John P. Hale
Encyclopedia
John Parker Hale was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 politician and lawyer from New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

. He served in the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 from 1843 to 1845 and in the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 from 1847 to 1853 and again from 1855 to 1865. He was the first senator to make a stand against slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

. Hale was a leading member of the Free Soil Party and was its presidential
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 nominee in 1852.

Early years

Hale was born in Rochester
Rochester, New Hampshire
Rochester is a city in Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 29,752. The city includes the villages of East Rochester and Gonic. Rochester is home to Skyhaven Airport and the annual Rochester Fair....

, Strafford County
Strafford County, New Hampshire
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 112,233 people, 42,581 households, and 27,762 families residing in the county. The population density was 304 people per square mile . There were 45,539 housing units at an average density of 124 per square mile...

, New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

, the son of John Parker Hale and Lydia Clarkson O'Brien. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy
Phillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...

 and graduated in 1827 from Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is...

, where he was a prominent member of the Peucinian Society, a literary society. He began his law studies in Rochester with Jeremiah H. Woodman, and continued them with Daniel M. Christie in Dover
Dover, New Hampshire
Dover is a city in Strafford County, New Hampshire, in the United States of America. The population was 29,987 at the 2010 census, the largest in the New Hampshire Seacoast region...

, where, after passing the bar examination
Bar examination
A bar examination is an examination conducted at regular intervals to determine whether a candidate is qualified to practice law in a given jurisdiction.-Brazil:...

 there in 1830, Hale lived and practiced law. He married Lucy Lambert, the daughter of William Thomas Lambert and Abigail Ricker.

Career in politics

In March 1832, Hale was elected to the state house of representatives
New Hampshire House of Representatives
The New Hampshire House of Representatives is the lower house in the New Hampshire General Court. The House of Representatives consists of 400 members coming from 103 districts across the state, created from divisions of the state's counties. On average, each legislator represents about 3,300...

 as a Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

. In 1834, President Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...

 appointed him to serve as a U.S. District Attorney. This appointment was renewed by President Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren was the eighth President of the United States . Before his presidency, he was the eighth Vice President and the tenth Secretary of State, under Andrew Jackson ....

 in 1838, but Hale was removed by President John Tyler
John Tyler
John Tyler was the tenth President of the United States . A native of Virginia, Tyler served as a state legislator, governor, U.S. representative, and U.S. senator before being elected Vice President . He was the first to succeed to the office of President following the death of a predecessor...

 in 1841 on party grounds.

He was elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-eighth Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

, serving from March 4, 1843 to March 4, 1845. There he spoke out against the gag rule
Gag rule
A gag rule is a rule that limits or forbids the raising, consideration or discussion of a particular topic by members of a legislative or decision-making body.-Origin and pros and cons:...

 intended to put a stop to anti-slavery petitions.

Hale supported the Democratic candidates Polk
James K. Polk
James Knox Polk was the 11th President of the United States . Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as the 17th Speaker of the House of Representatives and the 12th Governor of Tennessee...

 and Dallas
George M. Dallas
George Mifflin Dallas was a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and the 11th Vice President of the United States , serving under James K. Polk.-Family and early life:...

 in the campaign of 1844
United States presidential election, 1844
In the United States presidential election of 1844, Democrat James K. Polk defeated Whig Henry Clay in a close contest that turned on foreign policy, with Polk favoring the annexation of Texas and Clay opposed....

, and was renominated for his Congressional seat without opposition. Before the Congressional election, however, Texan annexation having been adopted by the Democratic Party as part of its platform, 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
Concord, New Hampshire
The city of Concord is the capital of the state of New Hampshire in the United States. It is also the county seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2010 census, its population was 42,695....

. Hale was branded as a traitor to the party, and in February 1845 his name was stricken from the ticket under the lead of Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce was the 14th President of the United States and is the only President from New Hampshire. Pierce was a Democrat and a "doughface" who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Pierce took part in the Mexican-American War and became a brigadier general in the Army...

. In the subsequent election, Hale ran as an independent candidate. As neither he, the regular Democratic 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, Hale set out to win New Hampshire over to the anti-slavery cause. He addressed meetings in every town and village in the state, carrying on a remarkable campaign known as the “Hale Storm of 1845.” At a North Church meeting in Concord
Concord, New Hampshire
The city of Concord is the capital of the state of New Hampshire in the United States. It is also the county seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2010 census, its population was 42,695....

 on 5 June 1845, there was a noted debate between Hale and Pierce. Hale was rewarded on 10 March 1846 with seeing the state choose a legislature in which the Whigs
Whig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...

 and Independent Democrats had a majority of the votes. A Whig governor, Anthony Colby
Anthony Colby
Anthony Colby was an American businessman and politician from New London, New Hampshire. He owned and operated a grist mill and a stage line, and served one term as Governor of New Hampshire. For twenty years he was a trustee of Dartmouth College.-External links:*...

, was also chosen. Hale wound up elected to the lower house of the legislature, and was chosen speaker.

He was later elected as a Free Soil
Free Soil Party
The Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections. It was a third party and a single-issue party that largely appealed to and drew its greatest strength from New York State. The party leadership...

 candidate to the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 in 1846 and served from March 4, 1847, to March 4, 1853. He was among the strongest opponents of the Mexican-American War in the Senate and is considered "the first U.S. Senator with an openly anti-slavery (or abolitionist) platform".
He alone refused to vote in favor of the resolution tendering the thanks of Congress to Winfield Scott
Winfield Scott
Winfield Scott was a United States Army general, and unsuccessful presidential candidate of the Whig Party in 1852....

 and Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass...

 for their victories in the Mexican-American War. In 1849 he was joined in the Senate by co-advocates of the anti-slavery cause Salmon P. Chase
Salmon P. Chase
Salmon Portland Chase was an American politician and jurist who served as U.S. Senator from Ohio and the 23rd Governor of Ohio; as U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln; and as the sixth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.Chase was one of the most prominent members...

 and William H. Seward
William H. Seward
William Henry Seward, Sr. was the 12th Governor of New York, United States Senator and the United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson...

, and in 1851 he was joined by Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction,...

.
Hale also opposed flogging and the spirit ration in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

, and secured the abolition of the former by a law of 28 September 1850, and of the latter by a law of 14 July 1862. He served as counsel in 1851 in the trials that arose out of the forcible rescue of the fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins
Shadrach Minkins
Shadrach Minkins was an African American fugitive slave. Born in Norfolk, Virginia, he escaped from slavery in 1850 to settle in Boston, Massachusetts, where he became a waiter...

 from the custody of the United States Marshal in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

.

Hale was an unsuccessful candidate for President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 on the Free Soil ticket in 1852, losing to Democrat Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce was the 14th President of the United States and is the only President from New Hampshire. Pierce was a Democrat and a "doughface" who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Pierce took part in the Mexican-American War and became a brigadier general in the Army...

, a staunch political enemy of Hale's, and also his schoolmate at Bowdoin. (See U.S. presidential election, 1852.) Hale was succeeded in the Senate by Charles G. Atherton
Charles G. Atherton
Charles Gordon Atherton was a Democratic Representative and Senator from New Hampshire.-Biography:The son of Charles Humphrey Atherton and Mary Ann Toppan-Atherton, Charles G. Atherton was born in Amherst, New Hampshire on 4 July 1804...

, a Democrat, and began practicing law in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

Following the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was an agreement passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress, involving primarily the regulation of slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30'...

, the Democrats were again overthrown in New Hampshire. Hale was elected to the Senate in 1855 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Atherton; James Bell
James Bell
James, Jim, Jimmy and Jamie Bell may refer to:Entertainers*Jimmy Velvit, , US singer who used the pseudonym James Bell*James Bell , American character actor*Jamie Bell , English actor...

, a Whig, was elected to New Hampshire's other Senate seat in the same election. Hale was re-elected Senator in 1859, in total serving from July 30, 1855, to March 4, 1865. He became a Republican and served as the chair
Republican Conference Chairman of the United States Senate
The Republican conference of the United States Senate chooses a conference chairperson. The office was created in the mid-19th century with the founding of the Republican party...

 of the Senate Republican Conference until 1862.

President Lincoln nominated Hale to the post of minister to Spain
United States Ambassador to Spain
-Ambassadors:*John Jay**Appointed: September 29, 1779**Title: Minister Plenipotentiary**Presented credentials:**Terminated mission: ~May 20, 1782*William Carmichael**Appointed: April 20, 1790**Title: Chargé d'Affaires...

 and he served in that capacity 1865–1869. Hale attributed his 5 April 1869 recall to a quarrel between himself and Horatio J. Perry, his secretary of legation, in the course of which a charge had been made that Hale's privilege, as minister, of importing free of duty merchandice for his official or personal use, had been exceeded and some goods put upon the market and sold. Hale's answer was that he had been misled by a commission merchant instigated by Perry. Perry was removed 28 June 1869.

Hale's daughter Lucy Lambert Hale
Lucy Lambert Hale
Lucy Lambert Hale was the daughter of US Senator John Parker Hale of New Hampshire, and was a noted Washington, DC society belle. She attracted many admirers including Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Robert Todd Lincoln; and stage actor and presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth, to whom she was...

 was betrothed in 1865 to John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor...

, Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

's assassin. Booth had a picture of Lucy Hale with him when he was killed by pursuing Federal troops on April 26, 1865. Lucy Hale eventually married Senator William E. Chandler
William E. Chandler
William Eaton Chandler was a lawyer who served as United States Secretary of the Navy and as a U.S. Senator from New Hampshire.-Early life:...

. Today, portraits of President Lincoln and John Hale hang next to each other in the chambers of the New Hampshire House of Representatives
New Hampshire House of Representatives
The New Hampshire House of Representatives is the lower house in the New Hampshire General Court. The House of Representatives consists of 400 members coming from 103 districts across the state, created from divisions of the state's counties. On average, each legislator represents about 3,300...

.

John Parker Hale is buried in Dover at the Pine Hill Cemetery. His Federal style house, built in 1813, is now part of the Woodman Institute Museum
Woodman Institute Museum
The Woodman Institute Museum in Dover, New Hampshire, United States, is a museum dedicated to history, science and the arts. It was created in 1915 with a bequest of $100,000 from philanthropist Annie Woodman to encourage her city's education in those three fields. The institute opened on July 26,...

.

External links

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