Howe was born in
Livermore, Maine (then, part of the commonwealth of
Massachusetts), to Timothy Howe and Betsey Howard, attended Readfield Seminary now
Kents Hill School, in
Readfield, Maine, and studied law with local judges. In 1839, Howe was admitted to the Maine Bar and began practicing law in Readfield. In 1845, he was elected to the
Maine House of Representatives. Shortly thereafter, Howe moved to
Green Bay, Wisconsin, and opened a law office. He was an ardent
Whig and ran an unsuccessful campaign for
U.S. Congress in 1848. Howe married Linda Ann Haines and together the couple had 2 children, Mary E. Howe and Frank K. Howe. Howe was elected circuit judge in Wisconsin and served in that position from 1851 to 1855. As a circuit judge, he also served as a justice of the
Wisconsin Supreme Court until a separate Supreme Court was organized in 1853. In 1857, Howe ran unsuccessfully for the
U.S. Senate. In 1861, Howe ran again and won election to the Senate, During this time he was considered one of the "
Radical Republicans" due to his support for racial equality and his opposition to discrimination. 1865 Congressional Hearings chaired by Senator Doolittle looked into Sioux Complaints from the Yankton and Dakota tribes. The Senator found: "Many agents, teachers, and employees of the government, are inefficient, faithless, and even guilty of peculations are fraudulent practices upon the government and upon the Indians." Yankton Chief Medicine Cow testified that Government Agents were the cause of the Minnesota problems. What those agents did in Minnesota was a harbinger of the history coming for the other tribes of the plains. While in the Senate, President
Ulysses S. Grant offered Howe the position of
Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. However, Howe declined the offer because he feared his successor to the Senate would be a
Democrat. Howe lost his senate seat in 1879 to fellow Republican
Matthew H. Carpenter. In 1881, he was appointed
United States Postmaster General by President
Chester A. Arthur, a position he held until his death in
Kenosha, Wisconsin, on March 25, 1883. ==Electoral history==