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But his effort fell stillborn and dead. Dr. John
H. Stringfellow was an old Whig, and so also were many of the
Pro-slavery leaders, and they would not hear to it that there should be
any parties known save the Pro-slavery and Free State parties. The Free
State men were equally averse to making any division in their own ranks.
Mr. Lane was to choose, and he did choose _with a vengeance_.
Bad men usually pay this compliment to a righteous life, that they seek
to conceal their wicked deeds and wear the outside seeming of virtue.
But this strange man never pretended to be anything else than just what
he was. He displayed such audacious boldness as gave an air of
respectability even to his wickedness.
His public speaking did not belong to any school of oratory known among
men; yet, if to sway the people as a tempest bends to its will a field
of waving grain, be oratory, then was Mr. Lane, in the highest sense of
the word, an orator. He spoke once in Chicago when the people were most
excited over the Kansas troubles.


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