In 1851 and 1853, he was a member of the Indiana House of Representatives and was elected in 1868 as a Republican to the Forty-first Congress, but resigned on January 27, 1869, before the beginning of his term as a U.S. Representative, having been elected to the U.S. Senate at the beginning of the month. He was a member of the Senate from March 4, 1869, to March 3, 1875; while in the Senate, he was chairman of the Committee on Pensions (Forty-second and Forty-third Congresses).
