James K. Polk

When he was elected President in 1845, James K. Polk was only 49 years old-at that time the youngest president ever to be elected. He faced a conflicted nation on the verge of tremendous territorial expansion. James K. Polk's four years in office marked the greatest period of territorial acquisition in the history of the country-what New York journalist John O'Sullivan termed as the 'Manifest Destiny' of the United States to expand across the continent. By the end of Polk's presidency in 1849, U