The period that determined California's attitude during the Civil War,
coincides almost exactly with the first year and a half of Starr King's
residence in the State. Less than a month after he had preached his
first sermon in San Francisco, Abraham Lincoln received the presidential
nomination at Chicago, and the great debate was on.
It should be remembered that King's reputation as a lecturer had
preceded him, and that he was hardly settled in his new home before he
was flooded with invitations to lecture here as he had done in the
East. As soon as possible, and as far as possible, he accepted these
invitations regarding them as calls to service in the interest of
an enlightened patriotism. Choosing as subjects such themes as
"Washington," "Webster," "Lexington and Concord," he made of them all a
plea for a united country, one glorious land from Maine to the Sierras.
He seems to have perceived the danger hidden in the perfectly natural
ambition of leading men to take advantage of the troubled time to launch
the Pacific Republic, and thus avoid all danger of the coming conflict
between North and South. A free, independent California, which should
practically include the entire Coast,--surely here was an inspiring
and seductive dream. By a method peculiarly his own he did not directly
combat this fascinating idea, but rather sought to win his hearers to
the larger vision of an empire extending from ocean to ocean, every mile
of it dedicated to liberty and progress.
"What a privilege it is to be an American," he exclaims in a favorite
lecture, often repeated.
"Suppose that the continent could turn towards you tomorrow at sunrise,
and show to you the whole American area in the short hours of the sun's
advance from Eastport to the Pacific! You would see New England roll
into light from the green plumes of Aroostook to the silver stripe of
the Hudson; westward thence over the Empire State, and over the lakes,
and over the sweet valleys of Pennsylvania, and over the prairies, the
morning blush would run and would waken all the line of the Mississippi;
from the frosts where it rises, to the fervid waters in which it pours,
for three thousand miles it would be visible, fed by rivers that
flow from every mile of the Allegheny slope, and edged by the green
embroideries of the temperate and tropic zones; beyond this line another
basin, too, the Missouri, catching the morning, leads your eye along its
western slope till the Rocky Mountains burst upon the vision, and yet do
not bar it; across its passes we must follow, as the stubborn courage
of American pioneers has forced its way, till again the Sierra and their
silver veins are tinted along the mighty bulwark with the break of day;
and then over to the gold-fields of the western slope, and the fatness
of the California soil, and the beautiful valleys of Oregon, and the
stately forests of Washington, the eye is drawn, as the globe turns
out of the night-shadow, and when the Pacific waves are crested with
radiance, you have the one blending picture, nay, the reality, of the
American domain! No such soil, so varied by climate, by products, by
mineral riches, by forest and lake, by wild heights and buttresses,
and by opulent plains,--yet all bound into unity of configuration and
bordered by both warm and icy seas,--no such domain was ever given to
one people."
In many communities and in varying phrase--always earnest and
eloquent--King returned to the central theme of all his thinking and
speaking, the greatness and glory of the Union,--"one and indivisible."
The following but illustrates the constant tenor of his teaching:
"If all that the past has done for us and the present reveals could
stand apparent in one picture, and then if the promise of the future to
the children of our millions under our common law, and with continental
peace, could be caught in one vast spectral exhibition, the wealth
in store, the power, the privilege, the freedom, the learning, the
expansive and varied and mighty unity in fellowship, almost fulfilling
the poet's dream of
'The Parliament of man, the federation of the world,'
you would exclaim with exultation, 'I, too, am an American!' You would
feel that patriotism, next to your tie to the Divine Love, is the
greatest privilege of your life; and you would devote yourselves, out of
inspiration and joy, to the obligations of patriotism, that this land
so spread, so adorned, so colonized, so blessed, should be kept forever,
against all the assaults of traitors, one in polity, in spirit, and in
aim!"
In a way we may say that King found himself in these first months in
California. He was forced by the number of his engagements, as well
as by the more direct demands of a new country, to throw aside his
manuscripts, and, making such preparation as conditions would permit,
launch boldly out upon the dangerous sea of extempore speech. He was
constantly addressing audiences in whole, or in part, hostile. Writing
to an Eastern friend of his experiences in the Sacramento Valley, he
says, "You see in glaring capitals, 'Texas Saloon,' 'Mississippi Shoe
Shop,' 'Alabama Emporium.' Very rarely do you see any Northern state
thus signalized." Men of substance, natural leaders of the people, were
in most communities either for Breckenridge or Douglas. The man was
grappling with the intellectual soldiery of disunion. The same forces
that had transformed Lincoln, the Illinois politician into a national
figure, the standard bearer of a great party, were working upon King.
And the same method which caused Horace Greeley to write of Lincoln,
"He is the greatest Convincer of his day" was followed by the younger
patriot, face to face as he was with incipient disloyalty. He was
accustomed, even as Lincoln, to state his opponent's argument fully
and fairly, and then without unnecessary severity, demolish it. An old
miner, listening to one of Starr King's patriotic speeches, delighting
in the intellectual dexterity displayed, exclaimed, "Boys, watch him, he
is taking every trick." The necessity of "taking every trick," and this
so far as possible without offence, quickened his powers and led to the
full development of his many sided eloquence.
How he was regarded during these early months when he had literally
plunged into the life of a community where nothing was as yet fixed,
where everything was in the making, where the most serious questions of
duty and destiny were stirring the hearts and consciences of men,--is
made clear to us by the testimony of contemporaries whose sole desire
must have been to render honor where honor was due.
The latest and most complete history of California based upon the most
trustworthy evidence extant gives cautious tribute to the Starr King of
this period as follows:
"The Republicans had lost their most effective orator since the campaign
of the preceding year, Colonel Baker, but his loss was in some degree
compensated for by the appearance of an unheralded but equally eloquent
speaker, Thomas Starr King, who arrived in April, 1860, and later toured
the state, giving lectures on patriotic subjects but always declared for
the Union and the Republican candidates as the surest guaranty of its
preservation."
Tuthill, in his history of the time writes with more warmth, and
probably more truth:
"There was a charm in King's delivery that few could resist. He was
received with applause where Republican orators, saying things no more
radical, could not be heard without hisses. Delicately feeling his way,
and never arousing the prejudices of his hearers, he adroitly educated
his audiences to a lofty style of patriotism. The effect was obvious in
San Francisco where audiences were accustomed to every style of address;
it was far more noticeable in the interior."
The celebrated critic and writer, Edwin Percey Whipple, made a careful
examination of King's record in California and sums up his impressions
as follows:
"As a patriotic Christian statesman he included the real elements
of power in the community, took the people out of hands of disloyal
politicians, lifted them up to the level of his own ardent soul, and not
only saved the state to the Union, but imprinted his own generous and
magnanimous spirit on its forming life."
Writing a little later and with even more enthusiasm, another authority,
speaking of King's charm of manner, says:
"I am persuaded that could he have gone through the Southern states,
shaking hands with secessionists, he would have won them back to their
allegiance by the mere magnetism of his touch."
It is, perhaps, impossible at this late date to estimate the effect
of Starr King's appeal to the voters of California in the presidential
election of 1860. As we have already noted, Lincoln carried the State
by a very narrow plurality, and we need not ascribe the swaying of many
votes to the eloquence of King's advocacy to make it appear that his
influence was marked in that memorable campaign.
But here must be emphasized a fact, quite often overlooked, and always
to the serious perversion of history. In California, as in every
doubtful state, the Hour of Decision did not precede, but in every
instance, followed the elevation of Lincoln to the presidency. It
was upon this rock that the nation split. Shall a Black Republican be
permitted to sit in the seat of Washington? Shall a man elected, as a
matter of fact, by a sectional minority rule over Virginia--mother of
Presidents--over imperial Texas, or the Golden West? To us the case
seems clear. Abraham Lincoln, who commanded 180 votes in the electoral
college to 123 divided among his opponents, was by our constitution
President-elect of the United States. To the men of that day the case
was by no means settled. The national bond was weak. The local, or
state bond was strong. It was a time of intense political passion. The
irrepressible conflict which had clouded the closing days of Henry Clay
and Daniel Webster must now be decided, either for, or against, the
extension of human slavery; either for, or against, a National Union.
Well meaning, but mistaken, writers have claimed that California was
never a doubtful state, that the great majority of her people were ever
loyal to the Northern cause, to Lincoln and Liberty. As a matter of
sober truth let it be here written that the attitude of no state north
of Mason and Dixon's Line gave Northern leaders so grave concern.
Nor was the matter once for all decided until the election of Leland
Stanford in September, 1861, as the first Republican Governor of
California. During all the Spring and Summer of that great year the
battle waged with the issue, up to the last hour, uncertain. These
were the months that tried men's souls in California, as in the Border
States. Communities were divided. Party ties severed. Families broken
up. Old friendships sundered. All lesser questions were lost sight of
as Union, or Dis-union, became the all absorbing theme. The battle of
ideas, preceding the battle of bullets, was on.
What was the state of public opinion in California? How runs the
evidence?
In March, 1861, General E. V. Sumner was given command of United States
regulars on the Pacific Coast, replacing Albert Sidney Johnston, whose
well known attachment to the Southern cause led to his removal by
the Lincoln Administration. In General Sumner's reports to the War
Department in Washington we have impartial and official testimony as
to conditions in California during the period under consideration.
Naturally he came first in contact with the people about San Francisco
Bay, a majority of whom were loyal to the North, and consequently,
Sumner's first reports were encouraging. "There is a strong Union
feeling," he writes, "with the majority of the people of the state, but
the Secessionists are much the most active and zealous party."
A little later, better informed, he reported: "The Secessionist party
in this state numbers about 32,000 men and they are very restless
and zealous, which gives them great influence." Still later: "The
disaffection in the southern part of the state is increasing and
is becoming dangerous, and it is indispensably necessary to throw
reinforcements into that section immediately."
In this connection it should be remembered that when President Lincoln
at the outbreak of the war called for 75,000 men, California was
expected to furnish her quota of 6,000 soldiers, but so threatening was
the local situation that not a loyal man could be spared from the State.
On the contrary it was found necessary to retain in the State certain
regiments of the regular army badly needed elsewhere. In the summer of
1861, the War Department proposed to transfer a portion of the regular
army stationed in California to Texas, where the situation demanded
immediate succor for the friends of the Union. How grave the situation
had become in California may easily be determined by a fact which seems
to have escaped so far the attention of historians. On August 28, 1861,
the leading men of San Francisco sent a communication to Hon. Simon
Cameron, Secretary of War, remonstrating against the withdrawal of
United States troops from California for the following reasons:
1. "A majority of our present state officials are avowed secessionists,
and the balance being bitterly hostile to the administration are
advocates of a peace policy at any price."
2. "About three-fifths of our citizens are natives of slave-holding
states and are almost a unit in this crisis."
3. "Our advices, obtained with great prudence and care, show us that
there are about 16,000 Knights of the Golden Circle (a secret military
organization of secessionists, said by many authorities to have been
much stronger than was at the time believed) in the state, and they are
still organizing even in our most loyal districts."
4. "Through misrepresentation the powerful native Mexican population has
been won over to the secession side."
This document, remarkable in itself, becomes weighty evidence, when it
is stated that after full and careful consideration, the petition was
heeded and the regulars remained on the Coast.
General Sumner held command nearly a year, until, as we are accustomed
to think, all danger of a disloyal California was over, yet as the date
of his departure for the Army of the Potomac drew near, he was very
anxious that Col. Wright, an able and loyal officer, should fill his
place, and wrote to the authorities in Washington, "Col. Wright ought
to remain in command. The safety of the whole coast may depend upon it."
(italics ours).
A few weeks after the death of Starr King, the Pacific Monthly, leading
magazine of the day, reviewed the situation at the beginning of the
great conflict, as it was then known and understood by all intelligent
Californians:
"On the breaking out of the rebellion, public opinion on this coast was
sorely distracted at the issues raised. The great majority of the people
were warmly attached to their Government; but they had drunk deep at the
fountains of Southern eloquence, and had been measurably debauched by
the dangerous teachings of the able men who had ruled the state from its
infancy. When we consider the critical condition of public sentiment at
that dark hour (1860-1861); how the public mind had been thrown off
its poise by the false teaching of a long succession of political
charlatans; how the insidious doctrine of separation and a Pacific
Republic had been hissed by serpents into the ears of the people; how
the great dark cloud of impending ruin hung over our central Government;
how legions of armed patricides were almost battering at the gates of
our National Capital; how rebellion had baptized itself in blood and
victory at Bull Run--when we think how the effect of all these adverse
teachings and adverse fortunes had rendered the public mind plastic to
whoever had the genius to seize and direct it, and reflect that a man
of King's abilities, but without his patriotism, might have grasped the
opportunity to drift us upon shoals and rocks and quicksands of treason,
we cannot feel too thankful that the man and the hour both arrived.
His was a noble task, and nobly did he fulfill it. What he did for
California and the Union can never be fully estimated,--the work he
wrought in saving her to the country, and engraving upon her heart, the
golden word--'Union'."
Leaving aside for a little space this fervent tribute to King's work,
the quotation just given is evidence of a grave situation, of a state
divided in opinion, of just such an "hour of decision" as gives the
strong man his opportunity. There can be no doubt that the verdict of
the Visalia Delta, a loyal and well-known newspaper, as to conditions in
its own community would apply to every considerable town in the State:
"Treason against the Government and constitution is preached from the
pulpit, printed in the newspapers, and openly advocated in the streets
and public places."
A work just from the press, "California--Men and Events"--by Mr. G. H.
Tinkham, affords valuable testimony to the necessity and value of King's
mission as patriotic leader:
"At a time when some Union men were paralyzed with dread, and others
undecided which way to turn, Thomas Starr King traveled over the state
bolstering up the weak-hearted, and urging loyal men to stand firmly for
the Union. In his lectures, 'Washington,' 'Daniel Webster,' 'The Great
Uprising,' and 'The Rebellion in Heaven,' in unanswerable arguments
and matchless eloquence he kindled the patriotism of the people into
a glowing flame. It is conceded that no individual did more to keep
California in the Union than did Thomas Starr King."
How necessary it was that some one should "kindle the patriotism of the
people into a glowing flame" is further evident from the fact that
the California Legislature of 1861 numbered as its members 57 Douglas
Democrats, 33 Southern Democrats, and but 24 Republicans. What this
alignment signified may be judged from the following incident. Edmund
Randolph, (a former Virginian, and a man of fiery eloquence) on July
11, 1861, delivered unrebuked in the State Democratic Convention at
Sacramento, this diatribe against Abraham Lincoln: "For God's sake speed
the ball, may the lead go quick to his heart--and may our country be
free from this despot usurper, that now claims to the name of President
of the United States."
A few days earlier, July 4, 1861, a Confederate flag waved undisturbed
in Los Angeles, as well as in other nearby towns, the Union men in that
section being largely in the minority. For a considerable time in the
United States Marshal's office in San Francisco, a Confederate flag
waved from a miniature man-of-war named "Jeff Davis."
In Merced County, Union men were in a sorry minority! A favorite
campaign song in that region was entitled, "We'll Drive the Bloody
Tyrant Lincoln From Our Dear Native Soil." A little later, the Equal
Rights Expositer of Visalia characterized President Lincoln as "a narrow
minded bigot, an unprincipled demagogue, and a drivelling, idiotic,
imbecile creature."
Unpleasant testimony of this sort, demonstrating the presence and power
of a bitter spirit of disloyalty, running all through the State, but
most in evidence in certain localities peopled from the South, might be
given at great length. But enough. We have no wish to reproduce the evil
passions of an evil time further than to make it absolutely clear that
a real danger of disunion existed, and that friend and foe alike
recognized that, under God, the undaunted leader of Union sentiment in
California was none other than Starr King.
A prominent San Francisco paper, indulging in the partizan speech of
the period, calling all friends of the Administration at Washington,
"Abolitionists," gave ungracious testimony to King's standing and
influence as follows:
"The abolitionists are bent on carrying out their plans, and will not
hesitate to commit any act of despotism. If the constitution stands in
their way, they will, to use the words of their champion in this state,
Rev. T. Starr King, drive through the constitution."
"Their champion in this state." The opprobrium rested upon him then; let
the honor be his now. This in simple justice to the truth of history.
It is infinitely to be regretted that what men called "the irresistible
charm of his eloquence" cannot by any manner of speech be here
portrayed. If excuse is necessary let these words from King's lecture on
"Webster" plead for us:
"Alas for the perishableness of eloquence! It is the only thing in the
higher walks of human creativeness that passes away. The statue lives
after the sculptor dies, as sublime as when his chisel left it. St.
Peter's is a perpetual memorial and utterance of the great mind of
Angelo. The Iliad is as fresh today as twenty-five centuries ago.
The picture may grow richer with years. But great oratory, the most
delightful and marvelous of the expressions of mortal power, passes and
dies with the occasion."
Not wholly, for even in "cold type" some measure of the power and
persuasiveness of the orator's argument is suggested. It is easy to
imagine the force and fire of patriotism that must have glowed in such
words as these:
"Rebellion sins against the Mississippi; it sins against the coast line;
it sins against the ballot-box; it sins against oaths of allegiance; it
sins against public and beneficent peace; and it sins, worse than all,
against the cornerstone of American progress and history and hope,--the
worth of the laborer, the rights of man. It strikes for barbarism
against civilization."
The intense fervor of King's loyalty to Union and Liberty is seen in his
righteous indignation against an Oregonian who would not fight to save
the country unless he could be shown that his own personal interests
were involved. "For one wild moment," wrote King, "I longed to throttle
the wretch and push him into the Columbia. I looked down, however, and
saw that the water was clean."
Think of the force of the following declaration uttered to men who meant
well, but were undecided:
"The Rebellion--it is the cause of Wrong against Right. It is not only
an unjustifiable revolution, but a geographical wrong, a moral wrong,
a religious wrong, a war against the Constitution, against the New
Testament, against God."
Thus did he condemn all forces within the State at war with liberty and
right. Stern words he used,--words that like Luther's were half battles.
Of peace-at-any-price-men he said:
"The hounds on the track of Broderick turned peace men, and affected
with hysterics at the sniff of powder! Wonderful transformation. What
a pleasant sight--a hawk looking so innocent, and preaching peace to
doves, his talons loosely wound with cotton! A clump of wolves trying
to thicken their ravenous flanks with wool, for this occasion only, and
composing their fangs to the work of eating grass! Holy Satan, pray for
us."
When the report reached California that Robert Toombs had said, "I want
it carved over my grave,--'Here lies the man who destroyed the United
States Government and its Capitol,'" King replied, "Mr. Toombs cannot be
literally gratified. But he may come so near his wish as this,--that it
shall be written over his gallows, as over every one of a score of his
fellow-felons, 'Here swings the man who attempted murder on the largest
scale that was ever planned in history.'"
That our orator knew how to be sarcastic as well as severe must have
been plain to those who heard him exclaim:
"There are those who say that they are Union men, and in favor of the
Government, and yet they are bitterly opposed to the administration, and
cannot support its policy. But in a war for self existence, this divorce
is impossible. One might as well say at a fire, while his house is
beginning to crackle in the flames, 'I am in favor of this engine, I
go for this water; the hose meets my endorsement. Certainly, I am for
putting out the fire, but don't ask me to help man the brakes, for I am
conscientiously opposed to the hose pipe. Its nozzle isn't handsome. It
wasn't made by a Democrat.'"
How ardently King longed for the liberation of the Blacks is seen in
the following, addressed in all probability more to the President of the
United States than to the people:
"O that the President would soon speak that electric
sentence,--inspiration to the loyal North, doom to the traitorous
aristocracy whose cup of guilt is full! Let him say that it is a war of
mass against class, of America against feudalism, of the schoolmaster
against the slave-master, of workmen against the barons, of the
ballot-box against the barracoon. This is what the struggle means.
Proclaim it so, and what a light breaks through our leaden sky! The
war-wave rolls then with the impetus and weight of an idea."
Closing his greatest patriotic lecture, most in demand by the public
along the entire Coast, "Daniel Webster," Starr King quotes Webster's
noble peroration in the "Reply to Hayne," "Liberty and Union, Now and
Forever, One and Inseparable," and in lofty strain of patriotic prophecy
announces that:
"Mr. Webster's thought breaks out afresh in the proclamation of the
President that America is one and cannot be broken; it bursts forth in
the banners thick as the gorgeous leaves of the October forests that
have blossomed all over eighteen or twenty States; it shows itself in
the passion of the noble Union men of the South who will not bow to
Baal; it floats on every frigate that rides the sea to protect our
shipping; it leaps forth and brightens in the sacred steel which
patriots by the hundred thousand are dedicating, not to ravage, not
to murder, not to hatred of any portion of the southern section of the
confederacy, but to the support of the impartial Constitution, to the
common flag, to the majestic and beneficent law which offers to encircle
and bless the whole republic; it utters itself in the thunder-voice
of twenty millions of white citizens of the land, that in America the
majority under the Constitution must rule, and the public law must be
obeyed.
"And when the work of the government shall be accomplished,--when the
stolen money of the nation shall be refunded; when hostile artillery
shall be with-drawn from the lower banks of the Mississippi; when the
flag of thirteen stripes and thirty-four stars shall float again over
Sumter, over New Orleans, over every arsenal that has seen it insulted,
over Mount Vernon and the American dust of Washington, over every State
Capitol and along the whole coast and border line of Texas; when
every man within the present limits of the immense republic shall
have restored to him the right of pride in the American Navy, and
of representation on common terms in the National Capitol, and of
citizenship on the whole continent; when leading traitors shall have
been punished, and the Constitution vindicated in its unsectional
beneficence, and the doctrine of secession be stabbed with two hundred
thousand bayonet wounds, and trampled to rise no more,--then the debate
between Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Webster will be completed, the swarthy
spirit of the great defender of the Constitution will triumph, and a
restored, peaceful, majestic, irresistible America will dignify and
consecrate his name forever."
"A restored, peaceful, majestic, irresistible America,"--this was the
vision that nerved King to herculean labor, to a most real martyrdom.
Condemned to the slow suicide of over-work, he gave his life a conscious
offering to freedom. "What a year to live in," he writes, "worth all
other times ever known in our history or any other." Again,--"I should
be broken down if I had time to think how I feel. I am beginning to look
old, and shall break before my prime."
Why is the song so sweet, and why does it move us so strangely? The
singer's heart is breaking. Why is the word so effective? It is laden
with love and winged with sacrifice. A man is dying that others may live
in verity, not longer in shadow; a hero is suffering crucifixion that
the sad ages may a little change their course. Not only is it true that
the "blood of martyrs slain is the seed of the church," but it is also
true that a man never touches the heights of power until he has made a
total, irreversible, affectionate surrender to the cause he professes to
serve. When he has done this the cause becomes incarnate in the man; and
he speaks as one inspired. And this was the power of Starr King in that
great Summer and Fall of 1861 in California. Of course he did not speak
in vain. Leland Stanford, backed by a Union Legislature, was elected
Governor of California, and by October, King joyfully writing an Eastern
friend was able to say "the State is safe from southern tampering."