The one overshadowing issue of the time, however, was terri torial expansion. Polk was an ardent expansionist, but the old idea that his policy was determined entirely by a desire to advance the interests of slavery is no longer accepted. As a matter of fact, he was personally in favour of insisting upon 4o' as the boundary in Oregon, and threw upon Congress the responsibility for accepting as the boundary. He approved the acquisition of California, Utah and New Mexico, territory from which slavery was excluded by geographical and climatic conditions. Further more a study of his manuscript diary shows that he opposed the efforts of Walker and Buchanan in the cabinet, and of Daniel S. Dickinson (1800-66) of New York and Edward A. Hannegan (d. 1859) of Indiana, in the Senate, to retain the whole of Mexico, territory in which slavery might have thrived. At the close of his term (March 4, 1849) Polk retired to his home in Nashville, Tenn., where he died on June 15, See John S. Jenkins, James Knox Polk (185o), and L. B. Chase, History of the Polk Administration (185o), both of which contain some documentary material, but are not discriminating in their method of treatment. George Bancroft contributed a good short
sketch to J. G. Wilson's Presidents of the United States (1894). He made copies of the Polk manuscripts and was working upon a detailed biography at the time of his death in 1891. These copies, now deposited in the Public library, New York city, contain a diary in 24 typewritten vols., besides some correspondence and other private papers. They have been used by James Schouler in his Historical Briefs (1896), and by E. G. Bourne in an article entitled "The Proposed Absorption of Mexico in 1847-1848," published in the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1899, i.
157-169 (1900). Bourne discusses the part which Polk took in pre venting the complete absorption of Mexico. See also the Diary of James K. Polk . . . 1845 to 1849 (1910), edit. by M. M. Quaife ; R. L. Schuyler, "Polk and the Oregon Compromise of 1846," Pol. Sci. Quart., vol. xxvi. p. (Lancaster, Pa., 1911) ; E. I. McCormac, James K. Polk (1922) ; J. S. Bassett, The Southern Plantation Overseer as Revealed in His Letters (1925) A. Nevins, ed., Polk: The Diary of a President, (1929). (W. R. Sm.)