Remaining a Democrat for a time, he eventually became involved with the antislavery movement in Kansas, and joined the Republican party.

[8] "His raids culminated in the Sacking of Osceola, in which Lane's forces killed at least nine men, then pillaged, looted, and then burned the town; these events inspired the novel Gone to Texas by Forrest Carter, which was the basis for the 1976 Clint Eastwood movie The Outlaw Josey Wales.

A few more such raids, in connection with the ultra speeches made by leading men in Congress, will make the State as unanimous against us as is Eastern Virginia.

Senator Jim Lane recruited the 1st Regiment Kansas Volunteer Infantry (Colored) who debuted at the Skirmish at Island Mound.

[13][14] In a speech given in 1863, while the 38th United States Congress was debating a bill that would confiscate land from rebelling southerners, Lane said, "I would like to live long enough to see every white man in South Carolina in hell, and the Negroes inheriting their territory.

It would not wound my feelings any day to find the dead bodies of rebel sympathizers pierced with bullet holes in every street and alley of Washington.

"[15][16] During 1864 when Sterling Price invaded Missouri, Lane served as a volunteer aide-de-camp to Samuel R. Curtis, commander of the Army of the Border.

It was noted by many of his contemporaries that he was never seen to consume alcohol; he specifically ordered his troops to burn stockpiles of whiskey during the Sacking of Osceola.

[18] Lane's critics often accused him of lechery, alleging that he committed adultery with prostitutes and mistresses, and that he had made numerous unsuccessful attempts to seduce various married women while living in Lawrence.

He was allegedly deranged, depressed, had been charged with abandoning his fellow Radical Republicans and had been accused of financial irregularities.

Many abolitionists have presented him with almost equal unfavourability, often painting him as an unscrupulous, corrupt political opportunist who feigned his radicalism in order to achieve power in antislavery Kansas.

[22] Much of the criticism directed towards Lane from the Northern side stems from his many disputes with Charles L. Robinson, the first governor of Kansas.

The dispute between the two men centered mostly around personal animosity, as well as political rivalry, but it also represents ideological, class, and regional differences as well.

The Robinson faction in Kansas generally consisted of abolitionist immigrants from New England, many of them religious and well-to-do, who opposed slavery on what they considered a "moral" ground.

Lane's supporters, on the other hand, were mostly working-class Midwesterners who opposed slavery in the Kansas Territory due to class interests.