TN Writers | TN Stories: Dr. Mark Cheathem

The presidential election of 1844 had it all: an unpopular incumbent forced out of the race, a perennial presidential loser, a candidate whose career appeared to be on life support, a long-shot whose political ideology had been transformed by religious conversion, even a political assassination. Out of this collection of contenders emerged James K. Polk, one of Andrew Jackson’s Tennessee protégés, who narrowly won the White House and whose victory put the United States on an accelerated path to civil war.