Elijah Risley (May 7, 1787 – January 9, 1870) was a U.S. Representative from New York.
The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they comprise the legislature of the United States.
New York is a state in the Northeastern United States. New York was one of the original Thirteen Colonies that formed the United States. With an estimated 19.54 million residents in 2018, it is the fourth most populous state. To distinguish the state from the city in the state with the same name, it is sometimes called New York State.
Born in Connecticut, Risley completed preparatory studies before moving to Fredonia, New York, in 1807, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits. Risley was the sheriff of Chautauqua County, New York from 1825 to 1828, and later became supervisor of the town of Pomfret in 1835.
Connecticut is the southernmost state in the New England region of the United States. As of the 2010 Census, it has the highest per-capita income, Human Development Index (0.962), and median household income in the United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capital is Hartford and its most populous city is Bridgeport. It is part of New England, although portions of it are often grouped with New York and New Jersey as the Tri-state area. The state is named for the Connecticut River which approximately bisects the state. The word "Connecticut" is derived from various anglicized spellings of an Algonquian word for "long tidal river".
Fredonia is a village in Chautauqua County, New York, United States. The population was 11,230 as of the 2010 census. Fredonia is in the town of Pomfret south of Lake Erie. The village borders the city of Dunkirk and is the home of the State University of New York at Fredonia.
Mercantilism is a national economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports of a nation. Mercantilism was dominant in modernized parts of Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries before falling into decline, although some commentators argue that it is still practiced in the economies of industrializing countries in the form of economic interventionism.
From 1833 to 1853, he engaged in the culture of garden seeds.
Risley was elected as a Whig to the Thirty-first Congress on March 4, 1849, and served until March 3, 1851. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1850. He was also a Major General in the State militia.
The Whig Party was a political party active in the middle of the 19th century in the United States. Four presidents belonged to the party while in office. It emerged in the 1830s as the leading opponent of Jacksonian democracy, pulling together former members of the National Republican and the Anti-Masonic Party. It had some links to the upscale traditions of the long-defunct Federalist Party. Along with the rival Democratic Party, it was central to the Second Party System from the early 1840s to the mid-1860s. It originally formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. It became a formal party within his second term, and slowly receded influence after 1854. In particular terms, the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the presidency and favored a program of modernization, banking and economic protectionism to stimulate manufacturing. It appealed to entrepreneurs, planters, reformers and the emerging urban middle class, but had little appeal to farmers or unskilled workers. It included many active Protestants and voiced a moralistic opposition to the Jacksonian Indian removal. Party founders chose the "Whig" name to echo the American Whigs of the 18th century who fought for independence. The political philosophy of the American Whig Party was not related to the British Whig party. Historian Frank Towers has specified a deep ideological divide:
The Thirty-first United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1849, to March 4, 1851, during the 16 months of the Zachary Taylor presidency and the first eight months of the administration of Millard Fillmore's. The apportionment of seats in this House of Representatives was based on the Sixth Census of the United States in 1840. The Senate had a Democratic majority, while there was a Democratic plurality in the House.
Risley died in Fredonia, New York on January 9, 1870, and was interred in the East Main Street Cemetery.
The East Main Street Cemetery is a historic cemetery on East Main Street in Dalton, Massachusetts. The cemetery is one of the oldest in the town, with grave markers dating to the 1780s. It was founded on land owned by the Chamberlin family, whose identified graves make up about 20 percent of roughly 250 gravesites. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
