A Republican, he held several positions in local, state and national government, including: Proctor Town Clerk (1887–1889); school board member (1888–1889); Private Secretary to Secretary of War Redfield Proctor (1889–1890); Solicitor of the Department of State (1890–1893); United States Ambassador to Venezuela (1893–1894); U.S. Consul in Tangier, Morocco (1897–1898); Vermont State Senator (1898–1900); Member of Vermont's World War I Committee of Public Safety (1917–1919); Member of the American Society of International Law's Executive Council (1906-1923); Chairman of the Commission to propose amendments to the Constitution of Vermont (1909); Delegate to the Fifth Pan-American Conference in Santiago, Chile (1923); Member of the New England Council (1925-1927); and President of the Vermont Flood Credit Corporation (following the of 1927).