Mangum, Willie P.

Born: 1792-05-10 Orange County, North Carolina

Died: 1861-09-07 Red Mountain, North Carolina

Willie Mangum attended academies at Hillsborough, Fayetteville, and Raleigh before graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1815. He studied law, earned admittance to the bar in 1817, and started a practice in Red Mountain, North Carolina. Mangum married Charity Alston Cain in 1819 and the couple had five children. Mangum served in the North Carolina House of Commons in 1818-1819 and won election twice to superior court judge. In 1823, he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Jacksonian candidate, serving until his resignation in 1826. Mangum won election to the U.S. Senate, as a Jacksonian (and later Anti-Jacksonian), and served from 1831 until his resignation in 1836. He won all of South Carolina's eleven electoral votes for president of the U.S. in 1836. Mangum returned to the U.S. Senate, as a Whig, to fill a vacancy, serving from 1840-1853. Mangum served as president pro tempore of the Senate from 1842-1845. After an unsuccessful reelection campaign in 1853, Mangum returned to Red Mountain and practiced law until his death in 1861.

Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 1439; Gravestone, Willie P. Magnum Family Cemetery, Red Mountain, NC; Thomas E. Jeffrey, "Mangum, Willie Person," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 14:406-8.