Barzillai Jefferson Chambers (December 5, 1817 – September 16, 1895) was an American surveyor, lawyer, and politician of the Gilded Age.

Chambers stayed in Texas after its independence and annexation by the United States, earning a living as a surveyor and farmer in Johnson County.

In the American Civil War, he served briefly in the Confederate army, then returned to his farming and business interests, becoming part-owner of a bank in his hometown of Cleburne.

[8] He supported Texas's secession from the Union in 1861 and adhesion to the newly formed Confederacy, but, being 44 years old at the subsequent outbreak of the Civil War, did not immediately enlist.

[12] During the Civil War, Congress had authorized "greenbacks," a new form of fiat money that was redeemable not in gold but in government bonds.

[13] The greenbacks had helped to finance the war when the government's gold supply did not keep pace with the expanding costs of maintaining the armies.

[14] The Specie Payment Resumption Act, passed in 1875, ordered that greenbacks be gradually withdrawn and replaced with gold-backed currency beginning in 1879.

[15] Farmers and laborers, especially, clamored for the return of coinage in both gold and silver, believing the increased money supply would restore wages and property values.

[18] During the campaign, Chambers published a pamphlet attacking the Democratic candidates and calling for Congress to create "a sufficient amount of paper money, making it equal to gold and silver, and full legal tender for all debts".

Pomeroy's faction was more radical and emphasized its independence, suggesting that Eastern Greenbackers were likely to "sell out the party at any time to the Democrats.

[21] Accepting the nomination, Chambers called for unity between the Greenback factions and restated his belief in the party's goals, and attacked bankers as "Huns and Vandals.

[22] Chambers gave speeches on his way back to Texas, castigating the banks and defending the admission of socialists to the convention as "simply a body of men enlisted in the cause of human rights.

"[22] In his official acceptance letter, he called for expansion of the currency, immigration restriction to help workingmen compete "with Chinese serf labor," and the forfeiture of all unfulfilled railroad grants.

[24] On July 8, before reaching home, Chambers fell as he exited his train in Kosse, Texas, and broke two ribs.

[25] He also criticized the party's presidential nominee that year, Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts, for attacking monopolies without offering any suggestions on how to reform them.

[26] Chambers made his last foray into politics in 1890 in two letters to the Southern Mercury, a newspaper of the Farmers' Alliance, in which he again condemned monopolies and corporations, and suggested that all laws creating them be repealed.