Representative James Israel Standifer

James Israel Standifer (April 19, 1779 – August 20, 1837) was an American politician who represented Tennessee in the United States House of Representatives. Over the course of six terms in Congress, he participated in the legislative process during a formative period in the nation’s political development, serving under several evolving party designations and representing the interests of his Tennessee constituents.

Standifer was born on April 19, 1779, in Henry County, the son of Israel Standifer and Susannah Heard Standifer. His family background placed him within the frontier society of the early southern backcountry. On February 2, 1801, he married his cousin, Martha “Patsy” Standifer, in Knox County, Tennessee. She was the daughter of William and Jemima Jones Standifer, born January 19, 1783, in Henry County, Virginia, and she survived him by more than a decade, dying on June 15, 1848, in Tennessee. Standifer attended the common schools available in the region and later graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Like many Southern politicians of his era, he owned slaves.

Standifer’s early public service included military duty during the War of 1812. He initially enlisted as a private and, reflecting both his ambition and capability, was promoted to captain during a term of service that ran from September 30, 1813, to December 30, 1813. He reenlisted on January 20, 1814, serving under Colonel John Brown in the East Tennessee Volunteer Mounted Gunmen. During this second period of service he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and remained in the field until March 11, 1814. His wartime experience linked him to the generation of frontier leaders whose military credentials helped propel them into political life in the expanding western and southern states.

Standifer’s congressional career unfolded over a period of significant partisan realignment in the United States. He was first elected to the Eighteenth Congress as the representative of Tennessee’s 3rd congressional district, serving from March 4, 1823, to March 4, 1825. After a brief interval out of office, he returned to the House and served continuously from March 4, 1829, until his death in 1837. During this extended tenure, his formal party affiliations shifted in step with the transformation of the early national party system. He was elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-first through the Twenty-third Congresses, aligning himself initially with the movement that coalesced around Andrew Jackson. He then broke with the Jacksonian mainstream and was elected as a White supporter, or Anti-Jacksonian, to the Twenty-fourth Congress, and subsequently as a member of the Whig Party to the Twenty-fifth Congress. In total, as a member of the Whig Party representing Tennessee and earlier as a Jacksonian and Anti-Jacksonian, Standifer contributed to the legislative process during six terms in office, participating in debates over national policy during a significant period in American history.

Standifer played a notable role in the presidential politics of the mid-1830s, particularly in the contest that reshaped party alignments in Tennessee. When Senator Hugh Lawson White of Tennessee ran for president in 1836, his candidacy split the Democratic Party in the state so severely that the Whigs carried Tennessee in presidential elections for the next twenty years. President Andrew Jackson, determined to secure the succession of his vice president, Martin Van Buren of New York, demanded that the Tennessee congressional delegation support Van Buren. Historical research, including the study “James Standifer, Sequatchie Valley Congressman” by Steve Byas in the Tennessee Historical Quarterly (Summer 1991), indicates that Congressman James Standifer, who represented the Sequatchie Valley just west of modern Chattanooga, was the chief instigator of White’s presidential campaign. His leadership in this intra-party struggle underscored both his independence from Jackson and his importance in the emerging Whig coalition in Tennessee.

Standifer’s life ended while he was still in active service in Congress. He died on August 20, 1837, near Kingston, in Roane County, Tennessee, while returning to Washington, D.C., for a congressional session. Contemporary accounts cited pneumonia as the cause of death, and newspapers around the country reported his passing, typically describing it as having occurred “near Kingston.” He was reported to be about 55 years of age at the time of his death and was said to be interred at a Baptist Cemetery in Kingston, Tennessee. However, later local research has raised questions about the precise circumstances and location of his burial. According to the assistant archivist for Roane County, Tennessee, county death records, which extend back to 1804, contain no entry for Standifer, and there is no documented record of his presence in or passage through Kingston at the time of his death. The Roane County Historical Society, which has recorded nearly all cemeteries in the county, has found no burial record for him and no evidence of a “Baptist Cemetery” in Kingston. The archivist has characterized the story of his death and burial there as “a story that just won’t die.” Nonetheless, his death while in office is firmly recorded in national sources, including contemporary newspapers and official compilations such as the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress and lists of members of Congress who died in office between 1790 and 1899.