Correspondence of James K. Polk

FAIN: RQ-249881-16

University of Tennessee, Knoxville (Knoxville, TN 37916-3801)
Ernest Frithiof Freeberg (Project Director: December 2015 to present)

Preparation for print and digital publication of volume 14 of the correspondence of James K. Polk (1795-1849), member of Congress, governor of Tennessee, and eleventh president of the United States. See website at http://polkproject.utk.edu/.

The James K. Polk Project produces an annotated edition of letters by and to the eleventh U.S. president. So far it has published twelve volumes of the Correspondence of James K. Polk, covering up to July 1847, halfway through his presidency. These make important primary-source documents accessible to scholars and students. The final two volumes will feature letters from the second half of Polk’s presidency and his brief retirement. During this time the United States annexed the Southwest, gold-seekers entered California, the United States recognized France’s revolutionary government, and Americans debated slavery. Polk corresponded with diplomats, reformers, novelists, scientists, clergymen, educators, and Native American chiefs. The letters will nourish scholarship on politics, international relations, African American studies, Native American studies, literature, religion, education, and the history of science. Volumes will be available in both hardcover and free digital editions.

Media Coverage

UT's New Volume Of Polk Letters Sheds Light On Origin Of U.S.-Mexico Border (Media Coverage)
Publication: Chattanoogan
Date: 3/30/2017
Abstract: Coverage of publication of scholarly edition
URL: http://www.chattanoogan.com/2017/3/30/345049/UT-s-New-Volume-Of-Polk-Letters-Sheds.aspx

In James K. Polk news… (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Michael Lynch
Publication: Past in the Present
Date: 3/30/2017
Abstract: Coverage of the debate over moving James K. Polk's remains and of the publication of our scholarly edition
URL: https://pastinthepresent.wordpress.com/2017/03/30/in-james-k-polk-news/

UT’s New Volume of Polk Letters Sheds Light on Origin of US–Mexico Border (Media Coverage)
Author(s): University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Publication: Tennessee Today
Date: 3/30/2017
Abstract: Announcement of the publication of our scholarly edition in a daily publication of our institution
URL: http://tntoday.utk.edu/2017/03/30/uts-volume-polk-letters-sheds-light-origin-usmexico-border/

James K. Polk's Biggest Party Ever (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Jack Neely
Publication: Visit Knoxville
Date: 4/11/2019
Abstract: On April 12 and 13, Knoxville will be the center of the mid-19th-century historian’s world, as UT hosts what some faculty are confident in claiming is the biggest scholarly gathering about the Jacksonian era—that’s more or less everything from the War of 1812 to the Civil War—in the last 25 years. Famous historians from across the country are coming to present. Some other famous historians are coming just to attend.
URL: https://www.visitknoxville.com/blog/post/james-k-polks-biggest-party-ever/

Review of Correspondence of James K. Polk, Volume XIII, August 1847–March 1848 (Review)
Author(s):
Publication: The Journal of East Tennessee History
Date: 12/31/2018
Abstract: This volume serves as the penultimate volume in the Correspondence of James K. Polk. In a fitting tribute, Cohen dedicates this volume to the editors who preceded him—Herbert Weaver, Wayne Cutler, and Tom Chaffin. The Polk Project is in capable hands as its nears its completion.
URL: http://www.easttnhistory.org/research/publications

In Texas, a group claiming to be Cherokee faces questions about authenticity (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Graham Lee Brewer
Publication: NBC News/Texas Observer/Indigenous Investigative Collaborative
Date: 10/27/2021
Abstract: The Mount Tabor Indian Community and a statue it helped erect show a failure to vet claims to Indigenous nation status, federally recognized tribal leaders say. Our project's editor, Michael David Cohen, is quoted about the undocumented assertion that Polk ordered the establishment of a Cherokee settlement in Texas in 1844.
URL: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mount-tabor-indian-community-texas-indigenous-rcna3746

James K. Polk and His Time: Essays at the Conclusion of the Polk Project (Review)
Author(s):
Publication: Journal of Southern History
Date: 8/1/2023
Abstract: Review of the essay collection
URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/50801

Correspondence of James K. Polk (Review)
Author(s):
Publication: The Federalist
Date: 7/1/2021
Abstract: The University of Tennessee Press has published the fourteenth and final volume of the Correspondence of James K. Polk. Covering April 1848 to June 1849, it features letters from the last months of his presidency and of his life. It culminates over six decades of work by forty-three faculty, staff, and stu- dent editors at Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee. The 376 letters (and summaries of 1,414 more) cover the California gold rush, the debate over slavery in western territories, the forcible removal of Natives from the east, the global cholera pandemic that killed Polk, and numerous other topics in antebellum politics, diplomacy, culture, and science. Read more about the contents at https://history.utk.edu/ uts-final-volume-of-polk-letters-covers-race-disunion-and-pan- demic-in-1840s/.
URL: https://shfg.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/69%20Summer%20Federalist%202021_WEB.pdf

Correspondence of James K. Polk; Volume 14: April 1848-June 1849 (Review)
Author(s):
Publication: Protoview
Date: 9/27/2023
Abstract: Polk (1795-1849) is best known for serving a single term as US president, then voluntarily retiring to private life three months before he died. Here is the final volume of his collected correspondence with Democratic colleagues, supportive voters, family members, favor seekers, and a few detractors. Together they reveal his thoughts and those of his correspondents as the nation was racing from an international conflict toward a civil war. He oversaw the war that acquired half of Mexico's territory, and took part in the debate over whether the new states would be able to permit slavery.

Community Announcements (Media Coverage)
Author(s):
Publication: ADE E-Newsletter
Date: 7/1/2021
Abstract: Announcement of book's publication
URL: https://www.documentaryediting.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ADE-E-Newsletter-Summer-2021.pdf

The President & The Secretary: The Troubled Partnership of James K. Polk and James Buchanan (Media Coverage)
Author(s):
Publication: Lancaster County Magazine
Date: 5/1/2023
Abstract: This event is expected to take place in person at LancasterHistory on Thursday, May 18, 2023. Doors open and the reception begins at 5pm. The lecture will begin at 5:30pm. The lecture will also be streamed to Zoom at 5:30pm for those who wish to join us virtually.
URL: https://www.lancastercountymag.com/event/the-president-the-secretary-the-troubled-partnership-of-james-k-polk-and-james-buchanan/

ACC dean writes for Polk book (Media Coverage)
Author(s):
Publication: The Facts (Brazoria County, TX)
Date: 10/15/2022
Abstract: Coverage of the essay volume and Alexander Marriott's contribution
URL: https://thefacts.com/news/community/article_93d7f472-50d5-52b0-b9d1-e7292f1800c4.html

This President Secretly Purchased Enslaved Children While in Office (Media Coverage)
Author(s):
Publication: History Channel
Date: 12/15/2020
Abstract: James K. Polk, the 11th president of the United States, is probably best known for growing the the size of the country by more than one-third. This territorial expansion pushed the U.S. border all the way to the West Coast, precipitating a heated national debate about whether to spread slavery to even more territories. Yet as white northerners in particular became increasingly uncomfortable with slavery’s expansion, Polk sought to downplay his personal investment in the institution. Specifically, he concealed his purchase of enslaved children and young adults, whom he sent to work on his Mississippi cotton plantation while he lived in the White House. Our editor, Michael David Cohen, provides background on Polk's trading of enslaved children and quotations from the letters we have published.
URL: https://www.history.com/news/president-james-polk-slavery-children

Associated Products

Absent Authors and Missing Manuscripts: Editing the Letters of James K. Polk (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Absent Authors and Missing Manuscripts: Editing the Letters of James K. Polk
Author: Michael David Cohen
Abstract: This paper outlined the process of creating a scholarly edition of historical documents and highlighted several of the associated challenges related to manuscripts. An anonymous letter, signed "The Devil," led the editor of the Correspondence of James K. Polk on an investigation to learn the author's identity. The copy press, an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century precursor of the photocopier, enabled President Polk to retain copies of his outgoing letters but left his editor with often-difficult-to-decipher documents. Finally, the inside an envelope retained a faint, backwards copy of the missing letter it once had contained; digital manipulation allowed the editor to read this lost document.
Date: 10/29/2016
Primary URL: http://earlychina.org/manuscript-cultures-minicon.html
Primary URL Description: Conference program
Conference Name: Manuscript Cultures Minicon, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The James K. Polk Project: A President’s Letters in Print and Online (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: The James K. Polk Project: A President’s Letters in Print and Online
Author: Michael David Cohen
Abstract: This poster presented the work of the James K. Polk Project, a major undertaking in documentary editing. The project produces a selected and annotated edition of letters by and to Polk (1795–1849), who served from 1845 to 1849 as the eleventh president of the United States. The letterpress and digital volumes for the first time make important documents—many held by the Library of Congress but others scattered among numerous archives and private collections—easily accessible to scholars, students, and others interested in U.S. history. The letters cover political and diplomatic topics ranging from Andrew Jackson’s war on the Bank of the United States to the Mexican-American War and from the growing debate over slavery to relations with the Kingdom of Hawaii. The letters also illuminate the culture, society, economy, and science of the first half of the nineteenth century. The poster taught American Historical Association members about both the work of the Polk Project and the historical field of documentary editing. Images of a manuscript letter highlighted the rich primary-source material the project makes accessible. Bullet points and quotations from letters introduced some of the diverse historical topics documented by the letters. A map showed the many repositories that house Polk letters. Transcriptions and annotations showed the work process of an editor. The presenter brought copies of a published volume and the forthcoming thirteenth volume, as well as a laptop to demonstrate the project’s online products. In conversations with the audience, the presenter explained not only the project’s work and accomplishments over the past six decades but also the ongoing work to prepare the fourteenth and final volume. The poster format thus best facilitated the presentation of a letterpress and digital project dedicated to making often-hidden nineteenth-century sources accessible and legible to a twenty-first-century audience.
Date: 01/07/2017
Primary URL: https://aha.confex.com/aha/2017/webprogram/Paper20326.html
Primary URL Description: Abstract on conference website
Conference Name: American Historical Association

Correspondence of James K. Polk: Volume XIII, August 1847–March 1848 (Book)
Title: Correspondence of James K. Polk: Volume XIII, August 1847–March 1848
Author: James K. Polk
Editor: Bradley J. Nichols, Editorial Assistant
Editor: Michael David Cohen, Editor
Abstract: Volume thirteen of the Correspondence of James K. Polk documents a critical juncture in the history of North America. The eleventh president’s letters from August 1847 to March 1848 reveal his and his correspondents’ official and personal concerns during the final months of the Mexican War. The U.S. capture of Mexico City and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo redrew the continental map. Mexican land stretching from Texas to California became part of the United States. Including the earlier settlement of the northwestern boundary with Canada, Polk’s policies had enlarged his country by one-third. Governing the new land proved a challenge. At odds over whether to allow slavery west of Texas, Congress could not unite on a bill to form territorial governments. Some began to fear that discord over slavery’s expansion would split the nation in two. Polk faced other crises and opportunities. Letters discuss treaty negotiations with the Kingdom of Hawaii, Mormons’ journey from Illinois to the Salt Lake Valley, and U.S. interest in annexing Cuba. Dakota leaders sought the president’s help in conflicts with other Indians and with U.S. officials. European revolutions prompted hopes in America, including by Polk, for the spread of republican government. 1848 was an election year. Though some urged Polk to reconsider his pledge not to seek reelection, he let others vie for the Democratic nomination. Ominously, a split within the party in New York over slavery threatened any Democrat’s chance of retaining the White House. The president wrote to friends and family and monitored his private business. Of particular interest to him were the work of the slaves on his Mississippi plantation and the construction of the Nashville home where he and his wife, Sarah, looked forward to retiring. These are but a sampling of the topics addressed in Polk’s letters. Presented here with full annotation, they illuminate American politics, diplomacy, economy, and culture.
Year: 2017
Primary URL: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_polk/14/
Primary URL Description: Open-access pdf, published May 2019
Secondary URL: http://utpress.org/title/correspondence-of-james-k-polk-vol-13/
Secondary URL Description: Print publisher's listing
Access Model: Book; open-access pdf
Publisher: Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press (print) and Newfound Press (online pdf)
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: 9781621902751
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

James K. Polk and His Time: A Conference Finale to the Polk Project (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: James K. Polk and His Time: A Conference Finale to the Polk Project
Author: James K. Polk Project
Abstract: In 2019, after sixty-one years of work, the James K. Polk Project will complete the fourteenth and final volume of the “Correspondence of James K. Polk.” Transcribed and annotated letters from Polk’s entire life and presidency will be accessible to scholars, teachers, students, and all Americans. On April 12–13 we celebrated this accomplishment with “James K. Polk and His Time: A Conference Finale to the Polk Project.” The event was hosted by the University of Tennessee History Department and held at the East Tennessee Historical Society, in Knoxville. Over eighty academic scholars, public historians, and community members gathered to take stock of what we now know about Polk and to assess the project’s contributions to historical study. Sessions included a keynote address by Amy S. Greenberg, a roundtable on Polk’s impact, a screening of Brian Rose’s Polk documentary, and presentations about Polk house museums. C-SPAN 3 recorded several sessions for a later national broadcast and archiving online.
Date Range: April 12–13, 2019
Location: East Tennessee Historical Society, Knoxville, TN
Primary URL: https://polkproject.utk.edu/conference/
Primary URL Description: This section of the Polk Project's website includes the program and other information about the conference.
Secondary URL: https://www.c-span.org/
Secondary URL Description: This website includes video of three sessions of the conference. They can be found by searching the archive of videos for "Polk."

Correspondence of James K. Polk: Transcriptions, April 1848–June 1849 (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Correspondence of James K. Polk: Transcriptions, April 1848–June 1849
Author: Michael David Cohen, Editor
Author: Bradley J. Nichols, Editorial Assistant
Abstract: Work continues on Volume 14 of the Correspondence of James K. Polk, which will complete the series. In the meantime, as we prepare that volume’s annotation and letter summaries, we see no reason not to share the transcriptions. Here you can read 104 letters that Polk wrote and 260 that he received between April 1, 1848, and his death on June 15, 1849. They contain few notes, chiefly describing the texts, identifying enclosures, and citing other Polk letters referenced. But they are accurate, carefully proofread reproductions of the primary documents. The letters on this site help to illuminate the aftermath of the Mexican War, including Polk’s unsuccessful effort to establish territorial governments for the lands acquired from Mexico; the election of Polk’s successor, in which Whig and Mexican War general Zachary Taylor defeated Democrat and Polk friend Lewis Cass; and renewed concern over Polk’s having misled senators in 1845 about his intentions regarding Texas annexation. They discuss the heated debate over slavery in the United States, the spreading revolutionary activity in Europe, and American interest in purchasing Cuba. Correspondents include California gold seekers, India’s poet laureate, and the wives of John Quincy Adams and Robert E. Lee. Polk exchanged personal letters with friends and relatives including three of his siblings; his nephew and ward; and his wife, Sarah Childress Polk. Letters from the last months of his presidency and from his brief retirement address the final illness and the anticipated legacy of one of the most consequential presidents in U.S. history.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://newfoundpress.utk.edu/correspondence-of-james-k-polk/
Primary URL Description: Publisher's gateway to edition
Secondary URL: https://polk.lib.utk.edu/exist/apps/polk-papers/polk.xml
Secondary URL Description: Direct access to edition
Access Model: open access

Concluding the James K. Polk Project (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Concluding the James K. Polk Project
Author: Michael David Cohen
Abstract: Part of the roundtable “In Light of the Evidence: End-of-Project Goals and Reflections,” this talk addressed tasks peculiar to ending in the twenty-first century a documentary editing project that began in the 1950s. Between its first and last volumes, the James K. Polk Project found lots of letters that belonged in earlier ones. What to do with them? Expectations of digital publication differ for volume 14, in 2019, from those for volume 11, in 2009—to say nothing of volume 1, in 1969. How to reconcile those? And how can editors incorporate a subject’s death into a series that has always focused on that subject’s life?
Date: 06/21/2019
Primary URL: https://www.documentaryediting.org/wordpress/?page_id=4785
Primary URL Description: This page features the conference program.
Conference Name: Association for Documentary Editing

James K. Polk and the Freedom of Religion (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: James K. Polk and the Freedom of Religion
Author: Michael David Cohen
Abstract: James K. Polk, the eleventh president (1845–49), exercised a principled commitment to religious freedom. Amid widespread animosity toward the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, he provided moral and financial support to Mormons journeying from Illinois to Iowa to the Salt Lake Valley. Wanting them to identify as Americans, he ordered the formation of a battalion of Mormons to help fight the Mexican-American War. He also appointed Jesuits to minister to U.S. soldiers and to assure Mexicans that the United States was not waging war on Catholicism. When a Presbyterian clergyman criticized him for those appointments, he labeled the man “a bigotted fanatic” and “told him that, thank God, under our constitution there was no connection between Church and State, and that in my action as President of the U.S. I recognized no distinction of creeds” (Polk, diary entry of October 14, 1846). An independent believer and a devotee of Thomas Jefferson, Polk retained in a prejudiced age the third president’s liberal political philosophy toward religion.
Date: 10/26/2019
Primary URL: https://theandreascenter.org/ppci/
Primary URL Description: This page features the conference program.
Conference Name: Presidential Politics Conference of Iowa

Correspondence of James K. Polk, volume 14, April 1848–June 1849 (Book)
Title: Correspondence of James K. Polk, volume 14, April 1848–June 1849
Author: Polk, James K.
Editor: Nichols, Bradley J.
Editor: Cohen, Michael David
Abstract: The final volume of the Correspondence of James K. Polk documents the end of a presidency and the end of a life. With the Mexican War over, Polk focused on integrating new lands into the country, resolving discord over slavery, and planning for a retirement that proved all too short. His letters of April 1848 to June 1849 reveal his and his contemporaries’ thoughts on a nation racing from an international conflict toward a civil war. Having won half of Mexico’s land, Polk wanted to create territorial or state governments for New Mexico and California. He chafed under Congress’s inability to agree on whether to permit slavery there. Clashes in New Mexico, Oregon, and Yucatán, meanwhile, involved Americans in further violence. The discovery of gold in California brought pleas for the president to aid those hoping to get rich. Like many Americans, Polk welcomed the republican revolutions that swept Europe. But he soon learned that conservative armies were reversing those gains. He also learned of Americans’ arrest in Ireland, suspected of rebellion, and of an American’s enslavement in Cuba, which Polk wished to purchase for the United States. From here at home, he received petitions by Native Americans to remedy ill treatment by an administration intent on their removal. Though he refused to seek reelection, Polk closely followed the presidential campaign of 1848. Stung by the victory of Zachary Taylor, one of his chief generals and now a leading Whig, he still happily left the White House for his retirement in Nashville. In his new mansion he hoped to rest and socialize while continuing to profit from the labor of slaves on his Mississippi plantation. His voyage home, alas, took Polk through a U.S. entry point of a worldwide cholera pandemic. He arrived in Tennessee ill and died only three months after leaving office. Others were left to mourn the fifty-three-year-old, to assess his legacy, and to deal with the consequences of his actions.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://utpress.org/title/correspondence-of-james-k-polk-vol-14/
Primary URL Description: Publisher's page.
Access Model: print; will be released open-access (pdf, Newfound Press) and by subscription (Rotunda)
Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
Type: Scholarly Edition
ISBN: ‎ 978-16219064
Copy sent to NEH?: No

Correspondence of James K. Polk on Rotunda's American History Collection (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Correspondence of James K. Polk on Rotunda's American History Collection
Author: Polk, James K.
Abstract: Governor of Tennessee, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and eleventh president of the United States, James K. Polk was a fierce Jacksonian who expanded the nation’s boundaries more than anyone since Thomas Jefferson. He is remembered today as one of the strongest presidents of the nineteenth century. Like Andrew Jackson before him, Polk increased the power of the presidency in ways that extend to this day. When complete, this digital edition of Polk’s correspondence will include the complete contents of the print edition’s fourteen volumes. It is fully searchable, and is interoperable with other titles in the Antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction collection.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/POLK.html
Primary URL Description: Entry page
Access Model: subscription (series also available in open-access pdf edition)

James K. Polk and His Time: Essays at the Conclusion of the Polk Project (Book)
Title: James K. Polk and His Time: Essays at the Conclusion of the Polk Project
Editor: Cohen, Michael David
Abstract: This collection arose out of a 2019 conference to commemorate the completion of the fourteen- volume Correspondence of James K. Polk. Its scholarship—which pays tribute to the Polk Project itself, as well as to the controversial nature of the Polk legacy—will result in a significant reinterpretation of the eleventh US president. Contributors include John F. Polk, who examines the ways history has mischaracterized almost the entire Polk family tree, and Kelly Houston Jones, who investigates the family’s investments in slave-based agriculture. The fascinating life of Elias Polk, a man enslaved by the president, is compellingly related by Zacharie W. Kinslow. Asaf Almog analyzes the persistence of labels: Polk and fellow Democrats labeled their Whig opponents “Federalists,” he argues, with both rhetorical and substantive aims. Michael Gunther analyzes Polk’s authorization of the Smithsonian Institution and the Department of the Interior, seemingly at odds with his devotion to small government. Taken together, the twelve essays unveil a more complex James K. Polk than the narrowly focused Jackson protégé and proponent of Manifest Destiny we often hear about. He was politically partisan but inspired by history and grounded in principle. His family’s long reliance on nonwhite Americans’ losses of freedom and land informed his policies on slavery and Indian removal, and the nature of the legislation at hand determined when he promoted a larger or a smaller federal government. James K. Polk and His Timehelps us to understand not only Polk himself and those who influenced him, but also those who felt the impact of his actions.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://utpress.org/title/james-k-polk-and-his-time/
Primary URL Description: Publisher's book page
Access Model: printed book and ebook
Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
Type: Edited Volume
ISBN: 1621907333
Copy sent to NEH?: No

Prizes

Tennessee History Book Award, finalist/honorable mention
Date: 6/1/2023
Organization: Tennessee Historical Society and Tennessee Historical Commission
Abstract: The Tennessee Historical Society and the Tennessee Historical Commission award the Tennessee History Book Award for excellence in historical writing. This award is given each year at the annual Tennessee Historical Society membership meeting. Content and theme should be centered on Tennessee history and the publication imprint must be during the year 2022. A jury panel of qualified experts in the field of Tennessee history will make the award selection.

One Day University: President James K. Polk and the Expansion of America (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: One Day University: President James K. Polk and the Expansion of America
Writer: Michael David Cohen
Director: Blair Erich
Producer: Tracey Wise
Abstract: When James K. Polk was inaugurated president in 1845, the United States extended only from the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern border of Texas. Four years later, it was a transcontinental nation with boundaries close to those we know today. It was also in the throes of an intensifying debate over the enslavement of African Americans — one that a dozen years later would erupt in civil war. In this lecture, Professor Michael Cohen will chronicle Polk’s successful efforts—through diplomacy with the United Kingdom and the Republic of Texas, and through a war with Mexico—to increase the United States’ size by one-third. He then will explore the consequences of Polk’s decisions for sectional divisions, for People of Color, and for religious minorities including Catholics and Mormons. Polk firmly believed in constitutional principles, such as representative government and the separation of church and state. But his vision of democracy excluded many of the people inhabiting the newly expanded country.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://www.onedayu.com/videos/president-james-k-polk-and-the-expansion-of-america/
Primary URL Description: Online video
Access Model: Subscription
Format: Web
Format: Other

A Troubled Partnership: Secretary Buchanan and President Polk (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: A Troubled Partnership: Secretary Buchanan and President Polk
Abstract: On Thursday, May 18, join LancasterHistory as we welcome American University’s Dr. Michael David Cohen to discuss how James Buchanan came to join President James K. Polk’s cabinet and how the two cooperated and clashed on the Mexican-American War, a potential Buchanan presidency, and the liberation of a Black US citizen from enslavement overseas. James Buchanan served as Secretary of State during James K. Polk’s presidency (1845-1849). Though both Democrats and Republicans aligned on many major issues, they occasionally sparred over questions of both policy and propriety. Polk even contemplated firing Buchanan more than once! Learn more about how these two powerful politicians clashed and cooperated over domestic and international affairs in this Presidential Lecture.
Author: Michael David Cohen
Date: 5/18/2023
Location: LancasterHistory, Lancaster, PA
Primary URL: https://www.lancasterhistory.org/events/the-president-the-secretary/
Primary URL Description: Venue description of event
Secondary URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlV7DlTDRS4
Secondary URL Description: Video

White mobs rioted in Washington in 1848 to defend slaveholders’ rights after 76 Black enslaved people staged an unsuccessful mass escape on a boat (Article)
Title: White mobs rioted in Washington in 1848 to defend slaveholders’ rights after 76 Black enslaved people staged an unsuccessful mass escape on a boat
Author: Michael David Cohen
Abstract: Long before the demonstrations over Black Lives Matter, long before the marches of the civil rights era, strife over racism convulsed the nation’s capital. But those riots in Washington, D.C., were led by proslavery mobs. In the spring of 1848, conspirators orchestrated one of the largest escapes from slavery in U.S. history. In doing so, they sparked a crisis that entangled advocates for slavery’s abolition, white supremacists, the press and even the president.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://theconversation.com/white-mobs-rioted-in-washington-in-1848-to-defend-slaveholders-rights-after-76-black-enslaved-people-staged-an-unsuccessful-mass-escape-on-a-boat-156445
Primary URL Description: Article on The Conversation's website
Secondary URL: https://www.yahoo.com/video/white-mobs-rioted-washington-1848-113301086.html
Secondary URL Description: Article on Yahoo, one of many news outlets that reprinted it
Access Model: open access; reprinted by numerous other news outlets
Format: Magazine
Format: Newspaper
Format: Other
Publisher: The Conversation

“Reconstructing the Reconstruction: The Aftermath of Slavery, and the Continuing Fight for Equal Justice,” episode of The Legal Edition: Legal, Business & Policy News (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: “Reconstructing the Reconstruction: The Aftermath of Slavery, and the Continuing Fight for Equal Justice,” episode of The Legal Edition: Legal, Business & Policy News
Writer: Michael David Cohen
Director: Mary Kay Elloian
Producer: Mary Kay Elloian
Abstract: Discussion centers on issues around Reconstruction after the Civil War and the comparison to the racial injustices from the 19th century to today. From voter disenfranchisement – poll taxes and literacy tests – to the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts of the 1960’s – to the “purpose and meaning” of erecting Confederate statues in the South, and the messages they were meant to send to future generations. A historical account of racial discrimination and family separation policies of a nineteenth century slave-owner president – to family separation policies of today. A survey of the aftermath of Reconstruction and the education system that followed including: the US Supreme Court ruling in “Plessy v. Ferguson” making “Separate but Equal” the law of the land, to “Brown v Board of Education” – striking down ‘Separate but Equal’ as Unconstitutional. Explanation of the benefits and challenges posed by the ratification of the 13th and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution abolishing slavery, and giving black men the right to vote. Also discussed, the work of abolitionist and suffragist Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton – ‘paving-the-way’ for the 19th Amendment – finally giving American Women the “Right to Vote” – as well as the ongoing struggle for Black Women in America. A fascinating discussion that will enlighten viewers about the history of race and gender relations in the United States, and the fight for equality for almost two centuries. Guest: Michael David Cohen, PhD - Research Historian of 19th Century America & its Presidents
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.thelegaledition.com/videos/reconstructing-the-reconstruction-the-aftermath-of-slavery-and-the-continuing-fight-for-equal-justice/
Primary URL Description: Video on series' website
Secondary URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Dnyt4unGs&t=5s
Secondary URL Description: Video on YouTube
Access Model: Open access
Format: Web
Format: Other

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