Cotemporaneously with this organized action of the Free Soilers, but outside of it and of all party lines, there were held many public meetings throughout Michigan to denounce the Kansas-Nebraska act. Some of these were county conventions in form, and others were local mass-meetings. One of the latter took place at Detroit on the 18th of February; Zachariah Chandler was among the many prominent citizens who signed its call, and was one of the five speakers from its platform (the others were Jonathan Kearsley, Samuel Barstow, James A. Van Dyke, and D. Bethune Duffield). The tone of all the speeches was wholesomely defiant, and this was also true of the resolutions adopted which were reported by a committee consisting of Samuel Barstow, Jacob M. Howard, Joseph Warren, James M. Edmunds, and Henry H. Le Roy. The effect of this demonstration in the metropolis of the State upon public opinion was marked, and it and like non-partisan action did much to pave the way for the fusion of July. Powerful contributions to the same movement came also from the strong and growing current of sentiment in that direction throughout the entire North, and from the significant results of many of the spring elections. Both New Hampshire and Connecticut elected anti-administration candidates in March and April, and in Michigan anti-slavery coalitions were successful in quite a number of municipal contests, notably in the important city of Grand Rapids which chose Wilder D. Foster mayor on that issue.