write:I understand you but others might not and a wrong impression might bemade. ” It was customary in the 1840s to view women asthe keepers of moral virtue in society but in this ca

drink
or ght duels. Although heprofessed no religion
he kept the Sabbath holy anyhow
a fact attributed to the “auspicious domestic inuence”of his wife
“his guardian angel amid the perils anddarkness of the way.” Sarah Polk’s insistence that herhusband attend church with her each Sunday was wellknown. If he was “engaged in the company of men who
either from indierence or carelessness
forgot theSabbath and its universal obligation
” Sarah would enterthe room “shawled and bonneted” and “ask her husbandand his friends to go with her to church
saying that shedid not wish to go alone.” Indierent men quickly cameto realize that you didn’t talk politics with James Polkon a Sunday unless you were willing to spend severalhours in a Presbyterian church afterward.4Sarah ensured that James conformed to her standardsof religious observance
but he actually had stricter“ideas of propriety” than she did
and privatelyadmonished her for not conforming to his “delicateconception of the tness of things.” If she ventured tomake a joke about another person
he rebuked her:“Sarah
I wish you would not say that. I understand you
but others might not
and a wrong impression might bemade.” It was customary in the 1840s to view women asthe keepers of moral virtue in society
but in this caseSarah attributed her own moral standards to the “strict”moral “school” run by her husband.5His work ethic was just as faultless. Polk’s campaignbiography noted that “his course at college was markedby the same assiduity and studious application whichhave since characterized him.… [I]t is said that he nevermissed a recitation nor omitted the punctiliousperformance of any duty.” Nor did he ever miss a votein Congress
where he “always performed more than afull share of” his work. Since his youth
Democrats