Trusten Polk (D)

Overview

At a Glance

• Advocated giving the General Assembly power to establish nine banks other than the State Bank, later adopted in a state constitutional amendment (1857)
• Supported slavery
• Acted as governor for less than two months

Personal History

Trusten W. Polk, a prominent figure in Missouri politics, served as both governor and U.S. senator. He was born in Sussex County, Delaware, to William Nutter and Levinia Causey Polk, who belonged to politically influential families. Polk received his education in the common schools of Delaware and at Cambridge Academy on Maryland’s eastern shore before graduating with honors from Yale College in 1831. Although he initially aimed to pursue a career in the ministry, he shifted focus at his father’s suggestion and studied law under James Rogers, the attorney general of Delaware. He furthered his legal education at Yale Law School for an additional two years before returning briefly to Delaware.

In 1835, Polk relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, where he established a successful legal practice. Though he did not pursue his ambition of becoming a minister, he maintained strong religious convictions throughout his life. In St. Louis, he became actively involved in the temperance movement and was elected president of the local Young Men’s Temperance Society in 1836. During this time, Polk met Elizabeth Skinner, and they were married on December 26, 1837. The couple had five children together.

Polk was invested in education and played a significant role in founding the Missouri Medical College in St. Louis. He also participated in early discussions led by Henry S. Geyer to garner support for a state university. Although he briefly served as St. Louis’s city counselor, he had to resign due to poor health. To recuperate, he embarked on an extensive trip to Cuba, the eastern United States, and Canada, utilizing this time to study the educational systems in the regions he visited.

Following his exit from politics, Polk made a short return to St. Louis before moving on to New Madrid, Missouri, and possibly Memphis, Missouri. He aligned himself with Sterling Price and the Missouri State Guard, serving under Price until Jefferson Davis appointed him as the presiding judge of the Trans-Mississippi Department, instructing him to report to Little Rock, Arkansas.

When Polk discovered that federal authorities had expelled his family from St. Louis, he embarked on a mission to locate them. In 1863, he was captured by Union forces and taken to Johnson’s Island prison camp in Sandusky, Ohio, where his health quickly declined. This situation led to an agreement for his parole to St. Louis, reportedly in exchange for a Union prisoner held in Mississippi.

After his release, Polk returned to Arkansas, where he rejoined Price and took part in the 1864 Missouri campaign. Once they retreated back to Arkansas, Polk resumed his role as presiding judge. Following the end of the Civil War in 1865, Price fled to Mexico in search of refuge, and although Polk initially sought him there, Polk ultimately chose to return to the U. S. to reunite with his family.

The Polks relocated back to St. Louis, where he reopened his law practice as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court declared Missouri’s test oath for lawyers unconstitutional. He maintained his lifelong dedication to the Methodist Episcopal Church South until his passing. He was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.

Political History

In 1845, Polk returned to Missouri as a delegate to the Missouri Constitutional Convention. Serving as the chair of the Committee on Education, he advocated for an article that would require state support for free public schools. Additionally, he took an active part in the discussions surrounding banks and corporations.

Despite being an urban Democrat, Polk aligned himself with the hard currency and pro-slavery beliefs of his party’s rural factions. In 1854, he unsuccessfully sought a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. However, in 1856, the anti-Benton Democrats selected him as their gubernatorial nominee, and he won against Thomas Hart Benton and American Party candidate R. C. Ewing with a plurality of 41%. This victory was significant for the influential Central Clique.

Gov. Polk was sworn into office on January 5, 1857, and merely eight days later, he was selected by the General Assembly to succeed Henry S. Geyer in the U.S. Senate. Consequently, on February 27, after less than two months in office as governor, Polk resigned to assume Geyer’s Senate seat.

Polk’s robust pro-Southern sympathies surfaced prominently during the national crisis of the late 1850s and early 1860s. In 1858, he defended slavery and advocated for Kansas’s administration under the Lecompton Constitution. As the secession crisis unfolded in early 1861, Polk proposed “irrepealable” constitutional amendments to safeguard slavery and warned that Missouri would align with the South if the federal government pursued abolition.

Due to his controversial views, Polk did not attend the congressional session that began on December 2, 1861. In January 1862, he, along with Missouri’s other senator Waldo P. Johnson, was expelled from the Senate for disloyalty and engaging in rebellion against the U.S. government. By this time, Polk had aligned himself with the Confederate cause, further cementing his commitment to the South during the Civil War.

Historical Significance

Polk’s governorship lasted only 53 days, making it the shortest in Missouri’s history, and he was the first governor to unequivocally support slavery. However, the full extent of his pro-slavery convictions only became evident during his subsequent term as a U.S. senator the following year, where he actively advocated for Southern interests and policies.

Following the 1857 constitutional amendment that permitted the establishment of multiple banks, Missouri’s banking system encountered significant difficulties, exacerbated by the national recession. Nearly all of the newly chartered banks failed, leading to a decline in western land value, a collapse of commercial credit for local merchants, and severe financial distress for railroads, which resulted in hundreds of layoffs. This financial panic ultimately derailed plans for the expansion of the St. Joseph-Hannibal railroad into Kansas, illustrating the far-reaching impacts of the banking crisis on the region’s economy.