He served in the Kansas House of Representatives several times in the 1880s and was elected to the United States Senate in 1901, but he was convicted of accepting bribes in 1905.

His father, Allen C. Burton, was descended from English ancestors, who came to America to escape the reign of Cromwell in the 1650s, and settled near Richmond, Virginia.

In 1874 Burton began to read law in the office of Gordon, Brown & Lamb, at Indianapolis, and in 1875 was admitted to the bar.

In 1878 he moved to Abilene, Kansas, where he formed a partnership with Judge John H. Mahan for the practice of law.

[1] While in the Senate, he was chairman of the Committee on Forest Reservations and Game Protection (Fifty-seventh and Fifty-eighth Congresses).

[4] He appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court, which in January 1905, reversed the decision of the district court, on the grounds that the venue was improper since the money was paid to Burton in Washington, D.C., and remanded the case for a new trial there.