For years, I've looked for a decent modern biography of James Knox Polk, U.S. president from 1845 to 1849, when the national borders expanded to the Pacific Ocean. He should be as well known to posterity as Andrew Jackson or Abraham Lincoln.

Now, there is such a biography: "A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent," by Robert W. Merry.

The only problem I have with it, and most other histories of the period, is that they use phrases like "the American annexation of Texas," when it might be more accurate to refer to the "Texan annexation of the United States."

Texas gained independence from Mexico in 1836, and struggled as an independent republic until it joined the United States in 1844. It attempted to leave the Union in 1861, but was on the losing side in our Civil War.

But there are other routes to power. Consider the state's clout in Washington, which goes back to the days of Texan Sam Rayburn as the longest-serving speaker of the House of Representatives, starting in 1940 and continuing — except when the Republicans controlled the House — until 1961. For the last six of those years, fellow Texan Lyndon B. Johnson was Senate majority leader.

Now look at presidential politics. In all but two of the elections since 1980, there's been a Texan on a major-party ticket: George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush, along with Lloyd Bentsen.

If you count Dick Cheney as a Texan (which he was before moving his registration to Wyoming in 2000 because the Constitution forbids the president and vice president from being from the same state, and there was a time when Cheney at least paid lip service to that document), then nine of the 32 nominations have been Texans. Only in 1996 and 2008 was there not a Texan running for president or vice president on a major-party ticket.

Compare that to two other big states: California has but the two Ronald Reagan nominations, and New York has only Jack Kemp.

Think of Texas and you think of oil. The state was the leading producer for many years, following the gushing discovery at Spindletop in 1901. For some years thereafter, it produced more oil than America could consume.

A solution to the glut? Redesign America to burn lots more oil by abandoning fuel-efficient railroads and moving to fuel-consuming roads — as with the interstate highway system, supported and promoted by Rayburn, Johnson, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a native of, you guessed it, Texas.

They also seemed to have a Lone Star attitude about separation of church and state, since it was on their watch that "under God" was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance, and "in God we trust" was made a national motto (we already had "E pluribus unum") and applied to currency.

There's more. Texas is one of the nation's largest markets for textbooks, so publishers go with what they can sell there. Thus Texas standards determine what's in schoolbooks in most other states. And the Texas state board of education has members who want it taught that the United States was founded on biblical principles — even though there's nothing in the Bible about elections, jury trials or probable cause.

So Texas determines the American history that is taught in much of America as it holds disproportionate national political power. That's why it might be more accurate to call it the "annexation of the United States by Texas."

In his statement after winning the Republican primary Tuesday night, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said it was a message to Washington: "Stop messing with Texas." But how do we keep Texas from messing with the rest of us?

Ed Quillen (ekquillen@gmail.com) of Salida is a regular contributor to The Denver Post.