James Israel Standifer

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James Israel Standifer was an American politician that represented Tennessee in the United States House of Representatives. He was born in Virginia, probably in 1782. He attended the common schools and graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He was elected to the Eighteenth Congress, which lasted from March 4, 1823 to March 3, 1825. He was also elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-first Congress through the Twenty-third Congress, as a White supporter to the Twenty-fourth Congress, and as a Whig to the Twenty-fifth Congress. He served from March 4, 1829 until his death near Kingston, Tennessee on his way to Washington, D.C. He was interred in the Baptist Cemetery of Kingston, Tennessee. When White ran for president in 1836, it split the Democratic Party in Tennessee so badly that the Whigs carried the state in presidential elections for the next twenty years. President Jackson demanded the Tennessee congressional delegation back his vice president, Martin Van Buren of New York, as his successor. From a review of the historical record, it is clear that Congressman James Standifer, who represented the Sequatchie Valley just west of modern Chattanooga, was the chief instigator of the presidential campaign of Hugh Lawson White (see "James Standifer, Sequatchie Valley Congressman," by Steve Byas, Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Summer 1991).

This article incorporates facts obtained from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.