Political Career
As a candidate for Congress in 1844 and 1848 he was defeated both times by Whig Robert C. Winthrop. In the latter race Charles Sumner was also a candidate, representing the Free-Soil Party. In 1848 he became, for four years, the first Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
In March 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed Hallett to succeed George Lunt for a four year term as United States District Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. At the 1856 Democratic National Convention, Hallett was chairman of the Platform Committee.
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Famous quotes containing the words political and/or career:
“The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
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