Background
Howe was born in Livermore, Maine, in 1816. He was the son of Betsy (Howard) and Dr. Timothy Howe, and the descendant of John Howe, who emigrated from England before 1639 and settled in Sudbury, Massachussets.
lawyer politician postmaster senator
Howe was born in Livermore, Maine, in 1816. He was the son of Betsy (Howard) and Dr. Timothy Howe, and the descendant of John Howe, who emigrated from England before 1639 and settled in Sudbury, Massachussets.
He was educated in the common schools and in the Maine Wesleyan Seminary.
In 1839 he was admitted to the bar and opened his office at Readfield, Vt. , where he practised until he moved to Greenbay, Wis. , in 1845. In 1848 he was defeated in the election for Congress, but two years later he was elected judge of the 4th circuit and, by virtue of that office, justice of the state supreme bench, on which he served until 1853, when he resigned to resume his law practice.
Being a Whig his sympathies naturally turned to the new Republican party, in which he became candidate for United States senator to succeed Henry Dodge, whose term expired in 1857. He lost the nomination, however, because he had become very unpopular with the large group in Wisconsin that adopted the state sovereignty doctrine, embodied in the Kentucky resolution of 1798, in order to defeat the operation of the Fugitive-Slave Act of 1850. When a fugitive slave, arrested by his master in Milwaukee, he was rescued by a mob, composed partly of prominent citizens, the supreme court of Wisconsin, after the prosecution in the United States court, refused to obey the mandate of the United States Supreme Court. The Wisconsin courts and the legislature practically nullified the law. Almost alone Howe opposed this defiance of federal authority.
In 1861, when public opinion had reversed itself to favor his position in support of the rights of the United States government, he was elected to the Senate, to which he was reelected in 1866 and again in 1872, each time without the formality of a caucus. Upon the death of Chief Justice Chase, President Grant offered him the empty post, but Howe declined because he believed it to be a breach of trust to give the Democratic governor of Wisconsin the opportunity to appoint a Democrat to the vacancy. For the same reason, he refused the appointment as minister to Great Britain.
In 1881 President Garfield appointed him as commissioner to the Paris monetary conference, and at the end of the year President Arthur made him postmaster general, in which capacity he served until his death in Kenosha some months later. During the time he was postmaster general, a reduction of postage was accomplished, postal notes were issued, and reform measures vigorously urged.
He was one of the earliest advocates of universal emancipation, strongly favored the suffrage bill of the District of Columbia, urged the federal government's right to establish territorial government over the seceded states, spoke vigorously against Andrew Johnson's policy and voted in favor of his conviction, supported the silver bill in 1878, advocated the repeal of the law restricting the number of national banks, and was one of the first to urge the redemption of the green-back currency. Perhaps the best expression of his political opinions is in the pamphlet, Political History "The Session" by Henry Brooks Adams, Reviewed by Hon. T. O. Howe (1870), reprinted from the Wisconsin State Journal (Madison) for October 7, 1870.
His wife, Linda Ann Haynes, whom he had married December 21, 1841, died in 1881, leaving two children.