Polk, Leonidas Lafayette

Life Span
to
    Full name
    Leonidas Lafayette Polk
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    South
    Origins
    Slave State
    No. of Spouses
    1
    No. of Children
    7
    Family
    Andrew Polk (father), Serena Autry (mother), Sarah Pamela Gaddy (wife, 1857)
    Education
    Other
    Other Education
    Davidson College, NC
    Occupation
    Politician
    Military
    Farmer or Planter
    Relation to Slavery
    Slaveholder
    Political Parties
    Constitutional Union (1860)
    Other
    Other Political Party
    Opposition Party
    Government
    State legislature
    Military
    Confederate Army

    Leonidas LaFayette Polk (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    Nothing in Polk's early life predicted his rise to prominence in a movement of angry farmers. The son of a planter, a moderately successful politician within the bounds of traditional southern politics, and a failed businessman, Polk nevertheless possessed remarkable organizational skills, and he had a knack for getting people to accept his leadership. He did not enrich himself at the expense of the movement he led; in fact, he died in debt, unable even to collect the salary owed him as president of the alliance. Polk was not the most advanced ideologue of the Populist movement, but he saw clearly the necessity of subjugating issues of section and race in order to give the new political movement of farmers and workers a chance to succeed.
    Robert McMath, "Polk, Leonidas LaFayette," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/05/05-00624.html.
    How to Cite This Page: "Polk, Leonidas Lafayette," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/6416.