He attended the common schools and the Whitestown Seminary and graduated from Yale College in 1850, where he was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi[1] and Skull and Bones.

Roberts considered the most benevolent act of good will that any people can perform to the public welfare is to not engage in what favors foreign commerce what trade likes most but to foster the diversity of employments, produce.

He also thought that the legislator who seeks to have his nation engage in commerce without developing a diversity of employments acts like a person making the gravest of mistakes.

Next Roberts thought that civilization most greatest lesson is that the livelihood of all, most importantly the poor, has been elevated due to the new industries being erected, thus production has augmented the diversity of employments.

It would be an egregious injustice for Washington D.C. to play an instrumental part in contracting our scale of production, and to opt for a revenue system that heavily courts foreign trade instead of facilitating a diversity of employments for our home markets.

Moreover, he added that bounties, premiums and some raw materials be brought in free of duty, and that inventors be rewarded for their congenial pursuits that benefited man.

The wars of the world have been in large part incited by the purpose to extort treasure and commodities, and to thrust the products of the aggressive power upon reluctant peoples.”[3]