The New International Encyclopædia/Hale, John Parker
HALE,  (1800-73). An American
statesman and orator, born in Rochester,
N. H. He studied at Phillips Exeter Academy,
graduated at Bowdoin College in 1827, and three
years later was admitted to the bar. His political
career began in 1832, when, as a strong
Jacksonian Democrat, he was elected to the
New Hampshire State Legislature. In 1834 he
was appointed by President Jackson United
States District Attorney for New Hampshire, was
reappointed by Van Buren in 1838, and served
until removed by Tyler in 1841. His nomination
and election to Congress in 1842 followed naturally.
Once in Congress, however, he soon asserted
his independence, and spoke and voted against
the adoption of the ‘gag rule’ (q.v.), intended to
put a stop to anti-slavery petitions. He still
remained a stanch Democrat, however,
supported Polk and Dallas in the campaign of 1844,
and was renominated without opposition.
Before the Congressional election, however, Texan
annexation having been adopted by the
Democratic Party as one of the main features of its
programme, the New Hampshire Legislature, in
December, 1844, passed resolutions instructing
its Senators and Congressmen to favor that policy.
Hale, however, came out with a public statement
opposing annexation on anti-slavery grounds.
The Democratic State Convention was thereupon
hastily reassembled at Concord. Hale was
branded as a traitor to the party, and his name
was stricken from the ticket. In the subsequent
election he ran as an independent candidate, and
as neither he, the regular candidate, nor the Whig
candidate obtained a majority of the votes cast,
the district was unrepresented. In the face of
an apparently invincible Democratic majority, he
set out to win the State over to the anti-slavery
cause, addressed meetings in every town and
village in New Hampshire, carrying on a remarkable
canvass known as the ‘Hale Storm of 1845,’
and was rewarded with seeing the State choose a
Legislature in which the Whigs and Independent
Democrats had a majority of the votes. He
himself was elected to the Lower House, and was
chosen Speaker, and in 1847 was elected to the
United States Senate. True to his convictions,
he alone refused to vote in favor of the resolution
tendering the thanks of Congress to Scott
and Taylor for their victories in the Mexican
War. In 1849 he was joined in the Senate by
Chase and Seward, and in 1851 by Sumner, as
co-advocates of the anti-slavery cause. In 1848 he
supported Van Buren for the Presidency. In
1851 he was counsel for the rescuers of the slave
Shadrach in Boston. At the national convention
of Free-Soil Democrats, held at Pittsburg
in 1852, Hale was nominated for President, and
George W. Julian, of Indiana, for Vice-President.
The ticket polled 157,685 votes. At the expiration
of his Senatorial term in 1853, Hale was
succeeded by Charles G. Atherton; but after two
years, which he spent in law practice in New
York, the Legislature of New Hampshire having
again an anti-slavery majority, he was elected to
fill the vacancy caused by Senator Atherton's
death. In 1858 he was reëlected, as a Republican,
for a full term, and served until 1865, completing,
in all, a service of sixteen years in the Senate.
During the war he was a consistent supporter of
President Lincoln's policy, and upon his
retirement
from the Senate he was appointed Minister
to Spain, where he remained for four years.