he met her at a reception or party for a prominent tennessean who later became governor, a guy by the name of carol, as i recall and saw her in a mirror. saw her reflection in a mirror and immediately was submit within the visage that he saw and made his way to find her. through the crowd he lost her. when he finally found her she was with her brother who he had known from school. and they were pretty much together ever since. >> did he know her brother at the university of north carolina? >> yes. >> and he graduated from there in what was he studying? he got a law degree? >> he became a lawyer. you didn't get a law degree in those days. he studied liberal arts and sciences. and was graduated number one in both. but in those days i don't think you really majoreds in anything in particular. you studied the curriculum of liberal arts.

>> you took three years to do this book. >> yes. >> when did you change your mind about anything that you thought you believed about polk? >> i knew very little about polk. so that wasn't a big thing. i think that what struck me was how -- my friend the late ken bacon, former pentagon spokesman read my manu script as it was being produced to give me some guidance and counsel around the way. he described polk as a smaller than life figure with larger than life ambition. i love that phrase and i i got it into the book. i think what struck me about polk was i didn't really understand who he was in terms of his templement and personality. a man so limited in so many ways could be so successful as a president. >> you got some pretty good reviews. >> i have received some good reviews. >> i wondered how much of

some -- david gave you a good review in pittsburgh. did you work together at "the wall street journal"? >> i knew david. we were competitors when he was with "the new york times" and later colleagues at "the wall street journal." yes. >> i wonder how much, you know, the major one in "the new york times" book review was sean willens. did you know him? >> never met him. i certainly knew his reputation. i knew that he was one of the truly prodigious scholars. >> he says the book is a challenge to the new conventional wisdom. polk in merry's view was an ambitious expansionist. he pushed the desire to push the country wetsward. >> i believe when word filtered through the country that texas annexuation was a possibility that this expansionist dream, this vision really exploded on

the american scene. think about this, brian. there never really had been a country that dominated an entire continent and positioned itself to dominate two oceans to straddle an entire continent. and with the idea of texas, we had the louisiana purchase and now texas moving us towards the pacific and it was oregon territory up there jointly occupied by the british and americans and that had to be settled somehow. we had an opportunity to get a significant expansion of land in the northwest. if we could get that southern, southwestern part of california and those four states utah, arizona, nevada and new mexico, that would be a country of vast designs. and i think that what sean willens is saying here is polk was the instrument of the sentiment that emerged. i make it very clear that

eamericaed very powerfully in america largely as a result of the annexuation of texas. >> go back to you say you're reading the newspaper articles and the diary. did you read the diary in printed form or in long hand form? >> no, i get too frustrated trying to read the handwriting of people from the 19th century. i read it in printed form. it was published by the chicago public library in four volumes. i had all four volumes. i went over it very carefully. >> i accessed it on google's got it on there. you can watch it on your computer. did you read it all? >> oh, yes. i read it all multiple times really. i went over it and over it. i came very close to memorizing it. >> if you had the four volumes and stacked them up, how thick was it? >> each one was 500 pages. >> so he had 2,000 pages of typewritten diary. and how -- this is only from the presidency? >> he began, got very upset with

his second stair of state james buchanan, often considered the worst president of our history. he was a terrible secretary of state and totally disloyal to polk and the bane of his existence. the interesting thing about polk in his controversies with buchanan was his inability to fire the man. he couldn't handle face-to-face confrontation. don graim called him a cowardly face-to-face. i think that was not an unfair characterization. but nevertheless, he i don't recall what we were -- >> let me go to the point i want you to make on or talk about is the diary itself what did -- four years of his presidency how much did he do every day? and did you get any sense of what time of day he wrote the diary? >> he wrote it late at night. i remember i was going to say, he started the diary because he was upset with a confrontation in a cabinet meeting with

buchanan. he goes home and goes back to his office that night. he writes the whole thing out. then he sort of says, well, now that i've done this, i'm going to continue to do it. sometimes it would be very brief entry, other times it would be three, four, five pages including extensive depictions of conversations that he had with various members of congress and others, diplomats and others. and it was a tremendous undertaking. obviously he was a very busy man. as i say he was a workaholic. didn't have that word in those days, but that's what he was. he would late into the night write these entries. and it's a marvelous record of the time. >> how many people do you think in history have read that entire diary? >> well mostly historians and you see evidence of it in any historian who's writing about that period of time goes through that diary.

it's been picked over pretty thoroughly. >> at what point in your research did you read the diary? >> i read -- the first part of my research, the first year i tend to do it in stages. the first year i took polk up until the point when he was elected. and i researched and wrote that. then the next year i researched the remainder, basically the four years of the polk presidency, which was the main central part of the book. and then i got into the diary at that point. >> so what did you -- what did you start to sense in reading the diary? about him as a person, as a writer? >> good writer. clear headed. but i think that there was a very clear evidence of his sankt mowny. he had a certain self-pitying quality that was not particularly attractive.

sometimes those things go together. a man who thinks i'm above it all and all these people are trying to thwart me in what i'm trying to do for the american people. and that was a theme that kind of ran through the diary sometimes not in very appetizing ways. interesting thing about him was he never seemed to -- this is not a good trait for a politician. he tenned to -- he tended to see ulterior motives in his opponents. he didn't give them credit for being people with a different point of view. he thought there was a secondary ulterior unfortunate motive in these period. sankt moanous presidents have been failures. john quincy adams. jimmy carter. george w. bush in my view was a

sankt moanous man. maybe i can debate that. woodrow wilson. at that level of politics it tends to be a trait that causes problems. polk was probably the most success ofl of the sankt moanous presidents. people can argue about joe wilson. i believe he injected world war i that led to world war ii. that's a debate for another show. >> you talked about two people there, the john quincy adams approach to -- he was a president. had been the sixth president of the united states and went on 17 years in the house of representatives. what did he do when james polk was inaugurated president? >> he had a chance to be in the inaugural procession, which he had no intention of doing because he was jr. sup set about polk's election.

he despised andrew jackson but he was a giant of his time. now he had his protege and polk was elected. it was a rain "day planner" that day. it rained all day during the inauguration. quincy adams kind of watched from a distance and then put rye comments of many of them quite pointed in his diary about polk and the proceedings. >> did you look up his diary? >> oh, yes. his diary goes on and on. >> he has that little tiny writing. where did they get the polk diary, the written on hand? >> that is at the library of congress. >> and jump to another scenario that you painted talking about henry clay. first of all, how did henry clay relate to him and had they run against each other and that scene in the oval office or whatever the office was at the time that he came to visit him and why did he visit him? >> i don't think -- i don't think i know. but it's a touching scene to me.

i think it may be the most touching scene in the book. henry clay had been the great opponent of jacksonism, jacksonian democracy, the jackson democrats all of his life. and he had sought the presidency three times. three times thwarted. the last time by james polk whom he hadn't really respected all that much. then polk gets us into the mexican war. henry clay has a son lieutenant colonel wonderful young man killed in the war. you would think that would be enough so that henry clay would never want to go near james polk. yet he stops by on a court see call visiting in washington. polk immediately goes downstairs to the parlor from his office. clay basically says i wasn't sure you'd be pleased to receive me, mr. president, but my friends have told me that i should come and see you. i'm vsh pleased you did how's

mrs. polk? polk has her summoned and they have a beautiful little byplay. then polk has a dinner for clay a few days later with whigs and democrats. >> what did you find with the details? >> the dreier diary. i mixed a couple of things. the book about the leadup to the civil war has this episode. he has it in a different setting. he has it at a dinner in which clay in his very elaborate manner he was always spoke in ortundity and elaborate manner. he lays a lovely compliment among mrs. polk. he says everywhere i go i hear nothing but good about how you're doing. not so much about this guy.

they kind of laugh. ne vins has this at a dinner. but he has a more robust description of what was said. i combined that. my conclusion was this was in polk's diary. it happened that day. it must have happened in the parlor of the white house or he wouldn't have written it. but i took -- i could have taken polk's more clipped rendition of the language of clay or i could have taken alan's. i said i'd better take the better part. so i took the two together and a note many the footnotes that explained how i did that. >> another journalist of note john seigenthaler wrote a book on james polk. he was here about five years ago. i want you to see a little bit of what he had to say about him. >> polk would have been right at home in today's acidic washington political environment. i think he would have been up to the needles and the digs and the knives that are wielded.

i think he would have waded right into that environment and been right at home. he was a man for his time. there's very little you can say that he left. his administration was sandwiched between the only two whig administrations in our history. and both of those administrations harrison administration and taylor administration were of course interrupted by the deaths of those two presidents. so those two whig administrations did very little and his administration is sandwiched between those and he did a great deal. >> what do you think? do you agree? >> i certainly do with john on that. one interesting side light, that book that he wrote was part of the american president series that arthur is lezen jer junior

put today. john seigenthaler told me when we talked about this, the only thing that he wanted him to change when he saw john's manu script is he thought he slighted the what is known as the all of mexico movement. the idea during the mexican war when we were in lager heads. we'd gone all the way to mexico city but they wouldn't negotiate that we should take over the whole country. he believed that was a more serious movement that time than was in the book. and john went become and put it in. my research shows it was a certain byplay during the mexican war. i think john has polk exactly right. i think do think he would have gotten into the acidic politics of today. not so much in terms of face to fas confrontation polk was not good at that. he was very good at attempting

to outmaneuver his rivals behind the scenes and he loved doing that. >> just for a moment. for those who say that today's politics are a lot more acidic, difficult, a lot more uncivil, what do you say to them than in the past? >> no. there were various periods in our history where politics are just as raucous and nasty and bitter as we are experiencing today. many americans are a little uncomfortable with the brand of politics that we're living through, but we've gone through that the early part of the republic with people who are writing the pamphlet. the pamphlet tiers. very bit ere. everything leading up to is civil war. we had a caning on the floor of the senate in which a distinguished senator from massachusetts was caned by a congressman from south carolina. took him three years to recover and get back to the senate.

we've had this. it's all part of human nature. my view is there's only one continue substantiate in politics and history and that's human nature. everything else is a variable. >> on the polk administration and a lot of historians write this that they give him credit for making decisions and having four accomplishments that's what he set out to do and he did it and the one term and all. i'll list the four, acquire california from mexico. and you can explain what that means. acquire oregon from britain. reduce tariff rates and create an independent treasury to ensure currency stability. >> let's talk about that one real briefly. during the jackson era there was a big, big issue about the bank of the united states which was the bank that was essentially created by the government to be the repository of federal money and to attempt to ensure currency stability. jackson, all the pop lists

jefferson, jackson hated that bank. and jackson killed it. >> so they would hate what's going on right now? >> in many ways. but at the same time everyone understood that there had to be some kind of an agency for stability for currency stability and for repository of federal money. jackson basically put it into various state banks promptly labeled pet banks, jackson's pet banks by opponents. the independent treasury was an effort to create a government entity that would take care of those two things. johnson seigenthaler in his box notes that lasted until the creation of the fed. it was not a petite or trivial accomplishment. tariff rates were a natural democratic position that was not surprising.

getting or orterritory or as much as possible was a natural thing for 26 years the united states and britain had been trying to negotiate where to draw the line. >> how many states would have been involved in the oregon territory. >> the states now, washington, oregon, idaho, part of montana and part of wyoming. the oregon territory went up to what is now alaska up into british columbia and other parts of canada. and polk bolded said in his inaugural address that we basically stake out our claim to all of oregon. the brits went crazy. the times of london was saying that it's going to lead to war. a lot of americans were worried that polk was going to get us into a war. but sort of the last minute, he had an iron nerve in a lot of ways. at the last minute he offered a compromise that brought the border across the 49th parallel to the strait of juan de duca

and down and around vancouver island to zo the the 26-year log jom so we got oregon. >> what was that -- who came up with that slogan? >> mostly midwesterners. people called northwesterners in those days. mostly people around the great lakes because they saw national trading relationship between that part of the country and their own. and they wanted all of oregon territory, which went up to 54-40. they wanted it all, 54-40 or fight. polk disappointed them but it was very def politics and very def dipdiplomacy. >> the congress was controlled by which party? >> democrats at the beginning of the presidency but he lost the

house, not the senate, but he lost the house halfway through his presidency. >> one thing that we haven't talked about among the four right now is acquired california from mexico. what did that mean? what was california? >> i believe california was part of mexico, as was that southwestern territory. the four states i noted. and i believe that as soon as polk -- and he never said this publicly. but as soon as he said privately at the beginning of his presidency that he wanted to acquire california, that the tipoff that polk intended, if necessary, and i think he probably thought it would be necessary, to have a war with mexico in order to get california because uno. there presidents had tried to purchase california. the members companies were not interested. and so i think that sort of tips off the astute pursuer of these events that polk was prepared for and even willing to maneuver the united states into a war with mexico in order to bring

about this expansion. >> you spurred me on to look up the abraham lincoln july 12th, 1848, speech, after the war was over. and i'm just go read the last line here and explain how that would, say, maybe fit into today, what kind of figure was abraham lincoln at the time. as i said before, he knows not where he is. meaning polk. he is a bewildered, come founded, and miserably purr plexed man. got grapt he may be able to show there is nothing about his conscience more painful than all of his mental perplexity. a little hard to understand. what was abraham lincoln getting at and how would that fit today? who would be the one to stand up and make that speech today? >> well, in any war you have very emotional sentiments and very emotional debates. lincoln was a wig. his great hero was henry clay.

and therefore was natural that he would desmice james polk and disspi d despise his war. it's a little bit ironic that he would be so opposed to this war on sort of moral grounds when, in fact, he became a war president on a grander, more significant scale than any president in our history. and shawn lents in the review of my book in the "new york times" suggests -- and i never seen this noted before that it was sort of my sentiment that this lincoln speech and some other speeches along the same lines, were ally attributable more to lincoln's partisanship than to any fundamental, philosophical grounding. >> and just a one-term congressman? >> he was a one-term congress n congressman. one of the reason, sort of assume that these group of people in illinois, that

district, were going to trade off on the district but lincoln really wanted to remain in washington but even if his colleagues in illinois had wanted him to, his opposition to polk and the nature of his opposition had kind of destroyed his prospect of having another term. >> very little time to get into this, but you do in the book, the mexican war. what did polk have to do with that and what was the end result? >> when we annexed texas, mexico considered that to be an act of war. texas had been an independent nation for ten years. mexico had not been able to get it back. but had never recognized the texas independence. so now we have texas and mexico withdraw its ambassador, threatened to declare war on the united states, and that leads to huge tensions between the united states and mexico. polk sends an army to the rio grand in which was disputed territory between mexico and the

united states. the a squirmish breaks out. 11 americans are killed. polk immediately going to congress and says they will spilled american blood upon the american soil. one could argue that was not exactly accurate but he believed it was american soil and that led to the mexican war. he thought it would last maybe three or four months. we would send under zachary taylor an army into mexico for a couple hundred miles. they will see the futility of their effort and would negotiate for peace but the mexicans were a proud people and they wouldn't negotiate. they never won a battle but they never negotiated until the very end, and the war drged on for two years and became a major, major issue. >> do you remember how much it cost this country and how many lives might have been lost? >> i have it in the book. i think the lives might have been -- i probably shouldn't say but i think it's in the book. somewhere in the neighborhood of 17,000 lives, many of them through disease. >> what was the population then, the country, do you remember?

>> population. that's in the book, also. i believe the population of the united states at that time would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 million. but again, i'm not good at remembering figures anymore. >> anymore? >> i used to be better. >> now that you're no longer doing this cq, what is your plan? >> i've been looking for another horse to ride and i think that pretty soon, within a week or two, i will be in a position to announce that i will be becoming an executive of another publishing company. >> what about writing books? and i'm -- let me ask it this way. if you had to choose a character that you learned about in this book to write another book on, was there anybody big enough for you, and who would bit? >> no one really struck my fancy in terms of my next book. i've got what i think is kind of a bigger idea. i find that i -- i seem to

navigate fairly well in the 19th century, so i think my next book will keep me in the 19th century and it will be something related to the run-up to the civil war. >> knowing your personality and james polk's personality, how would you two have gotten along at a denner? >> well, i tell people if you and i and brian were at a bar and tavern having drink and mr. polk was in the corner drinking by himself. the question would be would you invite jimmy over because he's drinking alone? probably the answer would be no because he just wasn't much fun. as a reporter i probably would have gotten along with him because he would have been a good source. but sank moan use people are generally not a good source to reporters. i don't think i would have like him an awful lot but i think i would have admired him in many wa

ways. this is about james polk and the mexican war. thank you very much. >> thank you, brirbrian. >> for free transcripts or to give us comments about this program, visit us at q and a.org q and a programs are also available at c-span podcasts. starting april 1st, see the winners in this year's c-span student cam video documentary competition. on the theme the constitution and you, as middle and high school students from across the country showed which part of the constitution was important to them and why.

we'll air the top 27 videos. mornings at 6:50 eastern on c-span and meet the students who created them during "washington journal" each day. for a preview of the winning videos check studentcam.org and thank you for everyone who participated in this year's competition. follow c-span's local content vehicles throughout next weekend as book tv and american history tv explore the history and literary culture of little rock, arkansas. saturday the 31st starting at noon eastern on book tv on c-span2. auth author. >> you had calls going all up and down the mississippi delta. they were saying that blacks were now in revolt. and the next morning between 600 and 1,000 men, white men, pour