After law school, Baker married Dora Ladd and returned to Huntsville to become a partner in his father's practice.

In 1938, Baker made an unsuccessful bid for governor of Tennessee, losing in the general election to Democrat Prentice Cooper.

[1] Baker was one of the few Southern Congressmen not to sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto that opposed the desegregation of public schools ordered by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, and voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,[5][6][7] but did not vote on the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

[8] Baker died, following a heart attack, at Fort Sanders Presbyterian Hospital, Knoxville, Knox County, Tennessee, January 7, 1964, five days before his 62nd birthday.

[10] Baker is probably best remembered as the father of Howard H. Baker Jr., a three-term U.S. senator from Tennessee and United States Senate Majority Leader who later served as White House Chief of Staff under Ronald Reagan and was the former United States Ambassador to Japan.