James Browning Allen (December 28, 1912–June 1, 1978) was a Senator from Alabama. Allen was born in Gadsden, Alabama and attended the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama Law School. He practiced law in Gadsden from 1935 to 1968, and was a member of the Alabama State legislature from 1938 to 1942. He resigned from the state legislature to enter active duty in the United States Naval Reserve from 1943 to 1946. He again ran for office after World War II, and was a member of the Alabama State senate from 1946-1950, and Lieutenant Governor of Alabama from 1951 to 1955 and again from 1963 to 1967. In 1968 he was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate, and was reelected in 1974. He served until his death in Gulf Shores, Alabama on June 1, 1978. He is interred in Forrest Cemetery in Gadsden. Allen was known as one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate during his time there, and was an active opponent of the Panama Canal Treaty. Governor George Wallace of Alabama appointed Allen's widow, Maryon Pittman Allen, to succeed him in the Senate.
The elder Allen had hoped to settle in the UnitedStates, but was robbed and murdered before he could send for his family.
JamesAllen strove to live the ideal life described by Russia's great novelist and mystic Count Leo Tolstoy -- the life of voluntary poverty, manual labor and ascetic self-discipline.
JamesAllen's philosophy became possible when liberal Protestantism discarded the stern dogma that man is sinful by nature.
Allen are that he was a North Carolinian, well educated and of a "family of easy circumstances." That he had come to Nashville with the intention of being a lawyer.
JamesAllen was served with the papers on April 10, 1830, and the case was set for trial in the November term of 1830.
JamesAllen, for whatever reason failed to appear in court for the trial of the lawsuit and Fisher took a default judgment against him for $208.08 in damages and $23.24 court costs.