Zane was born on March 3, 1831 in Cumberland County, New Jersey, one of ten children of Andrew and Mary (Franklin) Zane and a descendant in the sixth generation from Robert Zane, an English serge-maker, who was a member of the Quaker colony founded in 1676 at Salem, N. J. His mother, said to have been a relative of Benjamin Franklin, died when he was nine.
Zane received rural schooling. From 1852 until 1855 he was a student at McKendree College, Lebanon, Illinois, and for some months thereafter taught school. Then he studied law under James C. Conkling, in Springfield, and was admitted to the bar in 1857.
At sixteen or seventeen, Zane left his father's farm to spend several years as grocery clerk and livery-stable owner in Philadelphia before joining his eldest brother in Sangamon County, Illinois. After being admitted to the bar in 1857, he opened a law office above that of Abraham Lincoln, whom he idolized; later, when Lincoln became president, Zane followed him as the law partner of William H. Herndon. Eight years later, when Herndon retired, Zane became the partner of Shelby M. Cullom, continuing as such until 1873 and serving, meanwhile, first as city attorney of Springfield, then as county attorney of Sangamon. In 1873 he was elected an Illinois circuit judge and for eleven years, through successive re-elections, he traveled dusty roads, delivering oral opinions. In 1884, on recommendation of Cullom, President Arthur appointed him chief justice of Utah Territory to enforce the drastic Edmunds Law against polygamy and related offenses. During his incumbency, from September 1884 to January 1894 with a year interregnum (1888-1889), this practice, regarded by Mormons as a sacred duty, was crushed by legal machinery in a manner that left no legacy of resentment. For this astonishing achievement Zane, through his judicial statesmanship, was more responsible than any other person. At first, his rigorous rulings and severe sentences as a nisi prius judge caused the Mormons to call his régime "a judicial reign of terror. " But his enforcement of the laws of a Mormon legislature with equal rigor, courtesy, and impartiality gradually compelled their respect, the more quickly, no doubt, because of the fact that his known agnosticism acquitted him of any charge of religious bias. Finally, after years of suffering on the part of the Mormons, came the Woodruff Manifesto of September 25, 1890, abandoning polygamy as an article of faith and ordering Mormons to conform to the law. Zane had repeatedly urged such a pronouncement, and when it came, unlike most others, he accepted it as utterly sincere. Now he praised the character of the Mormons, attacked proposed legislation to disfranchise them, helped to gain amnesty for those convicted and to secure the return of church property forfeited under the Edmunds-Tucker Law. It was not remarkable that, when Utah was admitted to the Union, Mormon joined Gentile to elect him first chief justice of the state. On January 4, 1896, he took the oath of office. Failing re-election with the rest of his ticket, Zane remained among these people to practise law from January 1, 1899, until his death of apoplexy at Salt Lake City. His opinions are marked by lucid statement, simplicity of language, and infrequent citation of precedents. They are not otherwise extraordinary. Moreover, they indicate that the epithet "government judge" was not entirely undeserved. He was the author of "The Death of Polygamy in Utah"; "The Constitution"; "Lincoln as I Knew Him". He was survived by six of nine children, and is buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Ill.
Zane grew to possess the simple purity of Quaker character without Quaker religious convictions. Indeed, he was to be a life-long agnostic.
Zane was a plain, honest, common-sense family man, undistinguished by any work he had the opportunity to perform. Zane was erect, active, blue-eyed, leanfaced. In maturity he wore a clipped beard.
Zane married Margaret Drusilla Maxcy on April 6, 1859.
