James H. Lane was born in Lawrenceburgh, Indiana, June 22, 1814. This was his home until 1855 when he went to Kansas. He had studied law, been admitted to the bar, and served as Colonel in the Mexican War before his arrival in Kansas.

The Kansas Free State, April 30, 1855, recorded under the caption of “Distinguished arrival: Col. James H. Lane, Late member of congress from Indiana, arrived in our place, the 22nd inst., with his family all in good health and spirits. He is comfortably ensconced in a log cabin was will in all probably remain permanently with us. His design is to live in the territory.“

Lane made his first political appearance at a mass meeting held August 14. He was elected a delegate from Lawrence to the Big Springs Convention. This convention meant the beginning of his leadership in Kansas politics. Following the convention, the constitution met at Topeka Oct. 23, and Lane was elected president of the convention. Then in November 1855, came the Wakarusa War in which Lane played a conspicuous part.

In 1856, he was chosen U.S. Senator by the Legislature, which had met under the Topeka constitution. This election was not recognized by Congress and Lane remained in Kansas.

In 1859, he acted as president of the Leavenworth constitutional convention. Kansas was admitted to the Union in 1861 and Lane was elected to the U.S. Senate, but the Civil war having broken out, he soon volunteered and was appointed brigadier general of the volunteers in December 1861.

He was re-elected to the U.S. Senate in 1865. His health failed in 1866 and during temporary aberration of mind, he took his own life.

Mrs. S.B. Prentiss’s description of him was quite vivid. “His face was thin, browned by exposure. In the winter he wore a calfskin overcoat. He was a wonderful speaker, had peculiar gestures and would throw off his coat, then his waistcoat, then he would yank off his black string tie and his collar, and throw them away and he would run his long fingers through his hair from the back of his neck forward over his scalp spraying his hair in all directions.“

He really had no equal as stump orator in Kansas. Albert D. Richardson said: “No other American has lived in our generation who could sway masses and legislatures as Lane swayed these men of the prairies.”

W.H. Stephenson writes of him: “In laying the foundation of the new commonwealth, his name was inseparably associated with that of Charles Robinson. These two pioneers stood in strong contrast. Lane was rash, hot-headed, daring, persistent, subtle, provocative, warm-hearted, magnetic. Robinson was cool, cautious, calculative, judicious, shrewd, business-like.”

This portrait was presented to the university by Charles S. Gleed. Concerning the engraving, Thomas Wentworth Higgins said: “This was the then celebrated Jim Lane, afterwards, Senator James H. Lane of the U.S. Congress; at the time calling himself only ‘Major General commanding the Free State forces of Kansas!’ Lane stopped two days in Nebraska City. He made a speech to the citizens of the town, and I have seldom heard eloquence more thrilling, more tactful, better adjusted to the occasion.”

This steel plate engraving of Gen. Lane represents him in the heyday of his glory in the struggles of Kansas for freedom, in his old seal-skin coal and calf-skin vest, worn in his warfare in Kansas, 1855, 1856, and 1857. The emblem in his watch chain is a Masonic emblem worn by his father. (U.S. Biographical Directionary)