The general tendency of the agitation undoubtedly was to depress the campaign prospects of the Whigs. Even Philadelphia was extremely conservative and desperately anxious to not lose the trade of the South. Bigler carried the State, receiving 186,499 votes to 178,034 for Johnston. More than that slender majority could be accounted for by the Christiana riot. In Lancaster County the vote on Governor was: Democrat, 6,226, Whig, 11,064. What might have happened had Mr. Stevens been a candidate for Congress cannot now be calculated. He had been re-elected in 1850, receiving 9,565 votes, to 5,464 for Shaeffer. In 1852 he was not a candidate. The late Hon. Isaac E. Hiester was nominated by the “Silver Gray Whigs,” and received 8,840 votes, to 6,456 for Sample, the candidate of the Democratic opposition. In 1854 Stevens was not a candidate, but revenged himself on Hiester by running Anthony E. Roberts, the same who had been U. S. marshal during the Christiana riots. There was a three-cornered fight during that year. Pollock, Whig candidate for Governor, had the support of the Know Nothings, and defeated Bigler by 37,000 majority. Lefevre was the third candidate for Congress in Lancaster County, and divided both the Roberts and Hiester vote, with the result that Roberts received 6,561, Hiester 5,371 and Lefevre 4,266. By this time the new Republican party was organized; the Silver Gray Whigs went out of the fight; Roberts, Whig, and Hiester, Opposition, were again the candidates, and, although Buchanan carried Lancaster County by a plurality of over 2,000 above Fremont and more than 4,000 above Fillmore, Roberts was elected to Congress, receiving 10,001 votes to Hiester’s 8,320. In 1858 Stevens again became a candidate for the 36th Congress, and was elected over James M. Hopkins, by the following vote: Stevens, 9,513; Hopkins, 6,341. The latter had been one of the jury in “the treason trial” and had some support from Stevens’ Whig opponents. Stevens, however, got some Democratic aid. Thenceforth the power of Darlington and “the Silver Grays” was broken; Republicanism was in the local ascendancy with Stevens as its leader; he never lost his control until his death--his last nomination being conferred upon him by popular vote when his body was encoffined, the ballots having been printed before he died.