NASHVILLE — It is the latest chapter in one of the more tangled stories of an American presidential corpse — a tale of love and cholera, betrayal and real estate, honor and probate law.

But having been interred in three different places since his death in 1849, James K. Polk, the 11th president of the United States, now faces the prospect of having his sleep disturbed yet again.

A new proposal making its way through the Tennessee legislature calls for digging up the bodies of Polk and his wife, Sarah Childress Polk, both of which have been buried on the grounds of the state Capitol for more than a century. They would then be relocated to a final resting place at a Polk family home and museum in the small city of Columbia.

Supporters say the move will properly honor an unjustly overlooked president, a man who expanded the territory of the United States by a third, signed a law establishing the Smithsonian Institution and created the Naval Academy.