James Bates (September 24, 1789 – February 25, 1882) was a United States representative from Maine. He was born in Greene, Massachusetts (now in Maine), on September 24, 1789. He attended the common schools.^[1]

He studied medicine at Harvard Medical School. He was a surgeon during the War of 1812. He was elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-second Congress (March 4, 1831 – March 3, 1833). He then became a hospital executive.

He died, aged 92, on February 25, 1882, in Yarmouth, Maine. His interment is in the Old Oak Cemetery, Norridgewock, Maine.

Bates' son, James M. Bates, became a noted physician.^[2]