Anthony Ellmaker Roberts - Late Political Career

Late Political Career

In the 1854 congressional election, Thaddeus Stevens put his support behind Roberts as the Know-Nothing candidate for the congressional seat of the ninth district of Pennsylvania. The Whigs were appalled by Roberts’ candidacy; an article in the Lancaster Examiner reflects this attitude:

"Inconsistent in everything else, he is consistent only in his blind obedience to Thaddeus Stevens. If he is elected, we shall be represented by the shadow of Mr. Stevens without his brains."

Despite such resistance to Anthony Roberts, on October 13, 1854, Roberts defeated his rival and relative, Isaac Ellmaker Hiester, by a vote of 6,561 to 5,371 (with 4,266 votes going to the Democratic nominee). Thus Roberts won Pennsylvania’s Ninth District seat in the Thirty-Fourth Congress.

That same year, the Republican Party was beginning to form around the central tenet of stopping the spread of slavery. In 1855 and 1856, Roberts was among the leaders who established the Party in Pennsylvania, and he strongly advocated its principles. When his first term in Congress ended, he sought re-election as a Republican, and won a second term. During his second term he served on the Public Buildings and Grounds Committee. Altogether, he served in Congress from March 4, 1855, to March 3, 1859, as the first Republican to represent Lancaster County in Congress.

He was not a candidate for re-nomination in 1858. Roberts continued in politics as an active organizer of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania. He ran for Mayor of Lancaster in 1867, but was defeated by the Democratic candidate in a city that had strong Democratic support. Roberts' obituary, published in the Clarion on January 24, 1885, states that his actions in Congress “were always true to his constituents”.