Benjamin Chew HOWARD, Congress, MD (1791-1872)

HOWARD, Benjamin Chew, (son of John Eager Howard), a Representative from Maryland; born at “Belvedere,” near Baltimore, Md., November 5, 1791; pursued classical studies, and was graduated from Princeton College in 1809; studied law; was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Baltimore; served in the War of 1812; was promoted to command of the Fifth Regiment, subsequently becoming brigadier general, and continued for many years prominently identified with the State military organization; member of the city council of Baltimore in 1820; member of the State house of delegates in 1824; elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Congresses (March 4, 1829-March 3, 1833); declined the mission to Russia tendered by President Van Buren; commissioned by President Jackson in 1835, with Richard Rush, of Philadelphia, as peace emissary of the National Government in the controversy over the boundary line between Ohio and Michigan; elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-fourth Congress and reelected as a Democrat to the Twenty-fifth Congress (March 4, 1835-March 3, 1839); chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs (Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Congresses); reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States 1843-1862; member of the peace conference of 1861, held in Washington, D.C., in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war; unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor of Maryland in 1861; died in Baltimore, Md., March 6, 1872; interment in Greenmount Cemetery.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present