President James K. Polk appointed Bowen to a clerkship in the Treasury Department in 1845, but revoked the appointment three years later when Bowen gained the reputation of a radical for distributing abolitionist propaganda; additionally, he supported Free Soil candidate Martin Van Buren in that year's presidential election rather than Polk's preferred successor, Lewis Cass.

[2] Upon his inauguration as president in 1861, Abraham Lincoln appointed Bowen as Police Commissioner for the District of Columbia, beginning the latter's career in city politics.

[4] When that failed, he turned instead to constructing a network of schools specifically for "persons of color," diverting large sums of city funds and even providing $20,000 of his own.

Bowen was even charged with reducing street service to men using penknives to cut the grass between the cobblestones on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Although he sought reelection that year, Republicans united with Democrats to vote overwhelmingly for his opponent, Matthew Gault Emery[7] After leaving office, Bowen served as president of the Freedmen's Aid Society, and as a member of the board of trustees of colored schools of Washington and Georgetown.