidential administrations. A protege of Andrew Jackson, Polk entered office with several major objectives: to complete the annexation of Texas to the Union, to annex Oregon to the U.S. and to acquire from Mexico California and the vast Southwest between Texas and California. On the domestic side, he was determined to lower tariff rates and to re-establish the independent treasury system originally put in place by Martin Van Buren.

On taking office, Polk promised that he would limit himself to one term as president and by the end of that four years, he had achieved all of his stated objectives. The U.S. had grown in size by more than one-third and now stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific. More amazing, perhaps, is that he accomplished all of this against considerable opposition from the Whig minority and with a badly divided Democratic party that often frustrated the president even more than the Whigs.

In part, Polk established this record by working harder than any other president before or since. He devoted long hours to the job day in and day out and was absent from Washington D.C. for only a handful of days during his entire presidency. He once explained his rare devotion to duty by confiding to his diary, "No President who performs his duty faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure. If he entrusts the details and smaller matters to subordinates constant errors will occur. I prefer to supervise the whole operations of the Government myself...and this makes my duties very great."

So great, in fact, that Polk wore himself out at the job and died only three months after leaving office at the (even then) relatively young age of fifty-three. Polk quickly proved also to be one of the most stubborn and determined presidents we have ever had. Once he set his mind on an objective, he worked relentlessly and often very skillfully to accomplish it. A prime example was his determination to win most of the Oregon country for the U.S. Merry describes how Polk effectively outmaneuvered the British to win a settlement of the Oregon controversy that was very advantageous to the U.S.

Polk's most controversial actions, both in his own time and down to the present day, were those he took in his determination to place the border between Texas and Mexico on the Rio Grande River, rather than on the Nueces, which was this historic border between Texas and the neighboring Mexican province, and to secure from Mexico California and the Southwest. Polk's opponents in the 1840s, including a young congressman named Abraham Lincoln, and others since have accused Polk of ginning up a war with Mexico to secure the territory when other means failed.

Merry defends Polk against the charge, although not all that convincingly, by arguing that Mexico was also at fault for the events that led to the war and by arguing further that, in effect, might makes right. Logic dictated that the United States and not Mexico would be the nation to dominate California and the Southwest, and that by his actions that led to the war, Polk was simply acknowledging and promoting the nation's destiny.

This is not an argument likely to mollify all of Polk's critics, but one need not agree with all of Merry's conclusions to note that he has written as full and complete an examination of the Polk administration as we are likely to get or to need. Whatever one may think of him, Polk accomplished a phenomenal record.

People will continue to debate that record for a good many years, and, of course, the acquisition of all of that new territory would open a bitter debate over the question of the expansion of slavery. That, in turn, would propel the United States into a cataclysmic civil war, as some of Polk's opponents feared at the time. In the end, perhaps the fairest and most lasting judgment on the Polk administration was rendered by the venerable diplomatic historian Thomas A. Bailey, who once wrote that, "one can fairly criticize Polk's methods, but one can hardly fail to be impressed by the results."

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, The Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent by Robert W. Merry and Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America by Walter R. Borneman at the same time, alternating chapters. The problem is, they were very, very similar. I liked them both, but they seemed to have the same take on Polk and emphasized the same things. I have a hard time remembering who said what exactly. So I’ll have to do this review combined, adding some commentary where I can about how the books differed.

Their Basic Take on Polk

Both books have the same basic take: Polk set ambitious goals and achieved them. He was a strong leader who changed the course of America.

He came to office with four main goals (according to the recollection of his colleague and historian George Bancroft): (1) acquire territory in Oregon, resolving the ambiguity of the “joint occupation” status with England, (2) Acquire lands in California and New Mexico from Texas, (3) Reduce tariffs, and (4) create an independent treasury. He accomplished all these goals. We could add a fifth goal of securing the annexation of Texas, as this was also vitally important to him. His predecessor John Tyler signed the act that got this done shortly before leaving office, but it also took Polk standing firm in the face of opposition to see this through.

Polk changed the course of America, most obviously with his actions to increase the size of the country, but also by his leadership style which set a precedent for increased executive power. Merry notes that the process for Congress declaring war on Mexico was very different than what happened for the War of 1812. In the War of 1812, Congress deliberated seriously, and it was accepted that the decision to declare War belongs to Congress and not the President. In the Mexican-American War, Polk basically bullied Congress into declaring War, first by engineering a conflict in disputed territory and second by his inflamed rhetoric, spinning the event as Mexicans invading the United States to “shed American blood on American soil”. Borneman claims that he expanded Presidential powers more than any other President prior to the Civil War.

What Was He Like?

Both books paint a similar picture of him. He wasn’t someone you’d think of as a “natural leader”. He didn’t inspire people. He wasn’t skilled at building relationships and coalitions. He wasn’t charismatic. He was grim and sanctimonious. What he was gifted with was an iron will and the ability to work extraordinarily hard to achieve his goals. He also had the ability to recognize political realities. For instance, he knew that the majority of the country favored his expansionist policies, and if he kept pushing he would have the support and votes he needed. He was right about this. He usually just wore down his opponents with his persistence.

As far as his philosophy, he was a Jacksonian. He believed in limited government, though he fought to expand Presidential powers relative to other branches. He was a Unionist. He defended slavery but was willing to compromise to preserve a strong Union. And of course he wanted expansion, with even more zealotry than Jackson.

Not only did he lead America into a war with Mexico, but he also risked war with England. In his diary he wrote “...I would meet the war which either England or France or all the Powers of Christendom might wage, and that I would stand and fight until the last man among us fell in the conflict”. Ultimately, England chose not to get embroiled in the U.S.-Mexico territorial disputes. They also agreed on a settlement with Polk for Oregon where they would cede all lands above the 49th parallel.

What the Books Didn’t Cover

Neither author spent much time discussing the ethics of the Mexican-American War. Well, they did repeat the objections from the Whigs: that it was an unnecessary war, that it was deliberately provoked by Polk, that he lied about the events that led to the first hostilities, and that it is driven by a desire to entrench and extend slavery. But were the Whigs right? I don’t remember Borneman discussing this question at all. Merry did, a little bit, in the Epilogue. In short, Merry describes Mexico as the aggressor and defends Polk. I don’t want to spend more time discussing Merry’s arguments on this because they were such a tiny part of the book. For both books, the authors viewed their task as to describe Polk’s goals, achievements, and governing style. I can’t really fault them because that is a tall enough task for one book, but it did feel like something was missing when I finished.

A few highlights

A few other random things about Polk that struck my interest:

Polk’s political future looked very bleak in 1843, just one year before being elected president. He lost in elections for Governor in both 1841 and 1843. The phrase “Dark Horse” comes from how Polk was viewed as a Presidential candidate in 1844.

Polk’s presidential years were when Slavery broke through as being the dominant political issue of the time, so much so that it started crowding out all other issues.

He died within a year of his Presidential term ending, even though he was just 53 years old. The official cause of death was Cholera, but he was in very poor health. Borneman quotes another historian that Polk may have “died from overwork”.

Polks frequent clashes with Secretary of State James Buchanan were a highlight. Buchanan was a sly, slippery character. Polk had a long leash with him, tolerating several instances of Buchanan undermining him. It’s not clear why he tolerated this. Merry offers one theory: Polk hated face to face confrontation, and Buchanan used this to his advantage. Whenever they would meet Buchanan seemed to know just what to say to slip out of trouble.

So which book was better?

About the only thing I can say with confidence is to give the factual detail that the Merry book is longer, by about 30%. I don’t remember much more detail in the Merry book that the Borneman book didn't have, but I also don’t remember being bored by the extra length. The books really did seem remarkably similar. Sorry I’m not more helpful!

[robin friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Presidency Of Determination And Purpose

During the presidency of James K. Polk (1795 - 1849), the boundaries of the United States expanded by one-third to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. The finances of the United States were, after many years, put on a firm footing by the establishment of the Treasury. And the United States enjoyed economic growth and prosperity by Polk's deft handling of the tariff. Yet, Polk fought a difficult two-year war with Mexico and narrowly averted a second war with Great Britain. The territorial expansion strained the uneasy relationship between North and South over slavery and led to the Civil War. In his thoughtful book, "A Country of Vast Designs" Robert Merry examines Polk's life and presidency. The book covers an important period of American history that frequently is overlooked, and it argues for the nature of Polk's accomplishment in the face of recent criticism of his presidency. Merry is the president and editor of the Congressional Quarterly.

A Tennessean and a protegy of Andrew Jackson, Polk served a single term as the eleventh president (1845-1849). He secured the nomination of the Democratic Party in 1844 as a compromise candidate when a deadlock developed among the favored contenders. He narrowly defeated the Whig candidate, Henry Clay. An introverted, dour individual with little charisma or obvious leadership skills, Polk set himself clear goals for his presidency which he achieved by virtue of perseverance, commitment, and maneuver. "I intend myself to be myself President of the U.S." Polk wrote to a political ally shortly after his election. Polk also set himself four goals for his presidency: 1. the settlement of the boundaries of the Oregon Territory with Great Britain, 2. the acquisition of California and other territory from Mexico 3.the reduction of the tariff to make it more a revenue-raising than a protectionist measure and 4. the creation of an independent treasury.

The two domestic goals were important, and Polk achieved them with relative ease. Most of Merry's study involves the former two goals which involved the annexation of Texas began by Polk's predecessor, the settlement of the boundary dispute with Oregon, and ultimately the Mexican War. Lacking skills with people, Polk had a difficult relationship with his Secretary of State, James Buchanan, with his two generals in the Mexican War, Taylor and Scott, and with Congress. He was distrustful and petty and tended to cast aspersions on the motives of his opponents. But Polk had a vision of what came to be called "manifest destiny." He saw the United States as a beacon of individual freedom and opportunity in a world still ruled, for the most part, by despots.

Polk began with a warlike attitude to Britain, but he was able to form attitudes in and out of Congress for a favorable settlement of the Oregon boundary question. The war Polk precipitated with Mexico was controversial in his own day and remains so today. Polk underestimated the difficulty of the war and the extent and character of the opposition to it. Equally important, he failed to understand how the war and the acquired territories would exacerbate tension over slavery. Early in the conflict, a Pennsylvania congressman named Wilmot introduced a famous proviso that bears his name forbidding the extension of slavery into any territories acquired from Mexico. The Wilmot Proviso was the harbinger of the break between North and South.

Merry clearly admires Polk for his persistence and accomplishment. He also attempts to rehabilitate Polk, to a large degree, from the charge brought by many of Polk's contemporaries and still heard today that Polk fought an unjust, aggressive war against Mexico. Merry argues that the war was not fought at the behest of the "Slave Power" but rather had supporters and opponents in both North and South. He suggests that the equities in favor of Mexico in the period leading up to the conflict were not as strong as is sometimes assumed and that the United States had considerable justification for waging war. Finally, Merry suggests that a good deal of political understanding is required in order to avoid an overly-moralizing approach to the conduct of the United States. He writes (p.476):

"The moralistic impulse, when applied to the Mexican War, misses a fundamental reality of history: It doesn't turn on moral pivots but on differentials of power, will, organization, and population. History moves forward with a crushing force and does not stop for niceties of moral suasion or concepts of political virtue. Mexico was a dysfunctional, unstable, weak nation whose population wasn't sufficient to control all the lands within its domain. The United States by contrast was a vibrant, expanding, exuberant experiment in democracy whose burgeoning population thrilled to the notion that it was engaging in something big and historically momentous. The resulting energy .... generated a political compulsion toward expansion into largely unpopulated lands that seemed to beckon with irresistible enticement."

Merry has written a challenging study of Polk's presidency and about the importance of purpose and determination in the achievement of worthwhile political goals. This is a valuable book for readers interested in American history.

Robin Friedman

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

“By embracing the notion of acquiring not only Texas and Oregon, but also California and New Mexico, Polk brought to his presidency imperatives of boldness, persistence, force of will, and guile that went beyond anything anyone had before seen in him. Yet he brought those traits to the floor in such a way as to accomplish all of his ambitious presidential aspirations. Therein lies whatever greatness he may claim to a place in history."

This biography of eleventh US President James K. Polk focuses mainly on his political life, actions during his presidential term, and the expansion of the US into the western territories. It does not cover much about his personal life. The era of “Manifest Destiny” led to many controversies and disputes with other countries. Polk settled a dispute with Great Britain over the boundary of Oregon Territory and went to war with Mexico over the annexation of Texas.

For me, the most appealing parts of the book were the portraits of the personalities of the time, including Thomas Hart Benton, James Buchanan, John Calhoun, Henry Clay, John Fremont, Martin Van Buren, Daniel Webster, and many others. It really gives a good idea of what these people were like. It portrays the influence of Andrew Jackson, Polk’s mentor, long after Jackson’s presidential term was completed. The coverage of the Mexican American War is some of the most detailed I have ever read. Another highlight is the portrayal of the 1944 Democratic Convention in Baltimore where Polk became the first “dark horse” candidate. It also provides interesting information about the Wilmot Proviso, which foreshadowed the end of slavery.

While it covers many interesting events of history, the downside to this book is the level of detail. It drills down into the intricacies of political machinations and maneuvering. For me, this was overkill, but it may appeal to others. I guess it depends on how much detail you want to read about the politics of the time period. I feel like I gained knowledge from this book, but it was pretty dry reading.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first chapter of Barbara Tuchman’s Great War epic The Guns of August (full disclosure: I haven’t read it, but I’ve read the first chapter. It’s on the to-read list) famously depicts the funeral procession of Britain's King Edward VII. Interspersed among Tuchman’s vivid descriptions of the sights and sounds of the event are mini-biographies of the other European monarchs in attendance, many of whom - we know but they do not yet know - will end up playing major roles in the worldwide conflagration yet to come.

The first chapter of Robert Merry’s "A Country of Vast Designs" depicts the procession to the Capitol for the inauguration of James K. Polk. Interspersed among his vivid descriptions of the sights and sounds of the event are mini-biographies of the other people and politicians in attendance, many of whom - we know but they do not yet know - will end up playing major roles in the events of the Polk presidency to come.

The similarities are uncanny, though the routine ushering in of a new presidential administration pales in comparative importance to the epochal end of the old world order at the dawn of the 20th century in Europe. I couldn’t quite decide if Merry’s opening chapter was a coincidence, an homage or a pale imitation.

Either way, I found that opening chapter to be largely a sign of things to come in the book. The writing throughout is very good, the descriptions are thorough and lively, and the storytelling is engaging. But after a time, it becomes apparent that Merry’s strength is in telling a story that covers the who, what, when and where, without delving very deeply to explore the how or the why.

Polk had a consequential, and controversial, presidency. But the book predominantly focuses on the former at the expense of the latter. Merry often writes as though the results of Polk’s policies were preordained and Polk was omniscient. “To many,” he writes about Polk’s efforts to settle the Oregon boundary dispute, “Polk's approach seemed foolhardy, risky, and unjust. But it turned out he knew what he was doing." Later, during the Mexican-American War, Polk vowed to "forge ahead to what he knew would be military and political victory."

And that darned “thigh-slapping” story, in which the newly-elected Polk supposedly slapped his thigh and proclaimed to his Navy Secretary George Bancroft the four great measures of his forthcoming administration, makes another appearance in a Polk biography - recounted as fact, not only without skepticism but with wide-eyed wonderment. “What was remarkable,” Merry observes, “was that Polk never went beyond Bancroft in discussing the daring goals he set for himself and his country.” Possibly because it never happened, as many other historians have concluded after looking into Bancroft’s own likely apocryphal account.

Throughout the book, scant attention is paid to Polk’s motives or missteps - the story has him just forging ahead, fulfilling the “destiny” of Manifest Destiny, until he leaves the presidency and two paragraphs later, he’s dead.

Up to this point, the book is a well-written popular history of the importance and impact of the often-overlooked Polk presidency. It’s not too deep, but then neither is something like David McCullough’s John Adams, which is wonderfully written but not analytical in an academic way. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, for a book meant to appeal to a wide audience who prefers an engaging historical story to a dry historical textbook.

But Merry’s book kind of went off the rails for me in its short epilogue, which displays a drastic, jarring change in tone. What had been a straightforward narrative suddenly becomes a forceful argument for the strength, morality and righteousness of Polk's positions, and against the "widespread view" that Polk was an "imperialist manipulator who bent the truth and the nation's will to his questionable objectives" in pursuing war with Mexico, a view which Merry blames everyone from Abraham Lincoln to Al Gore for perpetuating.

There’s little consideration of the idea that Polk might have deliberately provoked the war with Mexico, and Merry dismisses the accusation that Polk may have advocated expansionism in order to extend slavery as a “false imputation,” an "allegation without foundation," but he doesn't support this argument, he just declares it to be so. He goes on to put most of the blame on Congress for the increasingly rancorous debate over whether to allow the expansion of slavery into the newly acquired territories, absolving Polk of any fault for opening the Pandora's box that set off the whole debate.

Mexico was certainly not without fault in its prewar dealings with the U.S., so one can make a persuasive argument either way that Mexico was to blame for starting the war, or that Mexico was unfairly lured into it. Merry takes up the former argument, to the extent that he kind of victim-blames Mexico for not being more assertive in more firmly establishing its ownership of the disputed land that Texas had claimed, for not sufficiently resisting when the U.S. insisted on ownership of the land, and for playing right into Polk's hands by firing the first shots and giving him the war he wanted.

"Mexico was a dysfunctional, unstable, weak nation whose population wasn't sufficient to control all the lands within its domain," Merry writes, while the U.S. was "vibrant, expanding, exuberant." Does Merry mean to say, then, that Mexico got what it deserved in losing the war and losing its land to the U.S.? Try replacing "Mexico" in that first sentence with the name of any early 19th century Native American tribe, in trying to make the argument that the U.S. was right to grab their land because it was bigger and stronger, and see how well that sentiment holds up. That kind of argument would be unfathomable to make today, so I’m not sure why it’s okay to say the same about Mexico in this context.

It's easy for us to look back and be happy with the results of Polk's actions. Just look at all the land we got! Just look at how strong we became! But that doesn't mean we have to whitewash how it came to be. Polk was a consequential president who deserves serious study, but the bulk of this book that describes the events of his presidency dispassionately, together with the epilogue that abruptly excuses his every questionable motive and action, just don’t add up to a full or satisfying portrait of the president or his lasting legacy.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert W. Merry's A Country of Vast Designs is an unusually laudatory biography of James K. Polk. Merry ably sketches Polk's rise through politics as a hardworking, ambitious if seemingly undistinguished protege of Andrew Jackson. Lacking Old Hickory's charisma, he nonetheless had a sharp mind that allowed him to outwit his opponents and prove a remarkably effective leader - first as Speaker of the House, then as President. Merry is undoubtedly correct that Polk's term of office was extremely consequential, resulting in both the settlement of a lingering border dispute with Britain over Oregon and the Mexican War. But Merry oversells his case by arguing the Mexican War, rather than an act of imperial aggression, was a justified war by a democracy seeking to bring freedom, enlightenment and Manifest Destiny to the American West. It's a startling argument to read in a 21st Century history, and for all Merry's colorful portrayals of the war's battles and leading personalities, it leaves a bad taste in the reader's mouth. Thus you have a book that makes a strong case for an overlooked president's importance, that captures the angry congressional and public debates over Western Expansion, but also argues that such debates were pointless because America is always righteous. John O'Sullivan could not have written it better - or Paul Wolfowitz, for that matter.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

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“A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent” is Robert Merry’s third book and was published in 2009. He is a former Wall Street Journal Washington correspondent and executive at Congressional Quarterly. Currently the editor of The National Interest, his most recent book “Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians” was published in 2012.

Although Merry’s biography of Polk is substantial in length (at nearly five-hundred pages of text) it is not a thorough account of Polk’s entire life. Instead, like Jon Meacham’s biography of Andrew Jackson, it is the detailed review of a presidency rather than a full-scale biography of a man who was once president. As a result, while it examines the Polk presidency in significant detail it is less fulsome in exploring his personal life or his family relationships.

After a brisk jog through Polk’s early life, the biography slows to a more measured pace as the forty-eight year old Polk languishes following two failed attempts to win back his post as Tennessee’s governor. Polk’s political rehabilitation involves a half-serious pursuit of his party’s nomination for the vice presidency and Merry provides a front-row seat to the 1844 Democratic convention which, instead, selects Polk as the party’s presidential nominee.

The author follows with a consistently interesting (if occasionally overly-detailed) story of Polk’s election and four years as president. While few readers will mistake this for a great narrative in the style of McCullough or Chernow, it is very thorough, well written and analytical biography. And although Merry is generally sympathetic with Polk and the controversy surrounding his legacy (mostly relating to his pursuit of the Mexican-American War), he is hardly uncritical of the eleventh president.

Due to the near-exclusive focus on Polk’s presidency we develop a full appreciation for Polk’s political strengths, weaknesses and priorities, but little sense for who he was as a person. Merry describes a bold president – with precious little time to waste – who was an introverted micromanager, a poor delegator and fearful of face-to-face conflict. But it is difficult to guess what he was like while relaxing away from the office (if, indeed, he did such a thing). Nor do we really understand how he may have grappled with his own status as a slaveholder.

Perhaps ironically, one of the biography’s key strengths is the fact that Merry explored Polk’s four years as president largely from an inward-looking perspective based on his remarkably attentive presidential diary and extensive correspondence. But since this insight is focused on his “office life” the advantage accrues entirely to our understanding of his public service.

Merry convincingly separates Polk from the many extraordinarily deficient presidents of his era by emphasizing the enormity of his accomplishments, achieved in spite of his flaws, within the context of the fractious times and his lack of broad political support. Nearly as useful, although somewhat less pursued, is Merry’s effort to diagnose the chasm between Polk’s popularity among modern historians and the relative obscurity within which he resides among the masses.

Overall, Merry’s biography is principally a portrait of the Polk presidency; it delivers best while exploring the political environment and policy matters faced by his administration. Readers seeking a thrilling journey through Polk’s life will find this book too stiff and the focus too slanted toward his political career. But for someone with an interest in this era or a focus on Polk’s presidency this is a fascinating look at a highly-regarded but surprisingly obscure single-term president.

Overall rating: 3¾ stars

[Mara · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the first time in my presidential reading endeavors, I felt like I might have been better off giving in to chronology. With Polk everything is all Jacksonian this, Jacksonian that, Jackson, Jackson, Jackson. Polk was Lil Bow Wow to Jackson’s Snoop Dog (though they went with the decidedly lamer ‘handles’ of Young and Old Hickory, respectively). Long of the short- not really knowing what it means to be Jacksonesque had me at a real disadvantage. (In fact, if you’re looking for a competent summary of this book then you should probably check out James Thane’s review).

Author Robert Merry attempts to curb the popular impression that Polk was all about slaveholding expansionism. It could just be the yankee in me, but I have a tough time getting past Polk’s push for slavery to march onward with manifest destiny. There are definitely undertones of the he was just going with the times. defense Even Abraham Lincoln strategically timed the Emancipation Proclamation such that it could be bolstered by public sentiment. However, given that three Ole Miss students hung a noose around the neck of the statue of the university’s first black student just last week, I’m just not feeling all that forgiving. Polk basically saw abolitionists as the trouble makers.

All of that being said, without Polk I may never have had the chance to ford that final river in Oregon Trail
(the game), so there’s that too.



There was certainly plenty of Polk’s foreign and domestic policy to digest. Evidently Mexico was a pretty hot piece of real estate back in the day and we came pretty close to having some very un-united states. Polk probably would have been really good at playing Risk or Stratego or whatever those games with maps on the board are. Also, electoral politics are kind of a pain in the ass, so Polk was pretty clever in that whole declaring he was just going to serve for one term.

As for A Country of Vast Designs as an audiobook, trying to keep things straight while listening to latitudes was definitely an elusive goal even with Michael Prichard’s masterful narration.

[Aaron Million · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is billed first as a biography of James K. Polk, the eleventh U.S. President. But it is mainly a (good) review and discussion of his administration. The first several chapters actually focus more on Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay than they do on Polk; he is more of a secondary character. Merry zooms through his career in the House of Representatives (including being Speaker of the House) and says next to nothing about his two years as Governor of Tennessee in 1839-1841. He also does not mention what Polk did between his defeat for re-election as Governor in 1841 and his election to the Presidency in 1844. What was he doing? Was he practicing law? Merry does not think it is important to say. During this section of the book, when Merry does talk about Polk, it is predominantly in his describing his relationship with Jackson.

The book becomes much better once Polk is elected. Merry goes through Polk's cabinet choices and how he came to make them. He then delves immediately into Polk's four states goals: 1) new tariff legislation; 2) new federal treasury system; 3) acquisition of Oregon from Great Britain; and 4) acquisition of California, New Mexico, Arizona and other land in the West from Mexico. Merry only briefly talks about #1 and #2. The Oregon issue is dealt with well: showing how Polk was somewhat belligerent with Britain and in some respects was quite fortunate that Britain chose not to go to war over the matter.

The biggest chunk of the book deals with the U.S. - Mexican War. Merry provides cogent analysis and a balanced portrait of Polk's behavior as well as that of his cabinet members (including the conniving James Buchanan), Congressmen, and other political players. Polk basically micro-managed the war, involving himself in every conceivable detail. Indeed, he did this in all areas of his administration, and ultimately it helped to cost him his life. Polk's poor relationships with so many people are chronicled (Scott, Trist, Taylor, Benton, Calhoun) but they certainly were not totally of Polk's doing.

Polk was a dedicated individual, refusing to rest until he accomplished what he set out to do. In this sense, he was successful. But, in a larger sense, he failed. He prodded and poked Mexico into war; this was a land grab, pure and simple. Polk wanted the land, and he got it, despite having to pay with both money and blood. He was incapable of forming close personal relationships with almost anyone (aside from his wife, Sarah, and Jackson) and this severely hampered him during his time in office. He was not charismatic, nor does it ever appear that he tried to be. He literally worked himself to death, dying only three months after leaving office.

Merry is a good chronicler of the Polk Administration, but his handling of Polk as a person - while not poor - leaves much to be desired for a biographical point of view. More attention needed to be given to his House and gubernatorial careers. While Merry touches on his personal relations with people, it always seems to have a formalized bent to it instead of an up close view. And Merry writes almost nothing about Polk's final few months of life. Overall, a good study of the political side of the Mexico War, but a disappointing "biography" of James K. Polk.

Grade: B-

[rmn · Rating 2 out of 5]

James Polk is the most important president of whom you have probably never heard. Ok, maybe you have heard of him, but you likely have no idea of his influence on the United States. He followed his mentor Andrew Jackson's political philosophy and seized new territory for the US while trying to keep the federal government out of domestic issues. This book is about the most important event of his tenure and his lasting legacy, the Mexican War, which Polk both started and finished.

While this is a phenomenally interesting subject and time period, this book is written as if the author were testing cures for insomnia. It is clear he has done his research, but his writing oscillates between sleep inducing and coma inducing. Plus the author takes a very pro-Polk tone, or at least quickly shakes off criticism of the president despite his deceitful ways. A much much better read on Polk can be found in Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought, but that is not the focus of Howe's book, just a section.

One day someone is going to write a great book comparing Polk to George W. Bush since they both fomented a war, lied to the American people/congress about it, labeled those dissenters as Un-American to keep up public support (Polk said those against the war were giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy and branded them as traitors and treasoners), depended on secrecy, refused to release information to the public (even when ordered to do so by Congress), and then not only lost the support of Congress when the truth came out, but had congress rally against them (Congress passed an amendment in 1848 declaring the war had been "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the US").

The key difference between the Iraq war and "Mr. Polk's War" is that the Mexican War had a finite ending and it brought this country Texas, California, and New Mexico. So in the long run, Polk's machinations can be viewed as having been successful, even though he achieved them in nefarious ways. That is one reason Polk is such an interesting and important president to analyze. Did his means justify the ends (like Jackson's removal of Indians from their lands)?

In short, Polk is a vastly underrated and overlooked president as he successfully schemed to expand the borders of the US. The unintended second derivative effect of this was helping expedite the mounting tension between slave states and non-slave states and thus eventually bringing about Civil War. History has kind of forgotten Polk because he served only one term (by choice), died shortly after his term ended (not by choice), and was soon eclipsed by the Civil War. That said, his lasting influence on the US is probably as big as just about any other president. This book contains most, if not all, of the relevant facts, it just fails in presenting the material in a lively or engaging way.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

From a political has been to the first dark horse President candidate to the first President to preside over a war ending with the annexation of foreign territory, the last five years of James K. Polk’s life changed a lot about the United States. A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent by Robert W. Merry reveals how America’s first dark horse President came to the White House and how he changed the office and the changed the nation through expansion to the Pacific.

Merry sets the stage to cover Polk’s presidency by setting up his election in 1844 with a history of the Jacksonian era to that point and place Polk and his main opponent Henry Clay occupied in it. After two electoral defeats, Polk’s attempt at a political comeback by being presumptive Democratic nominee Martin Van Buren’s running mate is upended with John Tyler’s decision to annex Texas that eventually resulted in the pro-annexation Polk to get the Presidential nomination instead of the anti-annexation Van Buren. His close victory over Clay appeared to call for Texas annexation and passed Congress just before his inauguration in March 1845. Merry then sets about explaining how Polk obtained his four goals for his promised single term (obtaining California, settling the Oregon dispute with Britain, lowering tariffs, and creating an independent treasury). The domestic priorities were covered in a few chapters, much of the book was on Polk’s negotiation Oregon and the situation with Mexico regarding Texas annexation, the border, and later the war. Polk’s administrative talents, working relationships with his cabinet (mostly Secretary of State James Buchanan), and relationships with members of Congress from both parties were detailed throughout the historical flow of events. Merry’s overview of Polk’s place in history amongst scholars and how he is viewed by the public is examined as an epilogue to a transformative single Presidential term.

Merry’s biographical work on James Polk is probably the best part of this historical examination of his presidency followed by his explanations of the internal fissures within the Democratic Party of the mid-to-late 1840s. His interpretation of Polk’s very hands on approach to day-to-day business in the White House on top of managing a foreign war culminating in his death soon after leaving office was well established. Also, his description of the Mexican’s internal political merry-go-round and factions leading up to and throughout the war was a welcome addition to the history. However, Merry’s analysis of the Whig Party and the slavery issue in this period are major issues of the book that should caution readers. The Whigs were portrayed as an elitist only view of America that only those it would benefit supported and that Henry Clay’s American System was soundly rejected, unfortunately the likes of Abraham Lincoln would disagree that the Whig platform was for elites and today’s debating of infrastructure improvements shows that in fact Clay’s American System still influences politics today. But Merry’s attempt to push the big blowup over slavery to being a result of the war with Mexico is problematic as Polk’s victory was the result of an anti-slavery party—the Liberty Party—costing Clay votes in New York and thus the election. It also paints over the fact that for over a decade John C. Calhoun had made every issue he could be about slavery to inflame fellow Southerners and that slavery itself was a banned topic in the House of Representatives because of the gag rule.

A Country of Vast Designs shows how during one single term the United States changed its trajectory both nationally and internationally. Robert W. Merry’s while providing a good biography of James K. Polk and the internal workings of his administration, but either misunderstands or completely misrepresents the opposition and the political role of slavery during this time thus giving a false impression to those not well versed in the era.

[Jay Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the Epilogue, author Robert W. Merry perhaps best presents the paradox which is the Presidency of James Polk: "probably no other president presents such a chasm between actual accomplishment and popular recognition."

The four years of Polk's presidency -- 1844 to 1848 -- are as significant to our America as any others, beyond the presidencies of Washington, Lincoln and FDR. During this time, Texas, Oregon, California, New Mexico and Arizona together with land comprising Washington State, parts of Colorado, Utah, Oklahoma and Nebraska became states or territories. He also established an economic structure between tariff and banking reforms, which furthered the explosive growth of the country through the end of the century.

Polk, perhaps the most receding of personalities in a epoch of Clay, Calhoun, Jackson, Van Buren, Scott and Benton, succeeded through clarity of goals and then numbing persistence. The author shows us the idiosyncrasies of the other personalities of the age by way of showing Polk's strength in relief. For Polk the outcome was the thing; for almost all the others who shared this stage of destiny they, themselves were the end. Scott v.Trist; Fremont v. Kearny; Calhoun v. Benton; Buchanan v. everyone. What great fun and how true the mirror is to our political leaders of today.

The only genuine moment of Polk pique, which the author identifies, is in his third annual message to Congress when, frustrated over what he sees as the ongoing politicalization of his War with Mexico, he accuses his distractors as "aiding and abetting" the enemy. Sound familiar?

Through Polk, there is also some understanding of the American political mind-set as it came to the perpetuation of slavery. Once our founders failed, in the 1780's, to address this "peculiar institution" and simply kicked it down the road for future generations, there was a growing understanding that for us to address slavery was for us to be prepared to address our dissolution as a Union. Valor in many ways was seen as how do we, as a country, move forward, without ripping ourselves apart. Much of the opposition (represented by the Wilmot Proviso and other incendiary legislative faints) to Polk's expansionist worldview was that we would have to revisit slavery for each new territory claimed. Thus, in each of the four congresses of his presidency, Polk desperately tried to frame the discussions in non-sectarian ways so as to not frame an issue on a North / South divide. He would prefer a Whig and Democrat balance to a sectarian one. The irony at the center of Polk's Manifest Destiny is perhaps that without these new territories and the question of how they were to be governed, the country might have taken much longer to push past the "pact with the devil" aspects of the 1820's Missouri Compromise. The War with Mexico, the annexation of Texas and the Treaty with England for all land below the 49 parallel (Oregon) in fact forced us to ask what in its full capacity is this "Destiny?" And the answer to that implicit question of Polk's actions came less than 15 years later as we became a country "without conscience for slavery."

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Presidential ratings of greatness by historians normally rank James K. Polk pretty high. This book answers the question: "Why?" Polk was a flawed president, in that his personality was not exactly fit for the office. Nonetheless, he left an estimable record (whatever one thinks of the means to the ends) and he epitomized the spirit of "Manifest Destiny."

He, with votes from a fractious Congress, changed the structure of the tariff, in the end leading to greater revenue for the treasury. He desired to change how the government handled its money, after the death of the National Bank. Both of these accomplishments were hard fought, against multiple factions within both parties in Congress. He also wanted to expand the geographical scope of the United States, with designs on Oregon, California, and Texas (at that point an "independent" country).

This book explores his laborious political efforts to bend Congress his way. In the process of his discussion of such matters, the author also introduces to the reader many of the key figures in the politics of the day--Andrew Jackson, Martin van Buren, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and on and on. Understanding the lineup of key actors allows one to get a better sense of the political dynamics of the time.

The greater part of discussion is on the Mexican War. Here, Polk was essentially trying to coax the Mexican army to strike the first blow, which would justify an American military response. There is a nice description of the war and the ultimate American victory over Mexican forces. The end result--with Oregon and California and Texas and other bits of the southwest added to the United States of America--was a major extension of the country.

Polk had stated that he would serve only one term when he became the first "Dark House" to win the presidency. In that term, he achieved a great deal. His efforts also increased regional tensions as there was heated debate about admission of new territories/states as either slave or free.

At any rate, this is a fine biography of a President with personal limitations but one who had a major effect on the country's history. . . .

[Elyse✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Polk knew how to get a job done. He said if he was elected he would serve only one term and he kept his word. And he got done what he wanted to accomplish. Can't help but admire such doggedness even though some of his policies were underhanded. Lincoln didn't like him.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

During the presidency of James K. Polk (1795 - 1849), the boundaries of the United States expanded by one-third to stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. The finances of the United States were, after many years, put on a firm footing by the establishment of the Treasury. And the United States enjoyed economic growth and prosperity by Polk's deft handling of the tariff. Yet, Polk fought a difficult two-year war with Mexico and narrowly averted a second war with Great Britain. The territorial expansion strained the uneasy relationship between North and South over slavery and led to the Civil War. In his thoughtful book, "A Country of Vast Designs" Robert Merry examines Polk's life and presidency. The book covers an important period of American history that frequently is overlooked, and it argues for the nature of Polk's accomplishment in the face of recent criticism of his presidency. Merry is the president and editor of the Congressional Quarterly.

A Tennessean and a prodigy of Andrew Jackson, Polk served a single term as the eleventh president (1845-1849). He secured the nomination of the Democratic Party in 1844 as a compromise candidate when a deadlock developed among the favored contenders. He narrowly defeated the Whig candidate, Henry Clay. An introverted, dour individual with little charisma or obvious leadership skills, Polk set himself clear goals for his presidency which he achieved by virtue of perseverance, commitment, and maneuver. "I intend myself to be myself President of the U.S." Polk wrote to a political ally shortly after his election. Polk also set himself four goals for his presidency: 1. the settlement of the boundaries of the Oregon Territory with Great Britain, 2. the acquisition of California and other territory from Mexico 3.the reduction of the tariff to make it more a revenue-raising than a protectionist measure and 4. the creation of an independent treasury.

The two domestic goals were important, and Polk achieved them with relative ease. Most of Merry's study involves the former two goals which involved the annexation of Texas began by Polk's predecessor, the settlement of the boundary dispute with Oregon, and ultimately the Mexican War. Lacking skills with people, Polk had a difficult relationship with his Secretary of State, James Buchanan, with his two generals in the Mexican War, Taylor and Scott, and with Congress. He was distrustful and petty and tended to cast aspersions on the motives of his opponents. But Polk had a vision of what came to be called "manifest destiny." He saw the United States as a beacon of individual freedom and opportunity in a world still ruled, for the most part, by despots.

Polk began with a warlike attitude to Britain, but he was able to form attitudes in and out of Congress for a favorable settlement of the Oregon boundary question. The war Polk precipitated with Mexico was controversial in his own day and remains so today. Polk underestimated the difficulty of the war and the extent and character of the opposition to it. Equally important, he failed to understand how the war and the acquired territories would exacerbate tension over slavery. Early in the conflict, a Pennsylvania congressman named Wilmot introduced a famous proviso that bears his name forbidding the extension of slavery into any territories acquired from Mexico. The Wilmot Proviso was the harbinger of the break between North and South.

Merry clearly admires Polk for his persistence and accomplishment. He also attempts to rehabilitate Polk, to a large degree, from the charge brought by many of Polk's contemporaries and still heard today that Polk fought an unjust, aggressive war against Mexico. Merry argues that the war was not fought at the behest of the "Slave Power" but rather had supporters and opponents in both North and South. He suggests that the equities in favor of Mexico in the period leading up to the conflict were not as strong as is sometimes assumed and that the United States had considerable justification for waging war. Finally, Merry suggests that a good deal of political understanding is required in order to avoid an overly-moralizing approach to the conduct of the United States. He writes (p.476):

"The moralistic impulse, when applied to the Mexican War, misses a fundamental reality of history: It doesn't turn on moral pivots but on differentials of power, will, organization, and population. History moves forward with a crushing force and does not stop for niceties of moral suasion or concepts of political virtue. Mexico was a dysfunctional, unstable, weak nation whose population wasn't sufficient to control all the lands within its domain. The United States by contrast was a vibrant, expanding, exuberant experiment in democracy whose burgeoning population thrilled to the notion that it was engaging in something big and historically momentous. The resulting energy .... generated a political compulsion toward expansion into largely unpopulated lands that seemed to beckon with irresistible enticement."

The author makes clear that Polk was an acolyte of the larger than life Andrew Jackson. As Speaker of the House in the mid-1830s he unquestioningly backed Jacksonian positions that opposed a privately-held national bank and internal improvements and favored Indian removal. Having returned to Tennessee, it was Polk's unmitigated expansionistic leanings, also in accord with Jackson's, that rescued him from a moribund political career as a twice-defeated candidate for governor of Tennessee, with only an outside chance of being the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, into the presidency in 1844. However, as this book demonstrably shows, the politics and actions taken to effect geographical expansion were far more turbulent, controversial, difficult, and consequential than anticipated, virtually consuming his entire presidency.

The author relies on an extensive diary that Polk maintained to provide not only a window into Polk's thinking, but also details of his dealings with many political and military personalities, some hostile, some not. It is interesting, given that he was a bit of a loner, that Polk met with his entire cabinet, which remained largely intact over his term, twice or more a week throughout his presidency, if not relying on their counsel, using them at least as a sounding board. One of the strangest aspects of his presidency was his tolerance for the repeated disloyalty and erratic advice given by James Buchanan, his Secretary of State and a decade later perhaps the worst US president ever. The author notes that Polk was politically astute - he could count the votes on his issues - and was never outworked, but was not a leader of men and could not bring himself to confront those who scarcely gave a second thought to undermining him. Polk's exculpations of their misdeeds were tortuous, indicating an inability to fully deal with realities.

Instead of the Polk administration being a well-oiled machine, the author shows that their dealings with England and, especially, Mexico were riff with contentiousness, even belligerence, misunderstandings, intrigues, and not a small measure of incompetence. Part of that was due simply to the slow communications of that era, though immensely improved over previous decades, but more so due to numerous intransigent personalities, including Polk's. The Oregon situation is a case in point: the compromise finally reached was essentially the same proposed years before in the Tyler administration, but threats of war apparently had to be injected before cooler thoughts could prevail.

The Mexican situation was even worse in terms of the sheer dysfunctionality and willful equivocation at every turn. It is nonsense to even suggest that a corrupt regime, in constant turmoil, of an impoverished state could have been more than a minor nuisance to the US. It can hardly be doubted that the assault on a contingent of Zachery Taylor's troops on the Texas side of the Rio Grande River was welcomed by the US to justify declaring war on Mexico, making the seizure of California, New Mexico, and adjacent areas defensible. The two years that it took to end military operations against Mexico is not a testament to the difficulty of the campaign, but speaks to repeated military and diplomatic ineptitude and naivete. The Polk administration ignored the view that Mexico had no capability of settling those regions; within a generation they would have become part of the US by default.

The author only lightly touches on the tremendous ramifications to the US polity in acquiring vast western lands. The Wilmot Proviso, introduced as an amendment to Mexican legislation, which barred slavery from any territory acquired from Mexico, should have been seen as far more than an unpleasant obstacle to the Polk administration. The author scarcely acknowledges that a vigorous abolition movement even existed at the time Polk became president, which also reflects the thinking of Polk, a slave owner - a topic that the author inexplicably hardly touches upon. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had achieved a delicate balance among slaveholding states, but the Mexican War essentially stirred up the proverbial hornet's nest. The Compromise of 1850 could not right matters. The horrific Civil War soon followed.

Merry has written a challenging study of Polk's presidency and about the importance of purpose and determination in the achievement of worthwhile political goals. This is a valuable book for readers interested in American history.

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this book was amazing. I love this author so much because he goes into so much detail. I read this book with my friend Daniel and I suggested it because of the William McKinley book I read by the same author. We both love American history and wanted to learn more about the Mexican-American War and I always love learning about Presidents!

So here is my one and only issue with the book: It can be a little hard to follow timeline-wise. The writing style isn't poor quality or choppy at all, and that's now what I'm trying to suggest here. Merry actually does a great job writing, being consistent, and blending informative detail with a well flowing story. It's just that there are several threads that happen throughout Polk's presidency that he is devoting his Presidency to and the threads sometimes weave in and out of focus. To give an example of what I'm referring to you might read a chapter that begins in February and ends in March or so, and it will take place in Washington D.C.. The next chapter may start in January of the same year and it will be a little confusing at first. But then you find out that this chapter discusses what had happened down in Oregon, or Texas, or Mexico, or California while the other chapter was going on at the same time.
Really it's nice and it shows how thorough Merry is in his detail. He tries to keep everything chronological, it just takes a little getting used to and I remember thinking to myself several times, "Wait, didn't I already read past the date before? What's going on?". So just be prepared for that if you take this book on. (I remember the McKinley book being in a similar fashion).

This book was a great look into the Mexican War, one that doesn't get but a passing glance in history books or classes. This book also brought a lot of light to key figures of the time period, so many that listing them would take up too much space here. But I really like the Second Party System of American Politics and history and this book takes place in the middle third of that roughly 30 year time span. It was interesting, in the battle between the Whigs and the Democrats I'm used to being a diehard Whig, yet this book made me think a little more about the stances between Whigs and Democrats of the time.

Polk is a fairly respectable President, for a Democrat of course. For only having 1 term, and being persistent about sticking to his word to only serve 1 term, he accomplished quite a lot. His list was short: Reduce the Tariff of 1842 (not my favorite thing for him to focus on during his presidency), Reestablish the Independent Treasury System (something I need to learn more about but was basically what the USA leaned on to for managing the money supply inbetween the times of Hamilton's National Bank and the Federal Reserve System we still use today), End the Border dispute between the United States and Britain over the Oregon Territory by acquiring all or some of the land (turns out it was half), and Acquire the land that makes up California and bring it into the Union (done through the War with Mexico). Yet, as you can see, his list was also ambitious. The commendable thing is that he was able to do all these things well within his four years of office and even with a Congress (HoR) dominated with his opposing party - the Whigs. For a president to make such an impact on the history of America to do all these things without an impending crisis going on [think George Washington securing the nation's birth with his steady hand of leadership right after the Revolutionary War; Lincoln doing all he can to keep the existing Union together while simultaneously fixing the broken Union, and steering the country through a civil war; or Roosevelt radically changing the role of government in so many different aspects of people's lives, during the Great Depression and WWII] is truly a remarkable thing. Merry ranks Polk up with Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson for this very reason. Men who shaped America, and their parties for generations to come, within times of peace. The difference with President Polk is that he had 1 term whereas these others had 2 terms.

President Polk has some admirable qualities such as his ability to organize his party - at a time when I was splintering in different directions and getting too heavy to support its own weight. It isn’t easy to corral a Congress or a political party, especially during a time of Sectionalism where different parts of the country are prioritizing different desires and directions. Yet he also had faults like his inability to deal directly with confrontation - to the point where he kept a Secretary of State around that would consistently undermined his leadership at Cabinet meetings and within his administration in general.
But I think the thing that surprised me the most about Polk was his stance on keeping the Union together at the cost of party fracture. Zachary Taylor - the President who was elected directly after President Polk - has my heart because of the seriousness with which he was willing to fight to keep states from seceding from the United States. What I did know about Polk was that the issue of Slavery bubbled to the surface during his Presidency. And what I know about Polk’s party was that it defended the survival of and even extension of slavery. During Polk’s Presidency, the Mexican War took up just under half of his entire term - 648 days. His Administration was certainly focused on and devoted gargantuan amounts of attention to it. So when I got to the part of this book where “Polk’s War,” as it was called by the Whigs, was over and learned that he still had roughly a year left in office, my first thought was that he was going to be a “lame duck” President. But I was wrong, and should've known because that didn’t quite fit Polk’s personality. Instead Polk used his last months in office to defend against any legislation coming from Congress that would go against the Compromise of 1820. See, what I didn't know about Polk was that he took definitive action to make sure the president set by the Missouri Compromise would be kept because he didn’t want the issue of Slavery to rip the United States apart. Polk reasoned that this legislation that was made by Henry Clay - a party rival for the entire Second Party System turned unlikely friend by the end of Polk’s term - has kept America together so far and could continue to do so. Learning this about Polk made me like him a little bit more, which is saying something for a Democrat. In fact if there were to be a Democrat that I like, as in that would make it to my top 10, Cleveland and now Polk, stand the best chance at it.

[Brian Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you rank Presidents based on the importance of their achievement in the development of the country, Polk must be high on the list. The entire Western United States is his legacy; California, Oregon, Texas, New Mexico as we more or less know them are his achievement. As Merry points out, he achieved his four keystone policy issues and stepped down after his promise to stand for only one term.

Merry's biography reminds me of Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals in a lot of ways. Although it isn't as long or revolutionary, it achieves the same purpose. This is a political biography of a President and his cabinet and how they went to war and features all of the infighting of the age. So if you want to learn about the political side of the Mexican war as well as POTUS 11 Polk's agenda, this is a great book. You certainly can't do better as far as the details of political maneuvering.

Of course, the pretense of war with Mexico as the aggressors has been thoroughly debunked in other books. This is certainly the first undisputed "unjust" war in American history (Lincoln himself fought against it in the House of Representatives). But if you want to know about this episode, this book is thoroughly readable, enjoyable, and comprehensive. An excellent addition to any American history library and probably the best book on Polk.

[L. J. Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've just finished Robert W. Merry's A COUNTRY OF VAST DESIGNS, a history of Polk's presidency. It's a prodigious undertaking at nearly 500 pages but laced with good--in fact impeccable--history front to back. I had long held the bias that Polk was a bit of a martinet but came away from the book with a new respect for the man and the president. What was I thinking? The man formed, in a single four year term, the contiguous U.S. nearly as it is today, with the exception of the Gadsden Purchase. It's well worth the investment if you have any interest in Manifest Destiny. I was a bit disappointed he didn't refer to Edward Fitzgerald Beale, the subject of my RUSH TO DESTINY at any time, as Beale is my favorite character from that period and undertook a hard trip across Mexico to bring Polk and Congress a seven pound gold nugget, proof of the California gold discovery. On that day--Polk kept a detailed diary--he entered, "Nothing of consequence happened today." Well worth the read, filled with names you'll know--Kearny, Scott, Taylor, Fremont, Benton, Lincoln, and on and on. Small of stature, large of ambition and accomplishment, Polk's story is a must for lovers of history. If you're a Californian you'd still be living in Mexico, were it not for Polk.

[Arminius · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to learn about the United States’ 11th President or about the tumultuous 1840’s “A Country of Vast Designs” is a good place to start. James K. Polk was a Tennessean who grew up in the era of Andrew Jackson. In fact, Old Hickory groomed Polk’s political career through the House of Representatives up into the Speakership, through the Tennessee Govern ship and finally to the Presidency. Polk asked Jackson what he needed to do to succeed in politics. Jackson replied to marry a nice woman and picked one out for him. By all accounts the lady he picked, Sarah Childress, made Polk’s perfect companion.

Polk was an extremely hard worker but a very reserved person. He harbored big ideas and worked with every ounce of his steel determination to see them through. He worked his way up to Speaker of the House while Andrew Jackson was President. As the Speaker, he was Jackson’s most loyal congressman. After his 5 year Speakership in the House of Representatives he successfully ran for the Tennessee Governship.

As Governor he promised to regulate banks, bolster education and make internal improvements. However the country was amassed in a recession and this made his goals hard to meet. When his first term ended the Whig Party found a charismatic, colorful, man to challenge Polk. This man was James Jones. Mr. Jones would not debate Polk but would put on campaign performances with wit and ridicule. These skits became fairly popular with the Tennessee citizens. With this strategy he gave Polk a resounding defeat.
However, as the 1844 presidential election rolled around Polk’s lack of a significant enemy due to his nice, polite reserve had him in the thick of the democratic convention nominee race. With Andrew Jackson firmly supporting Polk and very skilled political operatives, he won the Democratic Party’s candidacy for president of the United States.

His opponent was the standard bearer for the Whig Party - Henry Clay. Clay’s platform of federal funding for state improvements and especially his opposition to Texas’s annexation proved to be unpopular. Polk’s promised tariff reduction and the creation of an independent treasury as well as Texas annexation. Polk’s view was more popular. So he won the Presidency.

As President, he promised to serve only one term. He worked furiously to get his goals accomplished. In fact, in his first 18 months he pushed through tariff reduction, an independent treasury and Texas annexation. He also negotiated a firm boundary with Britain in the Oregon territory. This provided the United States with the permanent land to create the states of Washington and Oregon.

Where Polk ran in to trouble was when he wanted to buy California and New Mexico off of Mexico. Mexico did not want to sell these lands despite not having a large population in them. A dispute over Texas’s boarder led to a war with Mexico. Polk used the war to pressure Mexico into selling California and New Mexico. American victories led by Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott helped him to achieve this goal. It however brought a lot of strife to President Polk. The Whig party vilified him because of the war and he lost some popular support. His Secretary of State James Buchanan caused dissention in his cabinet and General Scott, who was leading the war, also caused the president consternation. Also, when the war ended slavery became the hot divisive issue of the day.

When all was said and done, President Polk had increased federal revenue by $9 million due to his tariff reductions. His constitutional treasury became a forerunner to the Federal Reserve and stabilized American currency. But his greatest achievement was that he expanded the United States more than a million square miles, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Gold was found in California shortly after Polk left office. Unfortunately though Polk died just a few months after leaving office leaving behind a nation posed for future greatness.

[Frank Stein · Rating 2 out of 5]

Robert Merry has an amazing story to tell, even more amazing because it has been largely forgotten. From 1845 to 1849, a single-term U.S. President expanded the size of his country by almost half. In a bloody war with Mexico, he captured Texas, California, and most everything in between. At the same time, he successfully negotiated with the British to take full control of what are now the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, a land that had been jointly administered by the two countries since 1818. Domestically, he passed the largest tariff cuts in a generation, and established an independent treasury system to sever the connection between the U.S. government and private banks. James K. Polk had these four goals when he came into office, and he achieved every one of them.

It's a shame that Merry captures so little of this drama in his book. Much of it instead is taken up with near transcriptions of Congressional debates, often on issues so picayune that the reader forgets what they are about three or four pages in. Minor diplomatic parlays, such as the travel of Polk's envoy John Slidell to Veracruz, and then to Havana, and then back to Veracruz, and at some point to Washington and Mexico City, take up whole chapters.

The world awaits a better description of Polk's accomplishments, such as they were. Merry does make a surprising defense of Polk in his conclusion. While often seen as shifty and mendacious, Merry argues that he was merely politic and clever. While many claim the Mexican War was a naked land grab, Merry points out it started in defense of Texas settlers who had endured both brutal and corrupt government from Mexico before cleaving to the United States, and that the United States had legitimate grievances for millions of dollars of damages inflicted on U.S. citizens in Mexico during that country's civil war.

Whatever the merits of the arguments for and against the Mexican War, and for and against Polk, some other, more convincing, book should be the one to make them.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

When we conjure up images of our greatest American Presidents, a handful of names invariably comes up: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, of course; Thomas Jefferson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, too; perhaps Theodore Roosevelt as well.

Today many of us would add one or more from among those who have served in the White House since World War II. However, most historians would say it’s too early to understand the impact of their actions. Virtually anything any President does these days seems important and far-reaching at the time. History may well decide otherwise. The history books can’t be reliably written until all the secret archives have been opened.

A long black hole in our nation’s history

Professional historians aside, few of us are likely to identify any President who served between 1809, when Jefferson left office, until 1861, the year Lincoln moved into the White House. For the overwhelming majority of us, limited by the sketchy history classes of our youth, the middle of the nineteenth century was a black hole in our country’s Presidential history. (One possible exception is the controversial former general, Andrew Jackson, who served from 1829 to 1837. Many historians rank him among our greatest Presidents, and he often creeps into high school history textbooks, with or without a discussion of the blatant racism that drove him.)

A forgotten one-term President

It seems exceedingly unlikely that President James K. Polk would come to many minds as an example of the most important men who have served in the office. Yet a very strong case could be made that Polk’s single four-year term (1845-49) was, indeed, among the most consequential times in U.S. history — and that Polk himself was the prime mover. Robert W. Merry powerfully advances that argument in A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent.

Today, Americans take for granted that the United States is a continental power, its territory stretching uninterruptedly from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Of course, that was far from the case in the early years of the nation. Our territory was added piecemeal over nearly a century to the original 13 colonies. When President Jefferson took office in 1801, the U. S. consisted of just 16 states. American settlers had pushed only as far west as the Mississippi River. Then came the vast Louisiana Purchase when Jefferson bought it from Napoleon in 1803. In 1819, when James Monroe was in the White House, the U.S. purchased Florida from Spain. Apart from Alaska, bought from Russia in 1967 during the Administration of the deservedly long-forgotten Andrew Johnson, and the acquisition of Hawaii by conquest in 1898 under William McKinley, only a sliver of territory in our Southwest (the Gadsden Purchase) came into U.S. possession in the second half of the 19th Century. James K. Polk added all the rest, including nearly all the Southwest and all the Northwest of today’s United States. Just as Jefferson had doubled the continental expanse of the country, Polk added another third.

When America expanded to the Pacific

It would no doubt come as a surprise to most Americans that a nearly forgotten one-term President played such a central role in what was then (and later) called the country’s “Manifest Destiny.” Most of the new territory, though technically purchased by treaty, was in reality the result of a war with Mexico engineered by President Polk. Following the Mexican-American War (1846-48), much of Texas, all of California, and nearly all the land between them, came into the possession of the United States. During those same few years, Polk drove a hard bargain with Great Britain and acquired the Oregon Territory as well, establishing at long last a secure western border with Canada. That enormous chunk of land encompasses the present-day states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Wyoming and Montana.

American politics in the mid-nineteenth century

American politics in the mid-nineteenth century was dominated by three contending forces: the Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, divided between increasingly combative Southern and Northern wings; and the Whig Party, which evolved into the Republican Party in the 185os. Though other issues captured popular attention, the one that hung over the country like a shroud was slavery. With each passing year, slavery loomed ever larger in the balance of political forces not just in Washington, DC, but throughout the nation.

A political career in the shadow of giants

James K. Polk’s political career unfolded in the shadow of giants. During the time he served as Speaker of the House and Governor of Tennessee, five other men loomed much larger in the national consciousness. Three United States Senators, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and James E. Calhoun, dominated the politics of the time along with former Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. Jackson, a Tennessean like Polk, was the younger man’s mentor and idol. Clay was Polk’s greatest rival. Far better known than the former Governor of Tennessee, former President Martin Van Buren was considered certain to win the Democratic nomination for President in 1844. Instead, Polk — considered history’s first “dark horse” candidate for the White House — emerged the winner on the ninth ballot. He had intended to gain only the nomination for Vice President. Bitter sectional and personal rivalries among the leading candidates allowed Polk instead to emerge at the top of the ticket. As part of a bargain with his fellow Democrats, many of whom sought the office for themselves, Polk pledged not to run for reelection.

Four ambitious goals

As President, after winning a narrow victory over Henry Clay, the Whig Party’s candidate, Polk proved himself to be unimaginative, sometimes indecisive, a captive of the patronage politics of the times, and apparently humorless. However, Merry makes clear that Polk brought one supremely important attribute to the office: single-mindedness. At the outset, he set four ambitious goals as President, and he pursued them with nothing less than ferocity. Two involved finance (tariffs and banking), which raised great passion in business circles and on Wall Street. The other goals were to gain new territory for the U.S. in the Mexican Southwest and the bulk of the Northwestern territory disputed by Great Britain. (Polk fully expected he would have to go to war with Mexico, and he feared war with Britain as well.) Against all odds, Polk attained all four goals in the four short years of his Presidency.

When the U.S. and Mexico went to war

The dominant event of Polk’s Presidency was the Mexican-American War, which lasted for most of his time in office. Merry relates in detail how Polk maneuvered the country into war and prosecuted it successfully despite the incompetence and often insubordination of most of his senior generals. Again and again in the course of the conflict, Polk was also defied and undermined by his own Secretary of State — the future President James Buchanan — and breakaway diplomats. Given the disarray of the Mexican government and the poor state of its military, the United States might otherwise well have won the war in months, as Polk had hoped. Instead, it dragged on, costing thousands of lives and the equivalent of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of today’s dollars. More importantly, it left a dark stain on American history and proved to be a harbinger of aggressive US military operations for nearly two centuries to come.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

A commanding biography of Polk, Merry has written a competent and complete story of Polk's life, especially in the lead-up to and during his presidency.

Polk, often considered 'the last good president before the civil war' was a man not expected to become president. But with the issue of slavery splitting the nation and the oversized personalities of many of the leading politicians of the era (most of whom were never fated to reach the presidency) Polk became the compromise candidate for the Democrats. Most interesting, and so well displayed here, are the maneuverings at the nomination convention that led to Polk's ascendancy. Polk was happy to be Van Buren's VP, but after Van Buren disappointed Jackson, he became the anointed choice of Old Hickory, and with brilliant political acumen and able lieutenants, Polk gained control of the Tennessee delegation and broke the stalemate that led ballot after ballot unable to pick between Van Buren, Cass, and a slew of other choices. Polk wasn't even considered until late in the nomination process, and shortly he became the nominee - one derided as unknown and easily beatable by Henry Clay.

But Polk won, if by a small margin, and went on to aggressively pursue his agenda, becoming notable for his ability to work through congress and diplomacy to reach his goals. Still, despite being 'the last good president' before the war, Polk was not at all without his flaws. Despite being stubborn when it came to his goals, he allowed James Buchanan to undermine many of his more minor goals, and Buchanan's presidential ambitions and betrayals were ignored because of Polk's inability to stand up to his wayward secretary of state.

Merry gives us a vivid picture of the man, his successes (which were many) his weaknesses (which were many) and of the personality of someone who kept his nose to the grindstone even if he did succeed, allowing himself no time for relaxation or congratulations. Polk wore himself out in the presidency, and for it he died after only a few months in retirement. As Merry so ably recounts, though not without his critics and failures, Polk left a legacy that included the entirety of the Western United States. Polk served in a pivotal time in American history, and was the last president to succeed in spite of the growing sectional differences. In fact, Polk, though he secured for future generations the familiar geography of the lower 48, also left a legacy that would lead inexorably to the civil war.

This book is an excellent choice as a biography of Polk, for an understanding of the Mexican War, and as a history book in understanding US policy in manifest destiny and the sectional issues that would lead to the civil war. If you are looking for a good overview of this period, oft-neglected, between Jackson and Lincoln, this is a good place to start.

[David Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

As presidential rankings go Polk tends to be in the top third to the middle of the pack, yet is largely unknown to most Americans. After reading this excellent biography I think he deserves more attention. A protégé of Andrew Jackson (hence the nickname Young Hickory), Polk was narrowly elected president as the first dark-horse candidate in 1844, and he limited himself to only one term in office. Yet those four years were pivotal the creating the country that we know today.

Polk, certainly was an ambitious expansionist, but in this he merely reflected the electorate’s desire to expand westward. Mexico, far from being a passive, innocent victim of America’s lust for power and land, was ruled by a succession of corrupt, autocratic governments that administered a republic in name only, one that was distorted by centuries of domination by the Spanish crown and the Roman Catholic Church. The history of political violence throughout the former Spanish Empire is largely a legacy of cruel domination. Es complicado, pero la verdad.

The origins, conduct and results of the war with Mexico dominate the narrative. Polk led the country into war by resorting to what his critics called deep deception. Polk had an iron will that was strengthened by his substantial experience as a legislator in Washington before he won the presidency, including four years as speaker of the House of Representatives. He was well acquainted with the rough-and-¬tumble of Washington rivalries and debates, which he negotiated by keeping his own counsel and mastering an artful ambiguity in his own remarks — traits that could infuriate his adversaries.

Polk was also renowned as an impressive speaker and campaigner despite his small stature, hence nickname Napoleon of the Stump. Despite his stature Polk had larger-than-life ambitions. He combined those ambitions with an absolute determination, as he wrote in a letter to a friend, “to be myself as president of the U.S.”

Much of Polk’s agenda, like lowering tariffs, grew out of battles left over from the 1830s. By contrast, the issues surrounding territorial expansion involved a tangle of diplomatic intrigues and domestic political clashes that opened a new era of intensifying sectional politics. Above all, this reinvigorated expansionism, which culminated in the war with Mexico from 1846 to 1848, pushed the nation’s limits beyond the boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and thereby opened anew the arguments over slavery and the territories that had seemingly been settled by the Missouri Compromise of 1820-21. Pro-slavery Southerners demanded that their peculiar institution be given the equal opportunity to spread into the southern part of the newly acquired areas; antislavery Northerners demanded that slavery be halted. These clashes were the opening battles in the sectional political struggle that led, a dozen years after Polk left office, to the Civil War. The end result, for good or ill, is that the country that James Polk envisioned is the country we now have. A Country of Vast Designs gives us the political story of how it happened.

[Charles Besancon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging book about a controversial US president. Still don’t much care for Polk, but he’s no better or worse than any other wartime president.

[Moses · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brisk history of the Polk years. Sympathetic to Polk but not a hagiography. Relies perhaps too much on a few primary sources, could have used more second opinions.

Overall, a good answer to the question "How did Texas, New Mexico, Oregon, and California become part of the United States?"

[Lars Guthrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

'A Country of Vast Designs' is the second entry in a project I have laid out for myself inspired by two well-received history books from 2009: Merry’s biography of James K. Polk and T.J. Stiles’s biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 'The First Tycoon.' Reading about them prompted a desire to go deeper into Nineteenth Century America.

I put together a short list including these two works, starting with 'What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848' by Daniel Walker Howe, then moving into Polk and Lincoln (with 'Team of Rivals' by Doris Kearns Goodwin), and finishing with the first of the robber barons.

Now I’m farther than halfway into this project (having already begun 'Team of Rivals'), and still enthusiastic, despite the intellectual and physical heft of such social science tomes.

Although I found Merry’s writing style less engaging than Howe’s, and am certainly less sympathetic to his viewpoint, the author of 'A Country of Vast Designs' does make a strong case for Polk. Unassuming in stature and manner, the eleventh president accomplished the goals he set for himself, significant goals which most importantly changed the United States into a country extending 'from sea to shining sea.' He did so while eschewing the bravado (or bluster) of his mentor Andrew Jackson and the manipulation (or chicanery) or Jackson’s failed heir, Martin Van Buren.

It has been a commonplace assumption, backed by objections of the day (Thoreau’s jail term is so often cited), that the Mexican-American War was unjust aggression by a bully taking advantage of a weak neighbor. As Merry points out, Mexico was not entirely innocent as the conflict ignited.

The initial battles on the Rio Grande were not just the result of provocation by troops commanded by Zachary Taylor, a general who turned out to be quite troublesome for Polk. They were also caused by Mexican forces representing a corrupt country that failed to recognize political realities. Merry does neglect to really address the issue of imperialism implicit in manifest destiny, whether that imperialism was by followers of Spanish or English traditions.

He acknowledges the divisions caused by slavery, and Polk’s avoidance of those divisions. 'To Polk’s undisturbed slaveholder’s mind,' he writes, 'the nation would be just fine so long as this issue could be kept out of the hands of abolitionist firebrands.' But Merry himself stays frustratingly neutral on slavery, and does not seem to see the irony in the fact that America’s expansion only exacerbated the conflict between two ways of life, one of them based on the idea of human property and its exploitation.

These larger criticisms, however, did not take away from my enjoyment of Merry’s recounting of the day-to-day struggles of Polk as he obsessively and compulsively worked to achieve his goals. Zachary Taylor was not the only subordinate of the president who subverted his policies. Polk had to deal with a barrage of backstabbers, as well as the expected frontal opposition by Whigs and Northern Democrats.

The cast of characters involved here contains the illustrious—Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams—but it’s the lesser personalities that made for an interesting story, such as the vain general Winfield Scott, and, in particular, Polk’s deceitful and equivocating Secretary of State, James Buchanan.

Because the presidents between Jackson and Lincoln were either lackluster or lacking—Buchanan tops lists of our worst chief executives—this period of history is often presented as a series of legislative compromises and a bad decision by the Supreme Court, all to stave off the moral quandary that had been undermining the country since its inception.

It’s an accurate way to portray the era, but it makes for a colorless, dull reading of what was happening in Washington, D.C. The war, the Gold Rush—it’s events outside of the capital that excite most authors. In giving Polk his due, and by detailing his tortured pas de deux with Buchanan, Merry shows us how intriguing the personal intrigues inside WAshington were, and how exciting that history can be.

Polk was the first 'dark horse' presidential candidate, but a number of unlikely contenders followed him—among them Abraham Lincoln. The deal-making and conniving that went on behind the scenes to avoid dissension and win elections are just as thrilling to read about as more exemplary actions by more exemplary leaders. I’m going to keep my eye out for works about the late 1840s and the 1850s that really exploit such a narrative. Bad guys like Buchanan, or Richard Nixon, are condemnable, contemptible….and entertaining.

Politics is personal, and Merry earns my approval for showing that to be true.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sought out Robert Merry’s “A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, The Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent” seeking a biography on one of the most obscure yet effective presidents, James Knox Polk. Polk left a legacy unrivaled by most presidents. In one term he presided over the annexation of the Republic of Texas into the Union, acquired the Oregon Territory from Great Britain while evading war, and the cession of the American Southwest from Mexico following victory of the Mexican-American War. This massive expansion of nearly 600,000 square miles of new U.S. territory connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, dubbed “manifest destiny”, along with a major tariff reduction on U.S. imports, and the re-establishment of independent Federal Treasury, were all acquired in Polk’s one any only prolific term, implementing all his major campaign pledges.

A Country of Vast Designs is more an historical account of the 11th president than a true biography of the man. While it lacks a true biographical narrative, it provides a lens of this overlooked yet consequential period of American history through the eyes of Polk and his administration. The book does provide a brief biographical background of Polk and his rise to the presidency as a Jacksonian Democrat (and Andrew Jackson mentee), laying the groundwork for his unintended selection as the Democrat nominee facing off against Andrew Jackson nemesis and congressional giant Henry Clay, the founder of the Whig Party. Polk spent five terms in congress before rising to Speaker of the House, going on to being elected to Governor of Tennessee for one term before facing embarrassing defeat before rising to the presidency.

Merry is thorough in his account of the political battles of the day, delving into the minutiae of the congressional and senatorial machinations to Polk’s expansionist policies which at times can be a less than compelling albeit analytical narrative. Even the accounts of the Mexican-American War’s military conflicts and battlefield tactics feel largely replaced with the political reactions to them. We are also introduced to other defining characters of the day including Polk’s Secretary of State and future President James Buchanan, southern agitator and South Carolina Congressman John C. Calhoun, Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, General Winfield Scott, and General Zachary Taylor, who would succeed Polk in the presidency.

Merry describes Polk as “a smaller than life figure, with larger than life ambitions.” A brooding personality and a diminutive figure, Polk’s success as a politician were not a result of his personality or charisma, both extremely lacking, but of his immense obsession for achievement, often working every waking hour on his political ambitions. A micro-manager who shied away from direct confrontation, he was compulsively driven, calculating, laborious, and effective. A true political chess master.

While Polk is a largely forgotten president, he is often placed amongst the upper echelon of U.S. Presidents by presidential historians. Merry concludes that “probably no other president presents such a chasm between actual accomplishment and popular recognition”. Perhaps his lack of personal magnetism is to blame. But its also speculated that his expansionist zeal brought the extension of slavery into the new territories to the forefront of American political debate, fracturing the country into sectional party factions, and triggering the impetus of the Civil War, has ultimately undermined his reputation. Nevertheless, Merry has contributed a thorough account of this overlooked yet immensely consequential president and period of American history.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

How many heads of state are responsible for adding over 500,000 square miles to their countries? Polk accomplished this in three different initiatives (Texas, Oregon and California + from the Mexican War.) The expansion is only one of his four main accomplishments in only one term.

Merry describes the difficulties. Polk was beset with people problems. Prominent in his administration were those who aspired to his job. He had friends like Giddeon Pillow who caused him embarrassment. It was a time of adventurers such as John Fremont and Nicholas Trist who, when they were far from Washington, took policy into their own hands. The issue of slavery, on which there was no middle ground, hung over everything.

Why is it that this President with four big accomplishments is so little known? Is it because in dying (not as a martyr) soon after his presidency his rivals were able to seize the conversation and define him early on? Is it because he does not have a legacy of schools, libraries or hospitals bearing his name? In the same vein, is it because he was childless with no descendants to attend meetings, write books or generally keep the flame? Is it that crediting the expansion opens a discussion the Mexican War and its dubious origins? Polk was a (absentee) slave owner. (Merry only mentions this in saying he made a visit to his plantation.) Does extolling Polk open up this national wound?

I was waiting for this very book. Last year I read "Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency". Merry's book provides more dimension. While the Borneman is very good, but if you were to chose between the two, this one is a tad longer, but much richer.