In 1838 the U.S. House passed a gag rule, presented by Charles Atherton from New Hampshire, to prevent anti-slavery petitions from reaching the floor. It was finally repealed in 1844.

Frederick Douglass was born circa 1818 in Maryland to a enslaved mother and a white father. He lived with his maternal grandmother until he was moved to work in the home of one of the plantation owners. After his master died, he was given to Lucretia Auld who sent him to work for her brother-in-law in Baltimore. It was here that he was introduced to reading and writing. In 1833, he was sent back to Talbot County to work for Edward Covey, a man noted for his ability to "break" enslaved individuals. On September 3, 1838, Douglass escaped to New York and moved to Massachusetts. As a free man, Douglass began to actively participate in the abolitionist movement. In addition to a career as a public speaker, he published his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave in 1845. Douglass died on February 20, 1895, in Washington, D.C.

John Parker Hale was born on March 31, 1806 in Rochester, New Hampshire to John and Lydia (O’Brian). He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1827 and married Lucy Hill Lambert on September 2, 1832. While serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1843 to 1845 he cooperated with John Quincy Adams to repeal the Atherton gag rule. This was referred to as the Hale Storm of 1845 when he later campaigned against slavery, successfully replacing legislation with anti-slavery laws. He was a U.S. Senator from 1847 to 1865, except for 1854, and was the first to be vocally anti-slavery, only later joined by Steven Chase, William Seward, and Charles Sumner. He helped to organize the Republican Party, chaired the Senate Naval Committee during the Civil War, and served as the ambassador to Spain from 1865 to 1869. Hale died on December 19, 1873 in Dover, New Hampshire.