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the nickname Napoleon of the Stump. He was dogmatic in his Jacksonian belief in American expansion — so much so that he had earned a second sobriquet: Young Hickory. A small, thin man with pursed lips, steel gray eyes, and graying black hair that he combed straight back from his high forehead, Polk had a peevish and self-important air and the habit of affecting a folksy twang when speaking before constituents. His childhood had been marred by a surgery that left him impotent (a hole was drilled through his prostate — without the use of anesthetic — to alleviate painful urinary stones). As an adult, Polk was known for his zealous pursuit of personal ambition and ideals, as well as for an enormous personal dislike for the Whigs. Polk would be forty-nine on November 2, which would make him the youngest president in history if elected.
    By cleverly twining the possible annexation of Oregon with the Texas issue, Polk succeeded in winning not only the southern states, but also portions of the industrial North. Still, it was clear that Polk, with his eagerness to wage war, did not enjoy the backing of the entire nation. He won by the narrowest of margins: Polk and Clay each received 48.1 percent of the popular vote. The difference was Polk’s 170 electoral votes to Clay’s 105.
    On February 28, 1845, just days before leaving office (until the passage of the Twentieth Amendment in 1933, the inaugural date was fixed by the Constitution as March 4), Tyler finally pushed his joint resolution for Texas annexation through Congress. On March 1, he signed it. In one of his last acts as president, Tyler then instructed the U.S. chargé d’affaires to Texas, Andrew Jackson Donelson — an 1820 graduate of West Point and a nephew of the former president — to relay the terms of statehood to Texas president Anson Jones. If Texas voted to join the Union, it would become a single slave state, which could then divide itself into as many as four additional states if it chose. In addition, Texas would enjoy all the benefits that came with being a state, among them political stability, a sound currency, military protection from Mexican and Indian forces, a postal service, and congressional representation. The deadline for acceptance was set at January 1, 1846. After that, the deal was off the table.
    Polk made Texas the centerpiece of his inaugural address. As he spoke, thunderstorms raged. Gazing out from the Capitol’s east portico onto a sea of umbrellas, Polk could see spectators standing ankle deep in freezing mud. “Foreign powers should therefore look on the annexation of Texas to the United States not as the conquest of a nation, but as the peaceful acquisition of a territory once her own,” he gravely intoned.
    Mexican officials read between the lines of Polk’s speech and immediately broke off diplomatic relations with the United States. Using the only bit of political leverage they possessed, they belatedly offered to formally recognize Texas as an independent nation. They were acting at the behest of Britain and France, which favored a buffer nation between Mexico and the United States. The two European nations feared that if American expansion was left unchecked, the United States might someday take on dimensions even larger than New Spain, covering the entire North American continent — including Canada. As long as Texas held fast, remaining a nation unto itself, Britain and France were confident that they could control the size and shape of the budding American empire.
    Of the two countries, Britain fretted most about America’s growth. Years before, the two nations had signed the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, establishing peaceful cohabitation of Oregon. But rampant American settlement of that territory was putting a strain on the joint ownership agreement. And with Polk’s election, there was a growing national clamor in the United States to annex Oregon and remove the British altogether — by force, if