Tuesday, November 14, 2006

James K. Polk: From Sea to Shining Sea

With this being Geography Awareness Week and with next week being Thanksgiving it might be appropriate to take a look at the presidency of James K. Polk. He was the first president to govern our nation from sea to shining sea and was the first president to host a Thanksgiving dinner in the White House.

Polk was the first ‘dark horse’ elected to the office of president. He had been the governor of Tennessee, had served in Congress, and was considered to be a good ‘Jacksonian’. In fact, one nickname given to Polk was ‘Little Hickory’ since he was a great friend of Andrew Jackson.

At one point Polk made the following observation regarding the office of president, “No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure.”

Find out how Polk created an America from sea to shining to sea by reading the rest of this post here at American Presidents Blog.

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