American history is kind of like the Bible. I'll say this again, American history and U.S. history, western civilization is kind of like the Bible. People have a preconceived idea of what the Bible teaches, so they will read the Bible and study the Bible and interpret it the way they want the Bible to teach. If you study the Bible, who's speaking, who's he speaking to and what's the subject, you will learn the Bible. You can read the Bible, you can memorize the Bible all you want to. But if you don't let the Bible speak to you, instead of you speaking to the Bible, you're going to be crosswise with God. Romans the 13th chapter tells us, according to the Bible, let every person be subject to the governing authority, for there is no authority except from God. And those which exist are established by God. Therefore he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God, They who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause for fear of good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise for the same. Now we could go on a few more verses. But way back over here, After the flood, God established human government. And human government was supposed to do basically two things. To protect good people from bad people, and the people from the government. One of the statutes of all legitimate governments is capital punishment for those who deserve that crime. The Bible has some very plain instructions on how a person can be convicted of capital punishment. There has to be at least two or three witnesses. A lot of people have gone to the gas chamber, to the gallows, to the electric chair before firing squads, beheaded in the world that were innocent. Now American history and Western civilization is how you interpret it. In our schools in America for about the last 50 years people have been brainwashed. Before that they were In Russia and Germany and China, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, people are taught what they and who they are. And every country is always the shining star in the world. Well, I'm going to tell you what really happened. America was founded upon democratic a Democratic Republic. America had some great leaders in the beginning. And we've studied ten of them so far. Now we're going to come to another one. James Knox Polk. He was the 11th President of the United States of America. The real dividing line of whether he is a good president or a bad president is one thing, me. When he was president, did he think about the future of his country and building up America and making America great so America could defend itself against all enemies, inside or outside? That is the real definition of a successful president. A president that will defend America and build up America. That is the dividing line right there between a no-good president and a president. A president to be a leader has to put the United States above himself. A president to be a real hero has to serve America and try to put America first in all of his endeavors. And a real president does not line his pockets with politicians, etc. A real president does not get rich in the presidency or in the vice presidency, nor does his family get rich because of who he is. A real president isn't there for pride and honor of his own self, but it is for the pride and honor of the country that he's representing. And we have a dark horse president here. A dark horse president. He's our first dark horse president. Nobody knew who he was. He had been in politics. He was a 13th Speaker of the House. He was a 9th Governor of Tennessee. He was the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee. A little bit about this man. He was raised in hard times. He was a wealthy man, he was raised. But he was sickly when he was young. Now his family were slave-owning families. And his mother and father both were from what we call American heroes. He was born November 2, 1795. He died June 15, 1849. He was a very young man when he died. He served America from 1845 to 1849 as President. He was a protege of Andrew Jackson. He was a member of the Democratic Party and an advocate of Jacksonian democracy. He was a citizen's man, so to speak. He built a successful law practice in Tennessee. He was elected to the state legislature in 1823, then to the United States House of Representatives in 1825. He was the sole supporter of Andrew Jackson and his ideals all the time. He became Speaker of the House in 1835. And at this time, when he became President, he was the only former Speaker of the House that had become President. Polk left Congress to run for the Governor of Tennessee. He won in 1839, but he lost in 1841. And in 1843. He was a dark horse candidate for the Democratic Party. He actually wanted to become Vice President. That was his goal. But they cast ballots over and over and over again. Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, he was going to run again and all of this was going on. And this group didn't like that, that group didn't like that. Now James Polk had nicknames. One of his nicknames was Little Hickory. Big Hickory, of course, was Andrew Jackson. They called him Old Hickory. This is Young Hickory. And they also called him the Napoleon of the stump. He was a great debater. I mentioned before that he was sickly when he was young. A lot of times he read and studied because he couldn't get out and work like others. But he tried to exercise his mind. He tried athletically to do what he could. He had an appendicitis attack when he was young. And they didn't have any anesthesia. Now can you imagine them cutting your abdomen open? That's a very painful surgery to begin with anyway. All they did was give this little boy several shots of brandy and began to cut and hold him down. He was so sick during this time they didn't know whether he'd live or not, and somehow or another it probably caused him to become sterile. He never had any children. His father was a deist. You know what a deist is? It's like Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson believed in a deity, but he didn't believe in God. He believed in a God in such as that there was really a God that created the universe and set things in order but he definitely didn't become flesh and die on the cross or any of that. He just didn't believe in any miracles. He was like a Sadducee. He didn't believe in any miracles. He wrote Jefferson's Bible and evidently James Polk, his father, believed the same thing. He was a great follower of Thomas Jefferson. James Polk, Bolton's sole slaves throughout his life. One of the dark shadows upon his presidency, if you want to say that, was that he owned slaves and that he didn't have any respect for the Native Americans of this country. His father was a deist, but his mother was a stout, God-believing Presbyterian, like John Knox and others in history. James Polk was born November 2, 1795 in a log cabin in Pineville, North Carolina. He was the first of ten children born into the family of farmers, and these farmers became plantation owners. His mother, Jane, named him after his father, her father, James Knox. His father, Samuel Polk, was a farmer, a slave owner, and a surveyor of Scots and Irish descent. The Polks had immigrated into America in the late 1600s, settling initially in the eastern shore of Maryland, but later moving to south central Pennsylvania, then into the Carolina hill country. And by the way, this was the Wild West, you have to realize. And at this time they were taking the established farms and plantations from the American Indians, what we call the five civilized tribes. The land was fertile. The Anglo-Saxons or the Americans, whatever you want to call them, they came in, they took over the American Indian farms from the Cherokees, the Chickasaws, the Hosea, etc. and they had fertile land that was already cleared. These people, when they came into those areas, they were already farmed lands. But James Polk and his family believed in manifest destiny. What does that mean? It means that they believed that God had brought the Anglo-Saxon people to this country to establish a government under God that would progress and be a herald and a beacon unto the world. Even Thomas Jefferson believed that. Had a little more compassion for the American Indians than others did. Of course, you know that Thomas Jefferson would have married Sally Hemings if society would have allowed him to do that. six children by her. He could not live openly with her. He could not marry her and take her to balls and banquets. And she was the first lady of color in American history even though she was only one quarter black. Not over one quarter, maybe even one-eighth. She was a half-sister to Thomas Jefferson's wife. James Polk's mother was a lifelong Calvinist, and she instilled in James the rigid orthodoxy of her Calvinist beliefs and also of her lifelong ideas that God had pre-adorned, pre-ordained, and pre-established that America would become a country and that her family would have a lot in building this country into a nation that could protect itself from within and from without. America has always had a certain amount of political agitation. Like I said, James Polk suffered from poor health as a child. especially in the particular disadvantage of having neighborhood doctors, etc. He had urinary stones. He had a lot of intestinal and back pain. And like I said, he He had an appendectomy without anesthesia. His father wanted to bring him into the business. But James wanted an education. He enrolled in the Presbyterian Academy in 1813 and became a member of the Zion Church near his home in 1813. enrolled in the Zion Church Academy. He then entered Bradley Academy in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where he proved a promising, what we like to call brilliant student. In January 1816, Pope was admitted into the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a second semester sophomore. The Polk family had connections with that university. It only had about 80 students at that time. Samuel was a land agent in Tennessee and his cousin William Polk was a trustee. Polk joined the Dialectic Society where he took part in debates and this is where he got the little nickname as Napoleon of the Stump. He graduated with honors in 1818. After his graduation, he returned to Nashville, Tennessee to study law under the renowned attorney Felix Grundy, which became his first mentor. He was elected clerk of Tennessee State Center. He was admitted to the Tennessee State Bar And his first case was to defend his own father against public fighting charge. His first case was to defend his father against a public fighting charge. He secured his release with a $1 fine. That's a lot of money. He opened an office in Murray County and was a successful lawyer there. He had many cases, what we call financial cases, because of the Panic of 1819 and the severe depression afterwards. His law practice subsidized his political career. These people didn't become politicians to make money. It cost them money to be politicians. Why they became politicians is they wanted to help the country. They wanted to make America great. They wanted to make America to where it could defend itself from any other foes around it. Even though Polk was a teetotaler, he didn't drink. He provided alcoholic refreshments for his voters. Whatever he was doing. Polk courted and married. Sarah Childress. And they were married January the 1st, 1824 in Murfreesboro. She was educated far better than most women. And she stood by his side as a mentor, also, and as a political guide and supporter. Every man needs a woman. A woman can either do one of two things, can break you or make you. And this woman did her best to support her husband. He was very enamored with this military hero of the Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson, in 1850. Jackson was a family friend of both the Polks and the Childresses. And it's much evidence that they called Andrew Jackson Uncle Andrew. James Polk supported his presidential ambitions in 1824. And if you remember, Van Buren was elected instead. In 1824, the United States presidential election, Jackson got the most electoral votes, as he also led in the popular vote. But as he did not receive a majority of the Electoral College, the election was sold into the U.S. House of Representatives where they and the Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, rather than Andrew Jackson which won the election. Andrew Jackson was mad from then on. He went about to destroy John Quincy Adams' presidency and not only that but he used James Calhoun also. James Polk was very upset over this and never forgot it. He believed in right and wrong. Even though he didn't believe any rights for Indians and didn't believe any rights for the black people, he believed that slavery would finally vanish and go away, but he was going to use them for his own purposes. Like I said, he didn't get rich in politics. He got rich building plantations. And plantations, the staple of plantation was slavery. One thing about Jackson and one thing about Polk is they were anti-infrastructure, which to me today is insane. But they looked at it as each state opted Every state ought to take care of itself, not the taxes go to the United States government and then they reallocate the taxes to the states as they saw fit. Both of them thought that there would be too much corruption and too much loss of funds in between, which many times is true, but a nation must have an infrastructure. If you're going to be a strong nation, you have to have an infrastructure, you have to You have to have canals, you have to have railroads, you have to have schools, and libraries, and post office. Jackson hated the banks. The Bank of the United States. He said there was too much corruption in it, too many people got paid off, too many people got free loans, etc., etc., etc., which you find. It's rampant today. So he vetoed the bank. And then also, the funds of the United States Bank went into local banks. There was a, what they called a gag rule. You ever hear of a gag rule before a gag rule? When Polk was the Speaker of the House, he worked for the policies of Jackson and later Van Buren. He deported committees under Democratic chairs, the majorities including New York Radical C.C. Camberling, as the new ways and means share. He also tried to maintain the Speaker's traditional non-partisan appearance. But there was one thing that you couldn't talk about. Today you can't talk about a rigged re-election. You can't talk about states' rights today. These are verboten, forbidden subjects. Well, the forbidden subject of that day was slavery. And so nobody could debate about slavery. That's what they called the gag rule. You couldn't talk about it. You couldn't debate about it. They were going through a terrible depression and inflation and etc. Van Buren chose to, there was a great run on land. And they said that anybody that was going to buy land had to pay in gold or silver. So that would build up the United States Treasury. And it would keep land prices down lower, instead of inflated prices. Which we have again today. We've already had this three or four different times. When James Polk was governor of Tennessee, there was no veto power. Tennessee believed that governors ought to have limited powers. And he went along with that. Like I said, James Polk wanted to be the next vice president. Except they couldn't agree on least likely candidate was James Polk. They didn't know exactly what he believed and they told him not to say too much. If you want to know anything about James Polk just look at his voting record and what he had done. Now James Polk wanted to build up America in mass of property. During Polk's administration, he added California, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, and Texas to the lands of the United States colonies in America. He added that? He added that. That's about one-third of America property from coast to coast. Now America was becoming a large nation, in mass. Larger than many European countries, by far. Now, the problem is, when James Polk became president, the former president, had tried to annex Texas before he left his office. And he relinquished to run for president, and Andrew Jackson says, let everybody leave him alone, and we're going to, the first thing that James Polk is going to do is to annex Texas. And Texas was going to be a slave state. Now we have the Compromise of 1850 where they allowed Missouri to come in. Tyler had wanted to bring in Texas as the state into the Union before he left. Andrew Jackson promised him that if he would not run and split the party ticket so that Polk could be elected that that was one of the first things he would do and he said that's okay. I will back off. Now James Polk said he was only going to run for president and be president one time, one four year term and that's all. And he set his eyes on one thing and making America great. acquiring California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Oregon. Now we still have problems with Mexico going. We have illegal immigrants coming in constantly, and Biden, he said, come on in, come on in, come on in. And then when they came in and we have this absolute destruction on the border, well, they blamed it on Trump. It was under control. It was building a wall, you know. Well, people say that the reason why we got problems with Mexico today and people coming up here, because they say that actually California and Arizona and New Mexico and Texas is Mexican territory. I might have this to say about that. It's Native American territory, not Mexican. Nor was it ever. Louisiana, Purchase, Texas, over the East Coast, all the way to the West Coast is all Native American country. If anybody's got a right to gripe about anything, it's us Native Americans. Like I've said many times, if it would have stayed Native Americans, we would have never been united and we would have been taken over by some European entity anyway. And I believe that treaties should have been in place, and I believe that we should have received more than what we received, and I think we should still have some land in this continent. That's Indian land. And my great-great-grandfather, Samuel I. Paul, tried to do that and circumvent the Dawes Acts, and he was murdered by his own people because of it. They called him a traitor. James Polk had more than 30 slaves and he bought slaves while he was in the White House. He didn't use any White House and his presidential money to do it. He didn't become president to become rich. He became president to build America. For his children and grandchildren, even though he didn't have any children and grandchildren, he never had any children, but for you and for me. Polk set forth four clearly defined goals for his administration while he was president. Re-establish an independent treasury system. The Whigs had destroyed the one and abolished the one under Van Buren. He was going to reduce tariffs. He was going to acquire some or all of Oregon territory, which is quite a mass up there. He was going to acquire California all the way from California to Texas. And he did. He did all of it. The one thing that he said he would do, he was going to do. did everything he could to try to get along with the other parties. Now, there were a lot of people that were complaining about him acquiring and letting Texas become a state of the Union. Texas was actually a country in itself. It had declared independence from Mexico and it had become the Lone Star state, the Lone Star country itself. Some of the Texans didn't want to do that. Now James Polk set down some perimeters for them to come in as a state. They wanted a lot more power because they were the great state of Texas and Texas is a big country. Thousands of square miles. Polk, when he became President, he said, I will be President myself. I will be President Polk just like Tyler and just like Harrison was. They had to fight to become Presidents. The House of Representatives tried to run the country. As Harrison said and had to write on a piece of paper, would you read this to all these people here? I, William Henry Harrison, a president of the United States and Tyler had to do the same thing. Now we have a puppet for president. Now Polk's cabinet is right Vice President was George Dallas. Secretary of State was James Buchanan. Secretary of Treasury was Robert J. Walker. Secretary of World was William L. Mace Marcy. His Attorney General was John Y. Mason, and then Nathan Clifford. His Postmaster was Cabe Johnson. And the Secretary of the Navy was George Bancroft. And others would come and go. The first thing he did was challenge the United Kingdom or England or Great Britain over Oregon Territory. He said, this is going to be the line or war. This will be the line or war. And America had become stronger, so Great Britain said okay. And he got Oregon Territory without a war. But Oregon Territory was really Native American Territory, wasn't it? What about Washington? Yeah, and Washington. That's all Oregon Territory. Now Britain derived its claim on Oregon Territory from the voyages of James Cook and George Vancouver. James Polk says, it's here, not there. You can claim all the European countries, but this is ours. And basically what he was doing was insuring and advocating the Monroe Doctrine. It's close, so it's ours. He did the same thing with Texas, he let them be a state, and then they sent Peter Lebec out to California to cause an uproar out there. What happened to Peter Lebec, Marilyn? Peter Lebec was killed by a bear, squeezed to death against a tree. Well, that insurrection didn't quite work, but then he had a few others come out to California. We had the Bear Flag Revolt out in California. And California was taken over along with Arizona and New Mexico all the way to Texas. And people say today, well we still got problems with the Mexicans and everything else because of what he did. Mexico didn't own those countries. It was the Native Americans of those countries. That everybody should have dealt with. Thomas Jefferson shouldn't purchase the Louisiana Purchase from France. He ought to go in and make the treaties with the American Indians, which he kind of secondarily did. He also began to look at Alaska. Now Alaska is separated from continental United States by another country which is British Columbia. Like I said, all of James Polk's life was one thing, manifest destiny. He believed that God had established this country and that because of God had established it, like in Romans 13 that I read in the beginning, that we ought to acquire and control and protect that country as well as we could. Either America was going to claim Texas or Great Britain would. Great Britain was trying to make inroads into Texas to allow them to be a colony. Aren't you glad that James Polk did what he did in America? Aren't you glad they did that? With the annexation of Texas. Now, poke an 18.45 cent diplomat, John Slidell, to Mexico to purchase New Mexico and California for $30 million. as also as well as securing Mexico's agreement to the Rio Grande border. Slidell arrived in Mexico in December 1845 and the Mexican President Jose Juan de Herrera was unwilling to receive him because of the hostility of the public towards the United States. Slidell's ambassadorial credentials were refused by the Mexican Council of Government. James Polk wanted to look at that as a declaration of war. In 1846, May 1846, Slidell went to Washington and he said that his his opinion that the negotiations with the Mexican government were unlikely to be successful anyway. So Pope began to look for a way to get into war. He told them either you give us these countries and we'll buy them from you. We'll buy these countries from you, this land, or you're going to go to war. He even went down into Cuba. Now remember that John C. Fremont had gone into California with the Bear Flag Revolt in August of 1846. And American forces under Kearney captured Santa Fe, capital of the province of New Mexico. He proclaimed the capture of California. They said America put down a revolt and had effective control of Mexico and California. In a bad way, part of this was Arizona. Now, they said that Mexico went across the border into what was Texas and began to kill and start a war. Now do you remember the military general of Santa Ana, the Alamo? Well see he was exiled down into Cuba and into Mesoamerica. And Polk sent an emissary to him down to Cuba. And Cuba was still a colony of Spain, which he wanted to buy. Tyler wanted to buy it. Van Buren wanted to buy it. Everybody wanted Cuba. But Johnson Dale, and another man named McKenzie, went to meet with Santa Ana. And they told Santa Ana that Polk wished to see him in power and that if he came to an agreement with the United States, a naval blockade would be lifted briefly to allow Santa Ana to return to Mexico and take over his powers there as President of Mexico. And if he'd do this before a Mexican treaty would be signed. Now, indeed, they lifted the blockade. And Santa Anna stabbed a Polk in the back. He began his revolt. And they began a war. And Santa Anna laughed at Polk for being so naive. History. Now we know that some of our great, Zachary Taylor, etc., went down into in New Mexico at the Battle of Buena Vista, and Santa Ana retreated, and then Santa Barbara, Veracruz. And then they were instructed to seek the cessation of Alta California, which was New Mexico, and Baja California. in recognition of the Rio Grande and the southern border of Texas. The U.S. access to the Isthmus of Teotihuacan and Trieste was organized and authorized to make a payment of up to $30 million in exchange for these concessions to Mexico. In 1846 or 1847, as he advanced toward Mexico City, Scott defeated Santa Ana at the Battle of Contreras and the Battle of Churubusco with the Americans at the gates of Mexico City. Trist negotiated with commissioners, but the Mexicans were willing to give up very little. Scott prepared to take Mexico City, which he did in mid-September. in the United States heated political debates was over whether to go down into Mexico or not, and whether to take California and Texas, period, or New Mexico or Arizona. They said that all they wanted to do, Henry Clay said, the only thing we want to do is to settle the border of Texas at the Rio Grande. And you're going down and taking half of Mexico, all of California. Abraham Lincoln said, will you tell me when Mexico fired on who and who was killed exactly and where? He was against this also. A future president of the United States, Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, said the reason why we had the Civil War is what we did to Mexico. He said that was the most horrible war that America ever brought on the world. When they took over all this Mexican territory because we needed, because James Polk wanted the land. Polk ordered Trist to return to Washington, but the diplomat, when the notice of recall arrived in mid-November 1847, ignored the order. deciding to remain and writing a lengthy letter to Polk the following month to justify his decision. Polk finally decided to allow him some time to negotiate the treaty. So then we have the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. A small town near Mexico City and Trist was willing to allow Mexico to keep Baja California. as his instructions allowed, but successfully haggled for the inclusion of the import harbor of San Diego. Remember, this was all Mexico, supposedly. You know, all of this had been settled by the Mexican priest, by the Spanish priest that went in there. We have Father Sierra, the butcher of Baja. went in there and enslaved the American Indians all the way from San Diego, all up the Mission Road, they were all slave plantations of American Indians. They didn't own, Mexico didn't own it. It was still Indian land in all reality. Now today, What we have gained basically is on this little map right there. That's what James brought in was all of this land right here in America. America became a country that was formable. Polk wanted to buy Cuba because he wanted to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. But Spain wasn't quite finished with Cuba because they were making a lot of money on sugar. Sugar had, you know, and this is another thing in history. They started growing sugar over here in Cuba and in the South American, and even in the American colonies. wherever they could grow sugarcane. Now sugarcane came from the Middle East. They brought it into England and France and you know in England and France they had very little food really. They had barley and wheat and milk and butter and fish. That was about it. There wasn't much anything else. They had oranges. A few things, but most of the world's food source today came from America, developed by American Indians. And they weren't savages either. They were great farmers. Potatoes, corn, squash, yams, all of this came from America. Peppers. What would the world do without peppers? What would they do without peppers today? What would the Italians do without tomatoes? James Polk's promises and what he was going to do to make America a greater country, he did. Now he didn't, he lowered tariffs. He raised American economy greatly during his administration. He brought in all of this land. He brought in one-third of America's land that we have today into America during his presidency. They had wall-eyed clips and fifths because he paid so much for California. The politicians back in Washington said, California is too far away, too far from tall, and we don't need it, and we can't afford it. Until the 1849 gold rush. And those that were with Polk said, look at that. It was good, it was worthwhile after all. It wasn't too far away, after all. He left a few justices in power in the Supreme Court. He did everything that he could do for America. Of course, during his time, we have the Dred Scott versus Sanford in 1857. The slaves were property of their owners. We have all kinds of reasons why people today don't want to honor James Polk. But I'm going to tell you something, people. He built America. He was a builder of America, and he didn't live off of America. The man supported himself. Mainly by farming. He said, I'm going to do everything that I can do in four years for this country. And many of the, you know, Andrew Jackson, he would work all day and party half the night. James Polk worked all day and worked half the night. He didn't, there was no, it was all work and no play. He did it for you and for me. not to line his own pockets or his family's pockets. Polk's time in the White House took a terrible toll on him, a toll on himself. And he was going to go back and be a gentleman farmer again. And on the way home he was exhausted. But everywhere he went people would try to He had done so much for the American country that whatever state he went to when he traveled, they wanted to treat him and they wanted to show how much they appreciated what he had done. Now you have to realize that when he was on the way home there was a cholera epidemic in this country. He got very sick with a cold and maybe pneumonia and he got over that and they thought they were so afraid that he would get cholera because his immune system was not very good ever in his life. He went down into Mississippi and Louisiana. Now the area was absolutely overwhelmed with cholera. They just didn't want him to go. They wanted to show him their appreciation. And he got sick with cholera. Three months after he finished his presidency, he was dead. He had worked himself to death for you and me. And he died in Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 53. Polk's remains have been buried two times. Abraham Lincoln's a whole bunch of times. His last words, he said, I love you, Sarah, for all eternity, I love you. Spoken to his wife. Polk's funeral was held in McKenzie Methodist Church in Nashville just before He died, he had himself baptized into the Methodist Church. I guess he wanted to ensure his way into heaven. Following his death, Sarah Polk lived at Polk's Place for 42 years and died August 14, 1891 at the age of 87. Their house, Polk's Place, was demolished in 1901, a decade after Sarah's death. Polk's remains were moved two times. After his death he was buried in what is known as Nashville City Cemetery. Due to legal requirement later to his infectious disease and death, Polk was then moved to the tomb on the grounds of Polk's place as specified in his will to begin with in 1850. In 1893, the bodies of James and Sarah Polk were relocated in the current resting place on the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol in Tennessee. In March 2017, the Tennessee Senate approved a resolution considering the first step toward relocating Polk's remains to the family home in Columbia. But it just died. It never did happen. As you know, Polk had slaves. He bought eight slaves in 1839. He bought seven slaves in 1846, and then nine slaves. Now, people say also about Polk, Polk had a lot of taskmasters on his plantation. He had some severe taskmasters which when he found them out he fired and replaced them. And then he had some that were too lenient and he fired them and replaced them with somebody more exacting. Many times they had bad overseers and sometimes good ones and tolerant ones. After his death, all his slaves were supposed to be free. But his wife, Sarah Pope, during her widowhood became so poor that she sold half interest of her plantation. And when she did that, if she had died before the Civil War, those slaves would have still been slaves because of the legal contract she had. Let me read this to you one more time. And we need to think about it a lot. Let every person be subject to the government authority, for there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. That man believed that. Therefore he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God, and they who oppose will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause to fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do you do what is good and you will be praised of the same? The minister of God to you is for good, but if you do what is evil, be afraid. For it does not bear the sword for nothing, capital punishment. Look at the mess we're in today because we don't have law and order. wrong order. In New York, they had Son of Sam, and they had a .44 caliber murder. And we know a lot more about that now. They arrested one man, but there are several involved in that. But the New York people have always been preyed upon by what we might call killers and thieves and robbers. There's a whole lot of people there to rob and steal from. People became so afraid, they accused the police department of not protecting them, so they went out and bought guns to protect themselves. If you need protection, you've got to have something to protect yourself. And that's in the Second Amendment. And sometimes it's very necessary. It saved my life many times. James Polk was an American hero. The very standard by which we estimate an American hero president is what did they do for America. Did they try to tear America down or did they try to build America up? Did they try to protect America from foreign foes or did they give in? Did their families get rich while they were in politics? Or did they make a living by the sweat of their brow? Our Father, we send this message out. Father, we thank you for this man because he did He tried to build this country up to honor you. He believed that. And Father, I think that people need to remember how great He was, one of the greatest Presidents we ever had. Even with His faults. And You said in Your Word, love covers a multitude of sins. And that's why we have to look at Him also. Father, please forgive me where I fail you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.