After he studied law and was admitted to the bar, Kane commenced practice in Nashville, Tennessee, and then moved to Kaskaskia, Illinois in 1814.

However, that proposal was defeated by a faction whose leaders included Baptist John Mason Peck, Methodist Peter Cartwright, Quaker James Lemen, publisher Hooper Warren and future governor Edward Coles.

His body was returned to the family farm in Randolph County, Illinois, but due to continued desecration of the family gravesite, he was reinterred in 1984 (a campaign led by local funeral director, Michael McClure) in Evergreen Cemetery in nearby Chester, in a grave adjacent with that of his sometime political opponent and Illinois' first governor, Shadrach Bond.

The Kane family gravesite includes that of his wife, the former Frances Pelletier (1799-1851), two children who died young, and four sons.

Kane's father (of the same name) is buried in Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.,[8] having survived this son by five years and secured his namesake grandson's admission to West Point.