James K. Polk

Polk's administration set goals that would help shape the future of the United States. Polk's list of goals for his Presidency consisted of 4 major points. The first was a lower tariff, which would help reduce the rates of the Tariff of 1842 from 32 to 25 percent. The Tariff of 1846 was successful largely because of the economic booms and increase in exports that occured that year. Polk also restored an independant treasury, to the opposition of Pro-Bank parties. The third goal of Polk's was to settle the debate over Oregon. Britian had strong holdings in the territory, and were not willing to give them up without a fight. America's settlements in Oregon were mostly missionary settlements, and these helped to keep America in the fight for Oregon. The first plan had been to divide the territory on the 49th longitude, but the British government was not willing to give up control of the Columbia River to the Americans, and the solution was a joint occupation, and the decision of who controlled the territory depended on future settlement. This was the point that helped Americans win Oregon. In the 1840's, hundreds of pioneers moved across the continent to the Columbia River valley. By 1846, over 5,000 American settlers lived in the area. The British settlers were now greatly outnumbered, and Britian could only manage to gather about 700 settlers to move to the Oregon frontier in response to the huge numbers from America. Only a small portion of Oregon was really in dispute, America's border offer being the 49th longitude line, Britians offer standing at the Columbia River. When it came to Polk to settle the dispute, he again offered the 49th line as a compromise. Britain refused, and Polk did not try again. That was when Britain decided that fighting for a land that might be taken over anyway, causing unnecessary conflict, was not a wise investment. The British government then came to Polk and offered the 49th parallel line. Polk gave the decision over to the Senate, who quickly accepted the offer. The fourth point of Polk's plan was to acquire California from Mexico. Polk had little hope that negotiating this with the Mexican government would be easy. Since the fight over Texas, relations between Mexico and the United States had been volatile. In 1845, Polk sent an envoy of representatives to Mexico City to make an offer to the Mexican government of $25 million for California and its eastern territories. The Mexican people would not allow the envoy to enter the city, and called the offer for California "insulting". In his frustration, Polk decided that the only way to get his way was through fighting. In January of 1846 he sent 4,000 men under the command of General Zachary Taylor to the "no-man's land" between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers. Polk was hoping for a conflict, which would help him in convincing Congress to declare war on Mexico. On April 25, 1846, Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande and attacked the American troops, and inflicted about 16 casualties. Polk's war declaration stated that American blood had been spilt on American soil, when in fact it was the land that Mexico had been disputing was still theirs the entire time. Polk bent the truth just enough to get all of Congress and most of the citizens of the U.S calling for justice. When California was easily obtained, and the treaty created with Mexico gave America everything they wanted, it increased the country by at least one third. The Mexican War was also a learning experience for most of the Generals who would rise to prominence during the Civil War.

Polk's presidency was so important to western migration and settlement because he helped acquire so much new territory for Americans to settle. He helped spread the idea of "manifest destiny", and conquered most of America's opposing forces within four short years. He gained even more land for America than Thomas Jefferson did with the Lousiana Purchase.

Henry Clay was a member of the Whig party, and by far the most influential representative of the party in the Senate. When President William Henry Harrison died early on in his terms, most of Clay's plans and policies were vetoed by the vice president, John Tyler who, although called himself a Whig on the ballot, was largely a Democrat in his actions as President.

Henry Clay proposed the Whig's "secret platform" to the President, which he signed. The plan included financial reform, and ended the independant treasury system. But when Clay attempted to pass legislature that would create a second Bank Of The United States, President Tyler vetoed it immediately. Tyler also vetoed the Whig's proposed tariff in order to save federal funds. This veto forced the Whigs to redraft the tariff bill, leaving out the distribution scheme that had turned the President against the tariff bill. Reluctantly, the President signed this bill off after realizing that there was a need for more revenue. Clay's tariff helped to pull the American economy out of an economical depression within the course of a year.

Clay had also been the leading man in the Missouri Compromise, which set up a lateral line on the map that seperated free and slave states. No slave states were allowed North of the line of 36/30, which is the southern boundary of Missouri. Every state to the South of that line was allowed to be a slave state. But it was because of this Compromise that the debate over new territories acquired by the United States got to such an extreme. The Missouri Compromise admitted Missouri to the Union as a slave state, and allowed Maine to become a seperate state from Massachusetts, and it was admitted as a free state. This set the balance between slave and free states at 12 each. This meant that both sides had even representation in the Senate. New states applying for annexation would throw off this balance. The fight for equal representation would continue until it got to the extreme of physical warfare during the 1860's, the outbreak of the Civil War.