Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind

so that you may be able to prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12.

This is resistance and reformation on the Fight Laugh Feast network.

An expansionist mood dominated the country in the mid 1840s and the man who caught the spirit of the times and came from nowhere to lead the country through the period of its greatest expansion was the Tennesseian James Knox Polk.

Despite this distinction, Polk has been one of the most neglected of our presidents.

Emerging from comparative oblivion to become president, he has somehow managed to return there.

Despite an exceptionally successful and popular administration,

one called by several leading historians

the one bright spot in the dull void between Jackson and Lincoln.

His family was a part of the great migration west across the Appalachian Mountains following America's

war for independence. Settling in Colombia, a thriving Scots Presbyterian settlement between Nashville and the Alabama Territory,

the Pokes prospered.

James was able to receive a fine education, first at home, later at the Presbyterian Day School

at Zion, and then at a boarding school in Murfreesboro.

Finally, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Though he had a frail constitution, he excelled in his academic pursuits,

intrigued by the politics of the young nation, he returned home following college to study law. In 1823, Polk celebrated two milestones.

He married Sarah Childress and he was elected to the Tennessee legislature.

Two years later, he was elected to serve in Congress. In Washington,

fellow Tennesseans Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston became his mentors

relationships that would serve all three men very well for the

...