Despite this ambitious plan, a combination of Polk’s passion and intensity helped him pull it off. He accomplished all of his goals, including giving us Texas, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Washington. He also got us California, first by trying to buy it, but when Mexico said “Uh, we’re not actually selling,” he just straight up took it from them in the Mexican-American War (a domestic war successfully taken care of in one term and wasn’t even on his list).
