American lawyer, senator, and reformer who was prominent in the antislavery movement.

Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Bowdoin College, Hale went on to study law and was admitted to the bar in 1830. He became a successful jury lawyer in Dover, N.H., and was known for his oratory and his frequently radical democratic principles.

After a term in the state legislature, Hale was in 1834 appointed U.S. district attorney, a position he held until 1841. The following year he won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat. In the House, Hale came to prominence as a champion of the antislavery forces. In 1846, running as an independent, Hale won a seat in the U.S. Senate. While he maintained his antislavery activity, his major achievement as a senator was the passage of a bill abolishing flogging in the Navy. But it was his prominence in the antislavery movement that led to his receiving the presidential nomination of the Liberty Party in 1847. Hale withdrew his candidacy the following year, when the Free Soil Party absorbed the Liberty Party and ran Martin Van Buren for president. In 1852, however, Hale was the Free Soil candidate and garnered 150,000 votes.

From 1852 to 1855 Hale returned to private law practice. In 1855 he was elected to fill the unexpired term of a deceased New Hampshire senator, and in 1858 he won reelection to a full term in the Senate. By this time he had switched to the new Republican Party and was regarded as one of its leaders.

Shortly before his assassination, Pres. Abraham Lincoln appointed Hale minister to Spain. Hale did not do well as a diplomat, however, and he was recalled in 1869.