Timothy O. Howe

Template:Short description Timothy Otis Howe (February 24, 1816Template:Spaced ndashMarch 25, 1883) was an American lawyer, jurist, Republican politician, and Wisconsin pioneer. He was a United States senator for three terms, representing the state of Wisconsin from March 4, 1861, to March 3, 1879. He later served as the 30th U.S. Postmaster General under President Chester A. Arthur, from 1881 until his death in 1883. While he was serving as U.S. senator, President Ulysses S. Grant offered to appoint Howe as Chief Justice of the United States, following the death of Salmon P. Chase, but Howe declined because he believed that it would result in his U.S. Senate seat being claimed by a Democrat.

Earlier in his career, he was a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, at the time that the Wisconsin Supreme Court was simply a panel of the state's circuit court judges.

His nephew, James Henry Howe, became a United States district judge in Wisconsin.

Biography

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, serving during the American Civil War and Reconstruction. During his time in the Senate, he was an abolitionist and supporter of the Fifteenth Amendment. Howe argued against the claims of contemporary Democrats that blacks were inherently racially inferior, and remarked that their claim that abolition would cause a war of racial extermination was "a libel upon humanity, black or white." 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

U.S. House of Representatives (1848)

Template:Election box pluralityTemplate:Election box new seat win

Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District Election, 1848

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
General Election, November 7, 1848
		Timothy O. Howe	3,338	29.24%
		Stoddard Judd	2,330	20.41%
Total votes			11,414	100.0%

Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor (1849)

Template:Election box plurality

Wisconsin Lieutenant Gubernatorial Election, 1849

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
General Election, November 6, 1849
		Timothy O. Howe	10,983	34.95%
		John Bannister	3,976	12.65%
		Scattering	21	0.07%
Total votes			31,426	100.0%	-7.40%
	hold

U.S. Senate (1861)

Template:Election box plurality

United States Senate Election in Wisconsin, 1861

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
Vote of the 14th Wisconsin Legislature, January 23, 1861
		Henry L. Palmer	34	26.77%
		Absent or not voting	1	0.79%
Total votes			127	100.0%
	hold

Sources consulted

• Wisconsin Supreme Court biographical sketch

Further reading

• William H. Russell, "Timothy O. Howe, Stalwart Republican," Wisconsin Magazine of History, vol. 35, no. 2 (Winter 1951), pp. 90–99. In JSTOR

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