After serving on the city council of Baltimore in 1820 and in both houses of the Maryland legislature, he was a Representative in the United States Congress from 1829 to 1833, and from 1835 to 1839.

[3] During 1814, the last year of the War of 1812 he served as a Captain in the First Mechanical Volunteers, a company of the 5th Maryland Regiment at the Battle of North Point.

In 1818 he married Jane Gilmor who would write a charity cookbook and after the Civil War lead a successful fundraising fair.

In 1835, President Andrew Jackson named Richard Rush and Howard to arbitrate the Ohio-Michigan boundary dispute.

As such, the dual form of citation to, for example, the Supreme Court decision in Williams v. United States is 42 U.S. (1 How.)