Democrat James Polk wanted to annex Texas, a policy the Whig candidate Henry Clay warned would provoke war with Mexico.

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Mr Bush, in Mr Lind's view, is the first southern conservative to be elected president since James Polk in 1844.

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We saw it even earlier than that in the presidency of James Polk, who wanted to take the orthodoxy of Andrew Jackson to a program of Manifest Destiny.

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It was played at the inaugurations of Presidents Martin Van Buren in 1837 and John Tyler in 1841, according to historians, and during the administration of President James Polk from 1845 to 1849 it became routinely played any time the president entered a room during public occasions.

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James K. Polk prevailed instead, and he annexed Texas and started the Mexican War.

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But the only sure way to avoid it is to follow the precedent of James K. Polk and Rutherford B.

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The famous Roorback hoax of 1844, when a bogus European nobleman slandered the Democratic candidate, James K. Polk, took more than a month to refute.

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