Question

Whose Presidency was MOST concerned with fulfilling the country's Manifest Destiny?

Answer 1

James K. Polk

Many Americans think that Thomas Jefferson added the most land to the national domain, with his purchase of the Louisiana Territory in 1803. But it was James K. Polk, a Jacksonian Democrat, who acquired even more turf for the cause of what northern advocates called “Young America.” Along with his predecessor John Tyler, a former Democrat who broke with Old Hickory and became a states’ rights Whig, the two presidents in less than a thousand days more than doubled the size of the United States. Polk completed Tyler’s drive to annex Texas in 1845. He avoided a third war with Great Britain by compromising on the forty-ninth parallel for a northern border with Canada. The line divided the Oregon Territory, until then claimed by both nations under a joint occupation treaty. Then in one of America’s “forgotten wars” Polk took about half of Mexico’s territory, including New Mexico and California.

Polk has even been called an “imperial president.” Near the end of his term, he tried but failed to win congressional support for an invasion of Yucatan, and also hoped to acquire Cuba and Hawaii.