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.
