He was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses (March 4, 1859 – March 3, 1863). While in Congress, he served as chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Treasury (Thirty-sixth Congress). He was not a candidate for renomination in 1862.
After Congress, he served as judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut from 1864 to 1875 and a justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court from 1875 to 1891. He moved to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1892 and the general assembly elected him as State Referee in important cases. He taught classes at Yale University and the school conferred an LL.D. degree in 1896.[3]
He died on September 17, 1903, in a train accident near Waterbury, Connecticut, and was interred in Grove Hill Cemetery in Rockville, Connecticut.