Daniel Moreau Barringer

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For other persons named Daniel Barringer, see Daniel Barringer.

Daniel Moreau Barringer (30 July 1806 – 1 September 1873) 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. Declining to run for a fourth Congressional term in 1848, Barringer was appointed by President Millard Fillmore as ambassador 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, DC, and then after the war was a participant in the Union National Convention of 1866. He chaired the North Carolina Democratic Party in 1872. Barringer died September 1, 1873, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and was buried in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.

Barringer was the older brother of Civil War cavalry Brigadier General Rufus Barringer. They were nephews of Daniel Laurens Barringer, who had previously been a Congressman from North Carolina. Barringer's son, Daniel Barringer Jr., became famous for proving the meteoritic origins of the Meteor Crater in Arizona.

This article incorporates facts obtained from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

Preceded by Romulus M. Saunders

U.S. Ambassador to Spain 1849–1853

Succeeded by Pierre Soulé