In August 1852, he declined to be appointed United States Postmaster General by President Millard Fillmore.

He was eighteenth New York State Comptroller from 1856 to 1857, elected on the American Party ticket in 1855.

Unlike three years previously, where he won with slightly over a third of the vote, he only narrowly got over ten percent this election while both the reunited Democratic Party and the recently established Republican Party both won over forty percent.

He was chosen as a regent of New York University in 1858 and appointed one of the commissioners of Mount Albion Cemetery in 1862, serving in both of these capacities until his death in 1885.

His uncle Daniel Burrows was a United States Representative from Connecticut.