Campbell served a single term in the United States House of Representatives as an independent, and won the backing of several delegates for the presidential nomination at the 1876 and 1880 Greenback National Convention.

He attended the public schools; became a clerk in an iron works and was subsequently promoted to superintendent, became wealthy managing mines and steel mills in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Missouri until 1850, when he moved to LaSalle, Illinois and became interested in the coal fields there.

As a member of the Whig Party, Campbell won election as mayor of the newly established town of LaSalle, serving two terms in that office in the early 1850s.

In 1864, Campbell expanded on the ideas of pre-Civil-War U.S. economist Edward Kellogg in a book titled The True American System of Finance.

After his defeat, he never again held public office, although he issued pamphlets such as his 1878 Address to the voters of the seventh congressional district of Illinois.