Daniel Laurens Barringer

Daniel Laurens Barringer (October 1, 1788 – October 16, 1852) was a slave owner, attorney, and United States Representative from North Carolina who served in Congress between 1826 and 1834. He was born in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, then a largely rural and agrarian area, where he spent his early years before pursuing a legal career. Little is recorded about his childhood, but his later prominence in state and national politics suggests he emerged from a family with the means and connections to support legal training and public service. He was a member of the Barringer family that would later produce other notable political figures in North Carolina.

Barringer studied law in North Carolina and was admitted to the bar, establishing his legal practice in Raleigh, the state capital. Practicing in Raleigh placed him near the center of state political life and facilitated his entry into public affairs. As a lawyer, he built the professional standing that underpinned his subsequent electoral career, while also participating in the slaveholding social and economic order that characterized North Carolina in the early nineteenth century.

Barringer’s political career began in the North Carolina House of Commons, the lower house of the state legislature. He was first elected to that body in 1813 and 1814, during the period of the War of 1812, and then returned to serve again from 1819 to 1822. His repeated elections to the House of Commons reflected his growing influence in state politics and provided him with legislative experience and visibility that would later support his candidacy for national office.

In 1826, Barringer was elected as a United States Representative from North Carolina in a special election held to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Willie P. Mangum. Taking his seat on December 4, 1826, he entered the Twentieth Congress and was subsequently elected in regular congressional elections to four succeeding Congresses. He served continuously in the U.S. House of Representatives from December 4, 1826, to March 3, 1835, a period that spanned the administrations of John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson and the emergence of the Second Party System. During these years he aligned with the evolving opposition to Jacksonian Democracy, a political stance that would later be associated with the Whig Party. In 1834 he was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to what would have been a fourth full term, bringing his congressional service to a close at the end of the Twenty-third Congress.

After his defeat for reelection, Barringer left North Carolina and settled in Shelbyville, Tennessee, where he resumed his legal and political career. In Tennessee he continued his involvement in public life and was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives. Within that body he rose to a position of leadership, serving as Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1843 to 1845. His role as Speaker placed him at the forefront of state legislative affairs during a period of growing sectional tension in the United States.

Barringer was also active in national politics through the Whig Party. He served as a presidential elector on the Whig ticket of Henry Clay and Theodore Frelinghuysen, participating in the 1844 presidential election that pitted Clay against Democrat James K. Polk. His work as a presidential elector underscored his continued engagement with national political issues and his identification with Whig principles of congressional supremacy and economic development.

Daniel Laurens Barringer died in Shelbyville, Tennessee, on October 16, 1852. He was a member of a politically prominent family; he was the uncle of Daniel Moreau Barringer, who later served as a Congressman from North Carolina. His career spanned state legislatures in two Southern states, nearly a decade in the U.S. House of Representatives, and leadership roles within the Whig Party, all set against the backdrop of a slaveholding society in the antebellum South.