Felton was elected to three terms of office to the United States House of Representatives as an Independent Democrat, where he served as a sharp critic of commercial and financial interests and the return to the gold standard.

[2] He was ordained as a Methodist minister in 1857, and served as a surgeon in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

[3] Felton took a radical political line in the 1874 race, declaring that farmers and factory workers were being exploited by a corrupt and wasteful government.

[3] He was joined in Congress in 1878 by a fellow Independent Democrat, attorney Emory Speer of Athens, who had served previously as Georgia's Solicitor General.

[3] An attempt to win a fourth term of office in 1880 was unsuccessful, however, with his supporters charging that voting "irregularities" had certainly taken place in Rome and possibly in Marietta, Georgia — two key county seats in Felton's district.

[1] Felton died on September 24, 1909, and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Cartersville, Georgia[1] Thirteen years after his death, in 1922, his 87 year-old widow became the first woman to serve as a United States Senator, though only for a single day.