}}
{{Officeholder/misc
|office=Judge of the <br>[[United States Court of Appeals|Circuit Court]] of Tennessee
|terms=1866–1870
|preceded=???
==Civil War, Eastern Tennessee resists secession and Confederacy==
The Eastern portion of Tennessee, located within the [[Appalachian Mountains]], were unsuitable for plantation farming and were a stronghold for anti-slavery forces in the South. Residents in the area maintained a strong sense of Unionism when the Civil War broke out, and Houk participated in the 1891 1861 Union Convention.<ref name=tennesseeencyclopedia/>
Organizing the First Tennessee Infantry, Houk served under several different ranks on the side of the Union.<ref name=tennesseeencyclopedia/> He later left the military in 1863 due to poor health, and wrote articles for the press expressing pro-Union statements.
==Political career==
During the [[United States presidential election, 1864|1864 presidential election]], Houk served as an [[elector]] for the Republican Party ticket.
Although he served in the Union and fought to defeat the Confederacy, Houk refused to hear cases of [[treason]] against Confederates as a circuit judge after the war on the grounds that Tennessee's status as a U.S. state ceased upon secession in 1861.<ref name=tennesseeencyclopedia/> However, he backed the [[Radical Republican]] faction of the GOP and gave support to staunch [[abolitionist]] and [[civil rights]] advocate [[Ulysses S. Grant]] in the [[United States presidential election, 1868|1868]] and [[United States presidential election, 1872|1872]] presidential elections.<ref name=tennesseeencyclopedia/>
[[Category:State Representatives]]
[[Category:Former United States Representatives]]
[[Category:Stalwarts (Republican Party)]]
[[Category:Patriots]]
[[Category:Methodists]]