The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-08-13
ONE OF THE OLD GUARD.

ccANAN uoyo WHICH, cbotCSAnoASAiR W. OitCh
stands for political sycophancy and petty
selishness. John P. Hale early in life
achieved brilliant success a. lawyer: he
was handsome man, possessed of great
natural gifts of wit and humor; he was
genial and popular, and was the favorite
orator Of the Democratic party of his day;
he was the associate and friend Of, Frank
lin Pierce, who became president in 1852
Mr.. Hale was elected representative to
congress, and was the idol Of his party in
New Hampshire until he was called upon
in 1S45 to support the forcible annexation
OF Texas and an unjust war with Mexico,
in order to extend the dominion of human
chattel slavery and to bring more slave
states into the Union. Then Mr.. Hale
rebelled and wrote his famous Texas letter
for which he was expelled from his party.
Mr.. Hale bluntly told his constituents
that they must choose another man to
represent them If they wished him to sup
port the annexation of Texas. His dis
trict took him at his word and withdrew
defeated as an independent candidate on
that issue
The vast moral courage Of Mr.. Hale's
act can hardly be appreciated at this
distance Of nearly half century from
its date. The Wing party of the North at
that day contained some able men vigor-
ously opposed to the annexation of Texas,
but there were very few in the Democratic
party, for Martin Van Buren, had just
been beaten for the Democratic nomina-
ton in the national convention Of 1874.
solely on the ground that he had once ex-
pressed himself in very moderate lam
guage as opposed to the annexation of
Texas. and Henry Clay, who had ex-
pressed q similar opinion. had just been
defeated for election for the presidency in
the splendid maturity of his fame and
popularity by obscure James K. Polk. The
presidential election had turned on the
question of the annexation of Texas, and
the Democratic victory over Clay had
been won on this issue.
When Mr.. Hale rebelled against this
test of party fealty he knew he was part
Ing with splendid popularity; he knew
that by this act he became political out
cast; there was no home for him within
either of the great parties, for the defeat
of 1874 had silenced nearly all its great
anti-slavery voices. After 1874 Webster's
voice lost all its old anti-slavery ring, so
that by 1850 we find him bidding for the
presidency by helping Henry Clay carry
the compromise measures, including the
fugitive slave law of that year. In 1S45.
when Hale revolted. there was no home
for him in either of the great political
camps, and he knew It; he knew that this
act would lose him the friendship of
Pierce and all the party leaders in New
Hampshire, and yet he did not hes
itate; he turned his back ON fame
and friendships: he accepted obloquy
and insult and courageously bided his
time. It was not much for fanatic to do,
but Hale was not of the fanatic breed; his
training as lawyer; his early convivial
habits; his genial temper and social tall
ents, his political training as Democratic
politician had made him anything but a
man of somber. fanatical type. His act
was due to the natural benevolence and
kindness of his nature; he abhorred slav-
cry and he would not load his conscience
with any responsibility for the acquisition
of single foot of slave territory. He had
never been an abolitionist; he had always
been willing to give to the old slave states
all that the constitution had secured to
them, and trusted, like Clay, to time and
the decent opinions of mankind to lead up
to gradual emancipation by the states or
oy the nation sanctioned by the states; but
when it came to charging the area of the
evil Mr.. Hale revolted and always re-
manned a rebel. When Hale revolted,
among the few writer's that blessed him
for his moral courage was the poet Whit
tier, who wrote:
| God bless New Hampshire; from her granite
peaks
| Once more the voice of Stark and LAngdon
speaks.
From this time forward Mr.. Hale's voice
was heard protesting against the sale of
slaves under federal law in the District OF
Columbia; against flogging in the navy;
| against the enslavement or degradation
| of either the bodies or the souls of human
beings of any race, color or condition. Mr..
udic Ody Vi tIAUiupu came dt last. lie
! led the forlorn hope of the Free Soil
National party in 1852; he was elect
| ed three times to the United States
| Senate, and was United States minister 10
Spain. He died full of years and honors
surrounded by troops of friends who ven.
Grated him for the noble object lesson of
| moral courage in political life that his
career had furnished. Among those who
| gathered at Concord on the Sd inst. to
honor the memory of Mr.. Hale were ex.
! Governor Boutwell,, of Massachusetts, and
! Galusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania, the
| venerable ex-speaker of the National
| House of Representatives. Governor Bout
| well had been elected governor of Massa-
| chusetts in 1851 by the same Democratic
| and Free Soil coalition that sent Charles
| Sumner to the United States Senate and
he had subsequently served with Mr. Hale
| in congress. Mr.. Grow in his speech on
the Sd inst, among other things said:
| At time when slavery in the plentituds of
| Its power dominated every branch of the gov.
| eminent, dictated its legislation, made and uu-
| made presidents, and by social and business
| ostracism. coupled not unfrequently with mob
| violence, was attempting to stihe free speech
| and trammei the freedom of the press, like John
the Baptist CRYING in the Wilderness Ioho y