Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/148

 112 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS cision virtually reached during his able adminis tration. Mr. Polk, in a letter dated May 19, 1848, re iterated his decision not to become a candidate again for the presidency, and retired at the close of his term of office to his home in Nashville with the intention not to re-enter public life. His health, never robust, had been seriously impaired by the unavoidable cares of office and his habit of devoting too much time and strength to the execution of details. Within a few weeks after his permanent return to Tennessee he fell a prey to a disease that would probably have only slightly affected a man in ordinary health, and a few hours sufficed to bring the attack to a fatal termination. Thus ended the life of one of whose public career it may still be too soon to judge with entire impartiality. Some of the questions on which he was called upon to act have remained for half a century after his death party issues. Polk evidently believed with Mr. Clay that a Union all slave or all free was an im possible Utopia, and that there was no good reason why the north and the south should not continue to live for many years to come as they had lived since the adoption of the constitution. He depre cated agitation of the slavery question by the Abolitionists, and believed that the safety of the commonwealth lay in respecting the compromises that had hitherto furnished a modus Vivendi be-