He was the father of William Freeman Vilas, who served as a U.S. senator from Wisconsin and became the 33rd United States Postmaster General and 17th U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

He was pushed by the Anti-Masonic Party as a candidate for clerk of the Vermont House of Representatives in the fall of 1835, as part of an attempted political coalition with the Whigs, but the deal ultimately failed and Vilas was not elected.

In 1844, Vilas was the Democratic nominee for U.S. House of Representatives in Vermont's 2nd congressional district, running against incumbent Whig Jacob Collamer.

[11] The following year, Vilas ran for a seat in the Vermont Senate and was elected along with his entire Democratic slate in Orange County.

That fall, Vilas was also the Democratic nominee for United States senator, but the Democrats remained a small minority of the Vermont Legislature and had no realistic chance of electing their candidate; the incumbent Whig, William Upham, was easily re-elected in both chambers of the legislature.

[19][21] This was an exceptionally lucrative investment, as the Vilas House became one of the principal boarding places for Wisconsin legislators when the legislature was in session.

In the summer of 1853, he was one of the witnesses called in the impeachment trial of Wisconsin circuit court judge Levi Hubbell, testifying that he had been told to pay a certain amount of money to have an injunction lifted in a case.

[22] Vilas quickly grew in influence in Madison and resumed his political activities with the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

[29] Vilas's first term in the Assembly led to a split between him and then-governor William A. Barstow, who wielded considerable power in the state Democratic apparatus.

[30] Vilas later alleged that the convention delegates, due to loyalty to Barstow, had acted against the intent of the voters who had elected them by refusing to nominate him for state Senate.

He referred to that alleged betrayal when launching an independent run for Assembly in 1858, challenging Harlow S. Orton, who was then the regular Democratic nominee.

[32] Vilas's schism with the Barstow organization would leave him with little influence until the political situation was upended again by the start of the American Civil War.

[34] The outbreak of the Civil War roughly coincided with Vilas's election, and his term was mostly taken up with measures to maintain the peace and security in Madison, and to manage the influx of volunteers for the Union Army.

Without official nomination, Vilas ran as an independent candidate with informal Republican support, but lost the election to Leitch.

[36] Shortly after leaving office, he was appointed to serve on the draft board for Dane County by new governor Edward Salomon.

[38] Vilas was a delegate to the 1866 National Union Convention after the war, attempting to shore up the administration of Andrew Johnson.

Moses Vilas was one of the earliest settlers in Lamoille County, Vermont, and a prominent and successful farmer in the area; he also served a number of local offices, including town clerk and justice of the peace.