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James Knox Polk (/ p oʊ k /; [1] November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849.A protégé of Andrew Jackson and a member of the Democratic Party, he was an advocate of Jacksonian democracy and extending the territory of the United States.
The oldest president at the time of death was Jimmy Carter, who died at 100 years, 89 days. John F. Kennedy, assassinated at the age of 46 years, 177 days, was the youngest to have died in office; the youngest to have died by natural causes was James K. Polk, who died of cholera at the age of 53 years, 225 days.
The presidency of James K. Polk began on March 4, 1845, when James K. Polk was inaugurated as the 11th President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1849. He was a Democrat , and assumed office after defeating Whig Henry Clay in the 1844 presidential election .
Sarah Childress Polk (September 4, 1803 – August 14, 1891) was the first lady of the United States from 1845 to 1849. She was the wife of the 11th president of the United States, James K. Polk. Well educated in a successful family, Sarah met her future husband at a young age. They never had children of their own, though they did foster relatives.
The death that month, in Nashville, of former president James K. Polk may have been due to cholera, possibly acquired during travels in other parts of the South. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Cholera is reported to have been prevalent in the city around the time of his funeral, in June 1849.
Johnson owned a few slaves and was supportive of James K. Polk's slavery policies. As military governor of Tennessee, he convinced Abraham Lincoln to exempt that area from the Emancipation Proclamation. Johnson went on to free all his personal slaves on August 8, 1863. [17] On October 24, 1864, Johnson officially freed all slaves in Tennessee. [18]
On the eighth ballot, the historian George Bancroft, a delegate from Massachusetts, proposed former House Speaker James K. Polk as a compromise candidate. Polk argued that Texas and Oregon had always belonged to the United States by right. He called for "the immediate re-annexation of Texas" and for the "re-occupation" of the disputed Oregon ...
Upon returning to Tennessee in 1849, James and Sarah Polk went to his mother's home in Columbia before returning to Nashville two weeks later, when Polk Place was finished. It was the President's final residence, where he died of cholera at age 53, only three months after leaving office.