Excerpt from the This volume is a selection from “The Diary of James K. Polk During His Presidency, 1845 to 1849,” edited and annotated by milo Milton Quaife, and published in four volumes in 1910 by A. C. McClurg & Company of Chicago for the Chicago Historical Society, in whose collections the original manuscript rests. Having been printed in an edition of but five hundred copies, the work is unfortunately but little known to the general public. The editor has attempted to select from it the portions most interesting and valuable to ordinary students and readers, and to knit them together by a full body of notes.