He was compelled to take up jurisprudence in consequence of a serious disease of the eye, but never lost his fondness for history.

In the year 1853 he graduated in Breslau with the dissertation: Justinianische Quasi-Pupilar-Substitution, and, after a long educational tour in Italy and France, qualified as lecturer on canon and Prussian civil law at Bonn.

From 1865 to 1870 he was a member of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, and from 1867 to 1870 of the North German Reichstag, but did not affiliate with the Catholic Centre Party because the formation of a party on sectarian lines appeared to him a hazardous experiment.

Hüffer published numerous essays in periodicals and a few juristic professional treatises.

The first volume treats of the hostility of Austria and Prussia to the revolution down to the Treaty of Campo Formio, while the second and third deal with the Congress of Rastatt and the Second Coalition.