The Kansas Republican Party nominated Carney in their state convention held at Topeka from September 17–18, 1862.[2] Carney was an ally of the senior U.S. senator from Kansas and brigadier generalJim Lane, who by 1862 had emerged as the leader of the state Republican Party.[3] Republican opponents of Lane and Carney joined Democrats to organize the Union Party, which held its convention at Lawrence, Kansas on September 29.[4] Lane's favor with the national Lincoln administration gave him access to federal patronage with which to bolster the Kansas Republican Party, while the Union Party included Radical Republicans and Democrats critical of the president's wartime policies.[5]
