This proved to be a blessing in disguise because Asa was allowed to return to the education that he and his brothers and sisters had abandoned in order to work on the farm.
After attending Blanchard Academy in Pembroke on a part-time basis (he still had to do light work on the farm), Asa was admitted as a sophomore to Dartmouth College where he was Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1833.
In 1834, he moved to Concord, New Hampshire, where he continued to study law in the office of Charles H. Peaslee.
In 1835, Fowler was elected clerk of the New Hampshire State Senate, which office he held for five years.
Admitted to the bar in February 1837, Fowler was in practice by himself until September 1838 when he formed a partnership with Franklin Pierce, the future president of the United States.
Following his departure from the last office, he served on a three-man commission charged with the revision of New Hampshire’s laws, and he shepherded through the legislature the resulting general statutes, which were approved in 1867.
In his community, Fowler took a keen interest in public libraries and schools, and he served on the Board of Education in Concord.
Fowler ran for a seat in Congress from the second district of New Hampshire in 1851 on the Free Soil Party ticket but came in third in a three-way race.