(11th President; 1845-49)
James K. Polk (1795-1849) was the eleventh president of the United States. Polk was born on November 2, 1795, near Pineville, North Carolina. Serving as US President from 1845 until 1849, Polk was the first president who decided not to seek a second term in office. In 1845, Polk convinced Congress to declare war on Mexico to continue the expansion of the US westward (the Mexican War lasted from 1846-1848). During his term, much of the Southwest and California became part of the United States. Polk died on June 15, 1849, in Nashville, Tennessee, only three months after leaving office.
ZACHARY TAYLOR:
(12th President; 1848-50)
Taylor was born on November 24, 1784, near Barboursville, Virginia. Taylor was a military hero in the War of 1812, the Indian Wars, and in the Mexican War. He served as US president from 1848 until 1850 (only 16 months). He died suddenly in office on July 6, 1850, in Washington, D.C.
MILLARD FILLMORE:
(13th President; 1850-53)
Fillmore was born on January 7, 1800 in Locke, New York. Fillmore was Vice President under Zachary Taylor, but became president after Taylor died in office. Although Fillmore was against slavery, he approved of the Compromise of 1850, which allowed more new slave states to be entered into the Union and harshly penalized people who helped runaway slaves; because of this, Fillmore lost much of his support from the North. One of Fillmore's achievements was opening up trade with Japan (Fillmore sent Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan). Fillmore was president from 1850 until 1853, and died on March 8, 1874 in Buffalo, New York.
FRANKLIN PIERCE:
(14th President; 1853-57)
Pierce was born on November 23, 1804, in Hillsboro, New Hampshire. During his term (1853-1857) his greatest accomplishment was the Gadsden Purchase (1853), this added parts of northern of Mexico to the United States (now parts of southern Arizona and New Mexico). President Pierce supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which repealed the Missouri Compromise, creating two new teritories, Kansas and Nebraska, and let the new settlers decide whether they would have slavery in the new territories. Pierce died on October 8, 1869, in Concord, New Hampshire.
JAMES BUCHANAN:
(15th President; 1857-61)
Educated as a lawyer, Buchanan had worked as a Pennsylvania state legislator, Representative, minister to Russia, US Senator, Secretary of State (to President James K. Polk), and minister to Great Britain. After he was elected President, Buchanan fought to preserve the Union (the North and the South were heading towards war over the issue of slavery). Although he was against slavery, Buchanan let Kansas (a slave state) join the Union - this angered the anti-slavery North. Buchanan's support of the outcome of the Dred Scott court case (in which it was ruled that Scott, a black man could not obtain his freedom because he was not a US citizen) also decreased support in the North. Lincoln became President in 1861 after Buchanan left office.
MEXICAN-AMERICAN WAR:
THE COMPROMISE OF 1850:
VANITY (from the 1828 Webster's Dictionary):
1. Emptiness; want of substance to satisfy desire; uncertainty; inanity.
Vanity of vanities, said the preacher; all is vanity. Eccles. 1.
2. Fruitless desire or endeavor.
Vanity possesseth many who are desirous to know the certainty of things to come.
3. Trifling labor that produces no good.
4. Emptiness; untruth
Here I may well show the vanity of what is reported in the story of Walsingham.
5. Empty pleasure; vain pursuit; idle show; unsubstantial enjoyment.
Sin with vanity had fill'd the works of men.
Think not when woman's transient breath is fled, that all her vanities at once are dead; succeeding vanities she still regards.
6. Ostentation; arrogance.
7. Inflation of mind upon slight grounds; empty pride, inspired by an overweening conceit of one's personal attainments or decorations. Fops cannot be cured of their vanity.
Vanity is the food of fools.
No man sympathizes with the sorrows of vanity.
JOHN BROWN:
SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND:
THE DRED SCOTT DECISION:
ELECTRICITY:
HOW TO MAKE A SIMPLE TELEGRAPH USING AN ELECTROMAGNET:
1. The act of indulging or humoring; the quality of being indulgent; forbearance of restrain or control.
If I were a judge, that word indulgence should never issue from my lips. Tooke.
They err, that through indulgence to others, or fondness to any sin in themselves, substitute for repentance anything less. Hammond.
2. An indulgent act; favor granted; gratification.
If all these gracious indulgences are without any effect on us, we must perish in our own folly. Rogers.
3. Remission of the temporal punishment due to sins, after the guilt of sin has been remitted by sincere repentance; absolution from the censures and public penances of the church. It is a payment of the debt of justice to God by the application of the merits of Christ and his saints to the contrite soul through the church. It is therefore believed to diminish or destroy for sins the punishment of purgatory.
4. To grant an indulgence to.
