Richard Irvine Manning I was a governor of South Carolina.
Background
Richard Irvine Manning I was born on May 1, 1789 in Camden district of that state. His father was Laurence Manning who emigrated from Ireland to Pennsylvania, served during the Revolution as lieutenant of the Continental legion commanded by "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, and after the war settled in South Carolina. His mother was Susannah Richardson, the daughter of Gen. Richard Richardson, a brigadier-general in the Revolution, who moved from Virginia to South Carolina and became the ancestor of six governors of the state.
Education
Richard Manning was graduated from South Carolina College in 1811.
Career
During the War of 1812 was captain of a militia company called to the defense of Charleston, and after the war became a planter in Sumter district. In 1822 the Richard Manning of this sketch entered politics and became a member of the state House of Representatives. From 1824 to 1826 he was governor and when the Marquis de Lafayette made his second visit to America in 1825, it fell to him to entertain this distinguished guest during his stay in South Carolina. When the question of Nullification divided the state into two well-defined groups, he attached himself to the Union party, which opposed the Nullification doctrines. In 1826 he was defeated as the Union candidate for Congress. In 1830 he was defeated for the governorship by James Hamilton. In the bitter struggle that ensued he was one of the leaders of the opposition to Nullification. He was one of the few Unionists elected to the state convention of 1832 and voted against the Nullification ordinance. He was one of the vice-presidents of the Union convention at Columbia in 1832, which adopted an official protest against Nullification as contrary to both state and national constitutions. When the state convention reassembled in March 1833, he was a member of the committee chosen to consider the mediation of Virginia's agent, Benjamin Watkins Leigh. After the death of James Blair in April 1834, Manning succeeded to his seat in the federal House of Representatives. In November 1834 he was reelected for the full term. When Henry Laurens Pinckney introduced the gag resolution in 1836 he supported it by speech and by vote. He died in Philadelphia while attending Congress, and is buried in Trinity churchyard, Columbia, S. C.
Achievements
After his two unsucceful attemps to run for Congress, Manning won a special election in 1834 as a Jacksonian to fill the seat of the 8th congressional district caused by the death of James Blair, and was re-elected in 1834 to represent the 7th congressional district, but he died in Philadelphia on May 1, 1836 (his 47th birthday) prior to the completion of the term.
Connections
In 1814 he married his cousin Elizabeth Peyer Richardson, the daughter of Floride Bonneau (Peyre) and John Peter Richardson and the niece of Gov. James Burchill Richardson. They had five sons and four daughters of whom one son was John Laurence Manning, 1816-1889, who became a political leader and governor of the state, and another son was Richard Irvine Manning, the father of Richard Irvine Manning, 1859-1931.
