Background
Volney Erskine Howard was born in Oxford County, Maine on October 22, 1809.
(Excerpt from Speech of the Hon. V. E Howard, of Texas: Ag...)
Excerpt from Speech of the Hon. V. E Howard, of Texas: Against the Admission of California, and the Dismemberment of Texas, Delivered in the House of Representatives, June 11, 1850, in the Committee of the Whole on the California Message It cannot be disguised, that attachment and loyalty to the Constitution are, in some sections of the Union, greatly weakened, and in danger of being entirely destroyed. During the present session of Congress, petitions have been presented from free States asking for a dissolution of the Union, on the ground that the petitioners could not conscientiously remain in a Union, the Constitution of which guaranteed slavery. A very considerable party openly take the ground, that the Constitution is opposed to the divine law in this respect, and must yield to this new rule of political faith. It is a novel revelation, and above the word of God, for the Scriptures, as well as the Constitution, recognise slavery, and pronounce it legal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Volney Erskine Howard was born in Oxford County, Maine on October 22, 1809.
He attended Bloomfield Academy and Waterville (now Colby) College. In 1832 he moved to Mississippi, studied law.
He began practice law at Brandon. Four years later he was elected to the state legislature on the Democratic ticket.
Appointed reporter of the Mississippi high court of errors and appeals, he published Howard's Reports in seven volumes, covering the first nine years of the court's existence (1834 - 43). In 1840 he compiled, with Anderson Hutchinson, The Statutes of the State of Mississippi. He was for a time co-editor (1836) of The Mississippian (Jackson), an important Democratic organ.
He moved to New Orleans in 1843 and in December 1844 to San Antonio, where he was elected to the Texas constitutional convention of 1845. In February 1846 he was appointed attorney general of Texas, but he preferred his newly acquired seat in the state Senate. Three years later he was elected to Congress (1849 - 53), where he opposed the admission of California as a free state and "the Dismemberment of Texas". He later supported the compromise measures of 1850, including a settlement of the northern and western boundaries of Texas whereby the state received ten million dollars and renounced her claim to the Santa Fé country.
In 1853-54 Howard was legal agent of the United States land commission in California, and then began practicing in San Francisco. Lawless conditions there led to the reëstablishment of the Vigilance Committee in May 1856, and Howard, who was opposed to the maintenance of law and order by extra-legal methods, was commissioned major-general of militia with instructions from Gov. J. N. Johnson to put down the Vigilantes. Both Major-General Wool, the federal military commander, and President Pierce refused to furnish arms for the militia. Howard was not discouraged: "Ponderosity, " as the pompous and portly general was sometimes called, marched alone upon "Fort Vigilance, " headquarters of the Vigilance Committee. He summoned them to surrender. They gave him short shrift, more because of the bluster with which he had assumed his high office than because he lacked an army, and his demands were peremptorily refused.
The Vigilantes later disbanded voluntarily after several months of activity. In order to escape the unpleasantness and enmity that he had aroused as commander of the popularly execrated "law and murder" forces, Howard moved to Sacramento (1858) and later to Los Angeles (1861), where he became district attorney (1861 - 70) and judge of the superior court (1880 - 84). In the constitutional convention of 1878-79 he spoke at length in favor of Chinese exclusion by law and state regulation of railroads and other corporations.
He died at Santa Monica at the age of eighty.
(Excerpt from Speech of the Hon. V. E Howard, of Texas: Ag...)
On March 6, 1837, he married Catherine Elizabeth Gooch.
