James C. Jones

James Chamberlain Jones ( born April 20, 1809 Davidson County, Tennessee, † October 29, 1859 in Memphis, Tennessee ) was an American politician and twelfth governor of Tennessee.

Curriculum vitae

Jones studied law in his youth, but worked as a farmer in Wilson County. In 1836 he entered politics in appearance than he, but in vain, campaigned as a presidential candidate for Hugh Lawson White for the first time. In 1839 he was elected as a member of the Whig party in the House of Representatives from Tennessee. As 1841 gubernatorial queuing he ran against the incumbent and later U.S. President James Polk. Although he was not yet familiar with election campaigns and the political scene, I managed to beat him Polk. He benefited from a temporary crisis in the Democratic Party, which had lost the presidential election to the Whigs in the previous year. His first term as governor was politically very difficult, because the House of Representatives of the State of the Whigs were in the majority, while in the Senate the Democrats were in the majority. Both houses blocked each other and thus also stagnated domestic politics Tennessee. Addition, there was also a general economic crisis. 1843 Jones again ran successfully against Polk. In his second term, Nashville was officially declared the capital, even if the city for several years held this function. Jones supported schools for blind and deaf-mutes. In 1845 he aspired to no more third term and left office. Instead, he became president of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad Railway Company. From 1851 to 1857 he was U.S. Senator in Washington. He supported the presidential campaigns of candidates Wigh Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott. After the dissolution of the Whigs in 1856, he supported the Democrats James Buchanan. Jones died in 1859.

He was married to Sara Watson Munford. The couple had ten children.