great demand, and he was not long in earning the title of the “Napoleon of the Stump.”  His first public employment was that of principal clerk of the senate of the State of Tennessee.  In 1823 was elected a member of that body.  In January, 1824, he married Sarah, daughter of Joel Childress, a merchant of Rutherford County, Tenn.  In August, 1825, he was elected to Congress from the Duck River district, and reelected at every succeeding election till 1839, when he withdrew from the contest to become a candidate for governor.  With one or two exceptions, he was the youngest member of the Nineteenth Congress.  He was prominently connected with every leading question, and upon all he struck what proved to be the keynote for the action of his party.  His maiden speech was in defense of the proposed amendment to the Constitution giving the choice of the President and Vice-President directly to the people.  It at once placed him in the front rank of Congressional debaters.  He opposed the appropriation for the Panama mission, asked for by President Adams, contending that such action would tend to involve the United States in a war with Spain and establish an unfortunate precedent.  In December, 1827, he was placed on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and afterwards was also appointed chairman of the select committee to which was referred that portion of President Adams’s message calling attention to the probable accumulation of a surplus in the Treasury after the anticipated extinguishment of the national debt.  As the head of the latter committee he made a report denying the constitutional power of Congress to collect from the people for distribution a surplus beyond the wants of the Government, and maintaining that the revenue should be reduced to the requirements of the public service.  During the whole period of President Jackson’s Administration he was one of its leading supporters, and at times its chief reliance.  Early in 1833, as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, he made a minority report unfavorable to the Bank of the United States.  During the entire contest between the bank and President Jackson, caused by the removal of the deposits in October, 1833, Mr. Polk, as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, supported the Executive.  He was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in December, 1835, and held that office till 1839.  It was his fortune to preside over the House at a period when party feelings were excited to an unusual degree, and notwithstanding the fact that during the first session more appeals were taken from his decisions than were ever known before, he was uniformly sustained by the House, and frequently by leading members of the Whig party.  He gave to the Administration of Martin Van Buren the same unhesitating support he had accorded to that of President Jackson.  On leaving Congress he became the candidate of the Democrats of Tennessee for governor, and was elected by over 2,500 majority.  He was an unsuccessful