Gen. Lane arose to reply, and in a speech of terrible energy and power he arraigned the Lecompton party for all their wrongs and outrages; then, when he had reached the climax of his argument, he leaned forward, and, looking at Mr. Walker from beneath his shaggy eyebrows with his deepset, piercing black eyes, and shaking at him his long bony finger, his whole frame quivering with passion, he said in his deep guttural tones, which seemed more like the growl of a savage wild beast than the voice of a human being:  “Gov-er-nor Wal-ker, y-o-u c-a-n-’t con-t-r-ol your allies!”

The effect was prodigious; and the Free State men were swept away as with a whirlwind.  Even Gov.  Walker felt the force of the appeal.  But he showed himself a brave man; and came back resolutely to the battle.  He said:  “I am your Governor! You must admit that I have at least a legal right to control my allies, so far as to give you a fair election; and I pledge you my word and honor that I will do it.  Now try me! and see if I do not keep my word!”

The Free State men began to falter and to ask each other, “Is it not best to try the Governor, and see if he will be as good as his word?” And from this time forward there began to appear a division in the Free State ranks; which sometimes grew to be bitter and acrimonious.  This division had indeed begun to appear one year before, when on the Fourth of July Col.  Sumner had dispersed the Free State Legislature at Topeka.  Gov.  Robinson was at that time a prisoner, and was, therefore, not present; but he said in his next annual message as Free State Governor: 

When your bodies met, pursuant to adjournment, in July last, your assembly was interfered with and broken up by a large force of United States troops in battle array, who drove you hence, in gross violation of those constitutional rights which it was your duty to have protected.

Wm. A. Phillips, correspondent of the New York Tribune, and afterwards a member of Congress, was a man terribly in earnest, and he did, on the above-named Fourth of July, in a speech, take the position that we ought to fight for our rights and defy Col.  Sumner and his dragoons.  The men that demanded that we should fight said:  “We can take possession of the houses and fire out of the windows, and thus avoid the onset of Col.  Sumner’s cavalry.”  But the majority said:  “We are loyal to the old flag, and in no case, and under no circumstances will be found fighting against it.”  It was this more conservative majority that began to demand that the Free State men should listen to Gov.  Walker’s overtures and vote at the coming election.