Rockport
History Book Club
The Life of an
American President
Wednesday, June 30, 2021
Wednesday, June 30, 2021. The Life of an American President. Suggest a review of the 46 Presidents of the United States. Read
biography of one or more Presidents. Possible topics for discussion are the
major policies, achievements, strengths, failures and weaknesses relating to
domestic policy, foreign policy, immigration, use of military force. What kind
of world did he live in? What are your thoughts? Are we creating a “more
perfect union”? Does history show U.S. presidential politics getting more or
less venial today than historically? [Proposed by Craig Cervo]
Merry, Robert W. A Country of Vast Designs: James K.
Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent. 2009,
New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. 576 pp.
James Knox Polk, in just one term, from 1845 to 1849,
made a huge impact upon the United States. With his leadership, America
expanded to acquire Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Washington,
Oregon, Idaho and Arizona. He pledged to serve only one term, and that’s what
he did, but in those four years, he really accomplished some important
things.
Polk was in some ways a chip off the old block of Old
Hickory, Andrew Jackson. A Democrat from
Tennessee, he served at a time when the pressure to end slavery, and the
efforts to retain it, were reaching the breaking point. He was not a “people”
person like Jackson. As a matter of
fact, he didn’t really seem to like people.
He was a “procedure” person. He
was all about doing whatever it took to advance the goals of the Democratic
Party.
Polk’s predecessor, the renegade Whig John Tyler, had set
the stage for annexation of the Republic of Texas into the Union. The prospect of annexing Texas appeared as
part of an overall scheme to extend the United States to the Pacific Ocean, at
the same time cutting off a possible British scheme to connect Canada with
their Oregon territory, and then perhaps take over California, and head the
Americans off at the pass.
Slave states and Abolition states saw Texas
differently. Southerners wanted Texas to
join as a slave state, which would give them more votes, more political weight,
and, if they should have to secede from the Northern states, more of a Slaveholding
Confederacy. Northerners wanted no part
of Texas if it meant another slave state.
Texas joined the Union in Polk’s first year, 1845, and
then the trouble began. At that time,
the southern border between Texas and Mexico was in dispute, and Polk prepared
to send his army south to straighten things out. His lead general was a crusty prima donna
named Winfield Scott. Polk wanted Scott
to marshal his troops and head down to Texas, but Scott dillied and dallied,
and questioned whether he had the President’s backing.
Scott wrote letters to the Secretary of War and shot off
his mouth as if he thought he was bulletproof, even though he himself was a
Whig, working for a Democrat in the Executive Mansion. Scott was a thorn in Polk’s hide.
However, Polk didn’t fire Scott—he simply elevated
another general, Zachary Taylor, (1784-1850), and
sent him down to Texas. When Polk left
office in 1849, he was succeeded by Taylor.
Taylor led the American forces admirably in opposing the
Mexicans at the Nueces River, the northern boundary, according to Mexico, and
150 miles north of the Rio Grande River, the boundary according to the
U.S. Soon Taylor had the Mexicans on the
run. They were in such a hurry to get back south across the Rio Grande that 300
drowned in the crossing.
There was a lot of opposition in the
country to war with Mexico. Whigs claimed that Polk trampled the Constitution
and deceived the electorate to manufacture an illegal war for shady purposes,
without the support of the public. But
indeed, Polk had much public support for war with Mexico. [It seems as if modern presidents have been
accused of “manufacturing illegal wars” like Lyndon Johnson with the Tonkin
Gulf incident, and G.W. Bush with Iraqi nuclear weapons.]
The War with Mexico lasted 17
months, and Scott did get back in Polk’s good graces and invaded and captured
Mexico City.
At about the same time the Americans
negotiated with the British and finally achieved a settlement that gave the
U.S. the division with Canada around Vancouver Island that exists today.
Still more forces were at work in
Alta California, now known as the State of California, and that became a State
in 1849.
Perhaps no other president presents such a great
difference between actual accomplishment and popular recognition. However, America’s eleventh president’s
accomplishments included a tariff policy that led to prosperity; his ‘Polk
Doctrine’ [expounding U.S. resistance to European meddling in the affairs of
the Western Hemisphere] has been approved and extended; his expansion policy
gave the United States free access to the Pacific. Polk left the White House in March 1849
and returned to his home, Polk Place, in Nashville. The stress of the
presidency had left him in poor health, and he died of cholera that summer, on
June 15, at age 53.
America in 1849, when Polk left office, was a Country of
Vast Designs. Today, it is still digesting those designs as it struggles to
find its place as a sometime unwilling leader in the world.
S.W. Coulbourn
HISTORY BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2021
“Suffies” at the White House, 1917.
Wednesday, July 28,
2021. Influence of Women in American History. Wednesday,
July 28, 2021. Influence of Women in American History. Women have been
around as long as men, with and without a voice. How have women tried to
influence America? Did they succeed or fail? Why? What kind
of barriers did men construct to constrain women to a domestic life? Pick
a time or an issue that was important to women and explore it from the female
perspective. Read about Seneca Falls, NY; Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Sojourner Truth, Alice Paul; Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ERA,
Phyllis Schlafly, Gloria Steinem, Myra Bradwell; Domestic Violence;
Reproductive Rights. [Proposed by Mary
Beth Smith]
Arab Spring in Egypt
Wednesday, August 25, 2021. History of North Africa,
from Morocco to Egypt, and including Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Ethiopia,
Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Mauritania and more. Pick a nation or a group of
nations in the northern tier of Africa and learn how they interact, how they
came to be, what problems are they having, or had, that attracted world
attention in the past. Some examples: The Barbary Pirates and how America’s
President Jefferson took them on; The Italian Colonial history in Abyssinia and
Somaliland; World War II—Field Marshal Rommel in North Africa; “Carthago
delenda est!” The Punic War between Rome and Carthage; Tunisia and he Start
of Arab Spring. [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn]
Elizabeth Eckford goes to school, Little Rock,
1957
Wednesday, September
29, 2021. The Fight for Civil Rights. America began with the fight for
Civil Rights for colonists and the fight continues for groups of
Americans. Pick a group – what are they fighting for, what’s their
strategy, are they gaining or losing ground and why? [Proposed by Mary Beth Smith]
Karen women in Myanmar
Wednesday, October 27, 2021. Mass Refugee
movements in History. Movements of a large number from one nation to another can
and have changed the face of the earth. Read about any era on this topic or
read about the phenomenon as a whole. Consider the movement of Arab nationals
today into Europe, or the pre-historic migration of peoples from Siberia to
North America. Or perhaps Irish victims of the potato famine coming to America
and Canada in the 1840s. [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn]
Wednesday, December 1, 2021. [Moved back one week to avoid
conflict with Thanksgiving.] Reconstruction, 1865-77 Abraham Lincoln had a clear picture of what
should be done after the end of the War Between the States, but his
assassination meant that Andrew Johnson, the Democrat who succeeded him, would
be President. Read about this dangerous, murderous time in our history as we
sought to regain the 11 Confederate States in the Union. Read about
the growth of white supremacist organizations, and the different ways that
America handled the end of slavery, and welcoming (?) millions of newly freed
Africans to America. [Proposed by Mary Beth Smith]
There will be no later meeting in December.
2022
Wednesday, January 26, 2022.
World War II at Home. World War II raged from the jungles of Burma to the steppes
of Russia, all over the world. But this
is a look at the Home Front, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats to
children collecting tin cans and lead toothpaste tubes, paper and even jars of
grease for “The War Effort”. It includes the movement of many thousands of
Black Americans from menial jobs in the South to better paying jobs in the
North, working in defense plants.
Millions of women also joined the work force as men went to fight
overseas. Also, how Hollywood helped with patriotic films and propaganda
cartoons, as well as War Bond drives. [Proposed by Cindy Grove].
No comments:
Post a Comment