Daniel Moreau Barringer

Who was Daniel Moreau Barringer?

Daniel Moreau Barringer was a Whig U.S. Congressman from North Carolina between 1843 and 1849.

Born near Concord, North Carolina, in 1806, Barringer attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Graduating in 1826, he went on to study law in Hillsborough and was admitted to the bar, beginning a law practice in his hometown of Concord in 1829. That same year, Barringer was elected to the North Carolina House of Commons; he would serve there until 1834, and also in 1840 and 1842. He was also a member of the 1835 North Carolina constitutional convention.

In 1842, he was elected as a Whig to the 28th United States Congress, and was subsequently reelected to the 29th and 30th sessions. During the 30th Congress, he chaired the Committee on Indian Affairs and the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of State. He became a personal friend of fellow congressman Abraham Lincoln. Declining to run for a fourth Congressional term in 1848, Barringer was appointed by President Zachary Taylor as minister to Spain, where he served from 1849 to 1853. In 1854, upon returning to North Carolina, he served one term in the House of Commons.

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Barringer was a delegate to the 1861 Peace Convention held in Washington, D.C., and then after the war was a participant in the Union National Convention of 1866. He became a Democrat and chaired the North Carolina Democratic Party in 1872, taking over after the death of Thomas Bragg. Barringer died September 1, 1873, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and was buried in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.