STARR KING
IN CALIFORNIA
WILLIAM DAY 5inOIND5

FRED LOCKLEY
R»R[ WESTERN BOOKS
1 243 East Slark St.
PORTLAND. ORE

'T^LIE«¥]MII¥]EI^S]Iinf«

1933

STARR KING IN
CALIFORNIA

THOMAS STARR KING
Monument in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
In Him Eloquence, Strength and Virtue Were
Devoted with Fearless C6urage to Truth, Country and
His Fellow-Men.
1824-1864

STARR KING
IN CALIFORNIA By
WILLIAM DAY SIMONDS

AUTHOR OF
"THE CHRIST OF THE HUMAN HEART'
"PATRIOTIC ADDRESSES"
"SERMONS FROM SHAKESPEARE"

COD

PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS • SAN FRANCISCO

Copyright, igi";
By Paul Elder and Company
San Francisco

Dedicated to the Memory of
Honorable Horace Davis of San Francisco
as the only Tribute of Respect Now Possible
to one whose Friendly Interest and
Assistance the Author Here
Gratefully Acknowledges

UP TO THE TIME OF STARR KING'S DEATH
IT WAS GENERALLY BELIEVED THAT HE,
MORE THAN ANY OTHER MAN, HAD PRE
VENTED CALIFORNIA AND THE WHOLE
PACIFIC COAST FROM FALLING INTO THE
GULF OF DISUNION. IT IS CERTAIN THAT
ABRAHAM LINCOLN HELD THIS OPINION
EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE

CONTENTS PAGE
Introduction  IX
PART I
In Old New England  3
PART II
California IN 1860  19
PART III
California's Hour of Decision ... 43
PART IV
Philanthropist and Preacher  69
PART V
In Retrospect  91
ILLUSTRATIONS
Starr King Monument  Frontispiece
Portrait of Starr King . Facing Page 56

[VII]

Introduction
*y HIS book is the result of the author's strong
desire to know the truth relative to a critical
period in the history of California, and a fur
ther strong desire to deal justly by the memory of
a man recent historians have been pleased to pass
by with slight acknowledgment.
What was the nature and measure of Starr
King's influence on the Pacific Coast during
the Civil War? To be able to answer that ques
tion has cost more time and study than the
reader could be brought to believe. It has neces
sitated a thorough examination of all published
histories of California, of numerous biographies,
of old newspapers, memoirs, letters and musty
docuinents. It has involved interviews with
prominent persons as well as a careful study of
earlier writings upon Starr King in books and
magazines. Best of all it has compelled the
writer to the delightful task of renewing his
acquaintance with the published sermons and
lectures of the patriot-preacher.
It is believed that no important data has been
overlooked, and it is hoped that a genuine service
[IX]

Introduction
has been rendered to all students of California
History, and to all lovers of Starr King — he
who was called by his own generation, "The
Saint of the Pacific Coast."

[X]

PART I
IN OLD NEW ENGLAND

STARR KING IN
CALIFORNIA PART I
In Old New England
WHEN Starr King entered the Golden
Gate, April 28, 1860, he had passed
by a few months his thirty-fifth birthday.
A young man in the morning of his power he
felt strangely old, for he wrote to a friend just
a Httle later: "I have passed meridian. It is
after twelve o'clock in the large day of my
mortal life. I am no longer a young man. It
is now afternoon with me, and the shadows
turn toward the east."
There was abundant reason for this prema
ture feeling of age. Even at thirty-five King
had been a long time among the most earnest
of workers. Born in New York City, Decem
ber 17, 1824, of English and German ancestry,
son of a Universalist Minister who was com
pelled to struggle along on a very meager
salary, the lad felt very early in life labor's
stern discipline. At fifteen he was obliged to
[3]

Starr King in California
leave school that by daily toil he might help
to support his now widowed mother and five
younger brothers and sisters. Brief as was
his record in school, we note the following pro
phetic facts: he displayed singular aptitude
for study, he was conscientious yet vivacious,
he w£is by nature adverse to anything rude or
coarse. Joshua Bates, King's last teacher,
describes the lad as "slight of build, golden
haired, with a homely face which everybody
thought handsome on account of the beaming
eyes, the winning smile arid the earnest desire
of always wanting to do what was best and
right." This is our earliest testimony to the lovable
character of the man whose life-story we are
now considering. It will impress us more and
more as East and West, Boston and San Fran
cisco, in varying phrase tell again and again,
of "the beaming eyes, the winning smile, and
the earnest desire of always wanting to do
what was just and right."
A bread-winner at fifteen, and for a large
family, surely this is the end of all dreams of
scholarship or of professional service. That
depends on the man — and the conditions that
surround him. Happily King's mother was a
[4[

In Old New England
woman of good mind who knew and loved the
best in literature. Ambitious for her gifted
son, she read with him, and for him, certain of
the masters whom to know well is to possess
the foundations of true culture. It is a pretty
scene and suggestive — the lad and his mother,
reading together "till the wee small hours"
Plutarch, Grote's History of Greece, Bull
finch's Mythology, Dante and the plays of
William Shakespeare. Fortunately his mother
was not his only helper. Near at hand was
Theodore Parker who was said to possess the
best private library in Boston, and whose
passion for aiding young men was well known.
He befriended King as he befriended others,
and early discovered in the widow's son
superior talents. In those days very young
men used to preach. Before he had reached
his majority, King was often sent to fill en
gagements under direction and at the sugges
tion of Parker. The high esteem of the elder
for the younger man is attested by the follow
ing letter to an important church not far from
Boston. "I cannot come to preach for you as I would
like, but with your kind permission I will send
Thomas Starr King. This young man is not a
[5]

y

Starr King in California
regularly ordained preacher, but he has the
grace of God in his heart, and the gift of
tongues. He is a rare sweet spirit and I know
that after you have met with him you will
thank me for sending him to you."
This young dry-goods clerk, schoolmaster,
and bookkeeper, for he followed all of these
occupations during the years in which he was
growing out of youth into manhood, was
especially interested in metaphysics and the
ology. In these, and kindred studies he was
greatly impressed and inspired by the writings
of Victor Cousin, whose major gift was his
ability to awaken other minds. "The most
brilliant meteor that flashed across the sky
of the nineteenth century," said Sainte-Beuve.
When Thomas Starr King was eighteen
years old, William EUery Channing died. Of
that death which occurred amid the lovely
scenery of Vermont upon a rare Autumnal
evening, Theodore Parker wrote, "The sun
went toward the horizon: the slanting beams
fell into the chamber. Channing turned his
face toward that sinking orb and he and the
sun went away together. Each, as the other,
left 'the smile of his departure' spread on all
around : the sun on the clouds, he on the heart."
[6]

In Old New England
Channing's "smile on the heart," his pure
philosophy, his sweet Christian spirit so in
fluenced King that his best sermons read not
unlike the lai^e, calm utterances of Channing
when he spoke on the loftiest of themes. To
other good and great men our student preacher
was deeply indebted. To Dr. Hosea Ballou
(2d) for friendship and wise counsel. To Dr.
James Walker for the inspiration of certain
notable lectures on Natural Theology. Most
of all to Dr. E. A. Chapin, his father's suc
cessor in the Universalist Pulpit at Charles-
town,Mass. Dr.Chapin — ^but ten years King's
senior — ^was then just beginning his eminent
career as pulpit orator and jxjpular lecturer.
He recognized the undeveloped genius of his
young friend, he knew of his earnest student
ship, he delighted to open the doors of oppor
tunity to him. It was a gracious and honorable
relation and most advantageous to the younger
man. Writing to a good Deacon of a neigh
boring church Chapin said: "Thomas has
never attended a Divinity School, but he is
educated just the same. He speaks Greek,
Hebrew, French, German, and fairly good
English as you will see. He knows natural
history and he knows humanity, and if one
[7]

Starr King in California
knows man and nature, he comes pretty close
to knowing God."
I In 1846 Chapin was called to New York, and
through his influence Starr King, then twenty-
two years old, was installed as his successor
in the pastorate of the First Universalist
Church of Charlestown. If his preparedness
for an important New England pulpit is
questioned it must be admitted that he en
tered it wholly without academic training, but
we need not be distressed on that account.
From the first he had adopted a method of
study certain to produce excellent results, —
thorough acquaintance with a few great
authors, and reverent, loving intercourse with
a few great teachers. Little wonder that the
"boy preacher" made good in the pulpit from
which his honored Father had passed into
the Silence, and wherein the eloquence of
Chapin had charmed a congregation of de
voted followers.
Two years pass and he is called to Hollis
Street Church in Boston, a Unitarian Church
of honorable fame but at the time threatened
with disaster. It was believed that if any one
could save the imperilled church. King was
that man. Not yet twenty-five years of age,
[8]

In Old New England
established as minister of one of Boston's
well known churches; a co-laborer of Bartol,
Ballou, Everett, Emerson, Theodore Parker
and Wendell Phillips, — surely he is to be tried
and tested as few men so young have ever
been, here in the "Athens of America," the
city of beautiful ideals and great men.
It is certain that King regarded the eleven
years he gave to Hollis Street as merely pre
paratory to his greater work in California.
Writing playfully from San Francisco to Dr.
Bellows in Boston he said: "At home, among
you big fellows, I wasn't much. Here they
seem to think I am somebody. Nothing like
the right setting." The record shows that
even among the "big fellows" Starr King was
a very definite somebody, for although crowds
did not attend his preaching in Boston as in
San Francisco, he was able to congratulate
himself upon the fact that he preached his
last sermon in Hollis Street Church to five
times as many people as heard his first. Nor
do we need to await the judgment of Cali
fornia admirers to be convinced of his ability
as a preacher or his popularity as a lecturer.
It was said of him that "he was an orator
from the beginning:" that his first public [9]

Starr King in California
address "was like Charles Lamb's roast pig, —
good throughout, no part better or worse than
another." "His delivery," says a candid and
scholarly critic, "was rather earnest than
passionate. He had a deep, strange, rich
voice, which he knew how to use. His eyes
were extraordinary, living sermons, a pe
culiar shake and nod of the head giving the
impression of deep-settled conviction. Close
ly confined to his notes, yet his delivery pro
duces a marked irripression."
Hostile criticism, which no man wholly
escapes, enjoyed suggesting that King had
been educated in the common schools of
Portsmouth and Charlestown, and that he had
graduated from the navy yard into the pulpit.
A Boston correspondent passed judgment upon
him as follows: "He was not considered pro
foundly learned; he was not regarded as a
remarkable orator; he was not a great writer;
nor can his unrivalled popularity be ascribed
to his fascinating social or intellectual gifts.
It was the hidden interior man of the heart
that gave him his real power and skill to con
trol the wills and to move the hearts, and to
win the unbounded confidence and affection
of his fellow-beings."
[10]

In Old New England
William Everett is authority for the state
ment that in those early years in Hollis Street
Church "Starr King was not thought to be
what a teacher of Boston Unitarianism ought
to be. He was regarded rather as a florid
platform speaker, one interested in the crude
and restless attempts at reform which sober
men distrusted." Another reviewer mingles
praise and criticism quite ingeniously. "He
astonishes and charms his hearers by a rare
mastery over sentences. He is a skilful word-
marshal. Hence his popularity as a lyceum
lecturer. However much of elegant leisure
the more" solid and instructive lecturers may
have, Mr. King is always wanted. He is, in
some respects, the most popular writer and
preacher of the two denominations which he
equally represents, being a sort of soft liga
ment between the Chang of Universalism and
the Eng of Unitarianism."
This last criticism invites us to notice —
all too briefly — a phase of King's experience
in New England fitting him most admirably
for the larger work he was to do on the Pacific
Coast. From 1840 to 1860 the Lyceum
flourished in the United States as never be
fore or since. Large numbers of lecture
[11]

Starr King in California
courses, extending even to the small cities and
towns, were liberally patronized and gen
erously supported. In many communities this
was the one diversion and the one extrava
gance. To fill the new demand an extraor
dinary group of public speakers appeared;
Emerson, Edward Everett, Wendell Phillips,
Dr. Chapin, Oliver Wendell Holmes, George
William Curtis, Henry Ward Beecher, Fred
erick Douglas, Theodore Parker and others,
whose names are reverently spoken to this
day by aged men and women who remember
the uplift given them in youth by these giants
of the platform.
That he was always wanted with such
rivals as those is proof enough of King's
power with the people, of his fame as an ora
tor, even before his greater development and
his more wonderful achievements in Cali
fornia. His lecture circuit extended from
Boston to Chicago. His principal subjects
were "Goethe," "Socrates," "Substance and
Show," a lecture which ranks next to Wendell
Phillips' "Lost Arts" in popularity. Not
withstanding the academic titles King gave
his lectures they seemed to have been popular
with all classes. "Grand, inspiring, instruc-
[12]

In Old New England
tive lectures," said the leamed. "Thems'
idees," said unlettered men of sound sense.
It was thought to be a remarkable triumph
of platform eloquence that King could make
such themes fascinating to Massachusetts
farmers and Cape Cod fishermen. In fine
phrase it was said of him that he lectured
upon such themes as Plato and Socrates "with
a prematureness of scholarship, a delicacy of
discernment, a sweet innocent combination of
confidence and diffidence, which were in
expressibly charming."
It may be claimed with all candor that few
public teachers have ever been able so to
enlist scientific truth in the service of the
spirit. That spirit and life are the great
realities, that all else is mainly show, at best
but the changing vesture of spirit, is set forth
in King's lectures so completely that he may be
said to have made, even at this early age, a
genuine and lasting contribution to the thought
of his time. All this be it noted before he had
set foot upon the Pacific Coast, where he was
destined to do his real work.
One other service King had rendered the
country, and specially New England, should
here be gratefully recalled, -\lways in deli-
[13]

Starr King in California
cate health, he had formed the habit of spend
ing his vacations in the White Hills of New
Hampshire. Benefited in mind and body, and
charmed by the rare beauty of a region then
unknown, he endeavored to reveal to the peo
ple of Boston, and other Eastern cities, the
neglected loveliness lying at their very doors.
The result was King's "The White Hills,
Their Legends, Landscape and Poetry." Al
though this pioneer nature-book is now prob
ably quite forgotten, even by the multitudes
who visit the scenes it so glowingly describes, it
is well to remember that it was, indeed, one
of the first attempts to entice the city dweller
"back to nature." Published in 1859, it followed
Thoreau's at that time unread "Walden" by
only five years, while it preceded Murray's ' 'Ad
ventures in the Wilderness," and the earliest of
John Burroughs' delightful volumes, by a full
generation. It was in every way a commend
able, if not great, adventure in authorship.
From this brief review it is evident that
when Starr King preached his last sermon in
IBoston, March 25, 1860, he had made for
himself an enviable reputation in three diffi
cult fields of work, as preacher, lecturer and
writer. The feeling of Boston and New Eng-
[14]

In Old New England
land upon his departure was fittingly ex
pressed by Edwin Percy Whipple in a leading
journal of the day in which this eminent
author "appealed to thousands in proof of
the assertion that though in charge of a large
parish, and with a lecture parish which ex
tended from Bangor to St. Louis, he still
seemed to have time for every noble work, to
be open to every demand of misfortune, tender
to every pretension of weakness, responsive
to every call of sympathy, and true to every
obligation of friendship; all will indulge the
hope that California, cordial as must be the
welcome she extends him, will still not be able
to keep him long from Massachusetts."
On the day before he sailed from New York
a "Breakfast Reception" was given him at the
Fifth Avenue Hotel, at which three hundred
guests were seated at the tables. The poet,
William Cullen Bryant presided, and other
men hardly less distinguished testified to the
nature of King's work, and to the varied charm
of his unique personality. Best of all, per
haps, was the tribute of his friend and neigh
bor, Dr. Frederick H. Hedge. "Happy Soul!
himself a benediction wherever he goes; a
living evangel of kind affections, better than
[15]

Starr King in California
all prophecy and all knowledge, the Angel of
the Church whom Boston sends to San Fran
cisco." Such was the man who came to California
in the greatest crisis of her history to exert
upon her destiny an influence unequalled and
unexampled even in that most romantic and
eventful story of the Golden West.

[16]

PART II
CALIFORNIA IN 1860

PART II
California in 1860
THE federal census of 1860 gave California
379,984 inhabitants and San Francisco
56,802. Historian Bancroft informs us that
here was "a gathering without a parallel in
history." It may be said that the whole his
tory and development of California is without
parallel. The story reads not so much like the
orderly growth of a civilized community as a
series of unrelated and episodical events. There
is little of logical order or sequence, and much
of surprise, adventure, of conflict and crisis.
Said an aged philosopher, "It is the unexpected
that happens," a saying illustrated if anywhere
in the world, in the history of the Golden State.
Although discovered early in the sixteenth
century by adventurous Spaniards, no serious
attempt was made at settlement of any por
tion of the territory now included in the
boundaries of California until the year 1769,
when Father Junipero Serra arrived at the
Bay of San Diego. Then followed a half
century constituting the Mission Period of
California history, during which Spanish Gov-
[19]

Starr King in California
ernors and Franciscan Friars ruled the land.
Inspired more by religious zeal than by lust
of conquest, or hope of gain, the Spanish
Padres planted a chain of missions extending
from San Diego to the Bay of San Francisco.
At these missions, consisting often, at the be
ginning, of nothing more than a rude cross and
altar, with some miserable make-shift of tent
or huts as protection from the heat of summer
and the cold of winter, the faithful priests
labored to convert the surrounding Indians.
They tried to make of them not alone good
Catholics, but good farmers, and vineyardists,
and according to the need of the time, capable
carpenters and builders. As the result of their
labors a long period of simple prosperity was
enjoyed at the missions. Buildings were
erected that still delight the traveler. They
were for the most part of Moorish architec
ture, built of adobe, painted white, with red-
tile roofs, long corridors and ever the secluded
plaza where the friar might tell his beads in
peace. Around the missions, some twenty in
number, lying a day's journey apart between
the southern and the central bay, Indian
workers cultivated immense fields of grain,
choice vineyards, olive orchards and orange
[20]

California in 1860
groves; great herds of horses, cattle, and sheep
were cared for, and the women became adept
at weaving and spinning. Nor were the
Spanish Governors idle. They encouraged
the immigration of settlers both from the
mother country and Mexico by a most liberal
policy, assisting the newcomer to build a home,
acquire stock, and establish himself in a
country where there was an abundance of
game, and where the earth yielded her bounty
with the minimum of labor. Thus in the half
century between 1770 and 1820, these Pius
Padres laid the foundations of California, as
they believed securely, after Catholic and
Spanish tradition.
Not securely so it proved, for in 1822
Mexico won her independence from Spain, both
political and religious. The California Padres
being Spaniards naturally suffered persecu
tion at the hands of successive Mexican
Governors, who were envious of the lands,
orchards and herds of domestic animals be
longing to the various missions. Ruthlessly
the Friars were plundered of their well tilled
fields, their fine vineyards, their flocks and
herds, and their Indian converts were enticed
or driven into the service of the new Masters [21]

Starr King in California
of the country. Some of these officials were of
Spanish blood and some of Mexican but now
they proudly called themselves, Californians.
And proudly they lived, these Spanish and
Mexican Dons. Owning immense tracts of
land, riding upon fleet horses, relieved of all
necessity of honest work, they soon became
in their manner of living, veritable hidalgoes.
Vain, ridiculously boeistful, pleasure chasers,
they loved above all else the frolic, the dance,
and a good horse. All the way from San
Diego to Shasta were located the immense
ranchoes, more than six hundred in number,
ever since celebrated in song and story. This
was the period so often called by poetic writers
the Romantic Age of California. Although
much of the glamor of the dear old days of
plenty and pleasure has been dispelled by the
careful researches of conscientious scholars,
it must still be admitted that here also were
developed certain characteristics and here a
kind of foundation for the future laid, ignorant
of which we can not understand either the Cali
fornia of 1860 or even the State as we of today
know and love it. If it is true that the first
settlers in any community leave a lasting
impress upon after generations it is evident
[22]

California in 1860
that the Franciscan and Spanish background
of California must be reviewed as we approach
the more serious days of American conflict
and conquest.
Although the first American settler ar
rived in California in 1816 his example seems
to have been without effect for in 1822 there
were but fourteen persons not of Mexican or
Spanish blood in all the province. In the early
'40's emigrants from the "States" began to
come in parties, but so slowly that by Jan
uary 1, 1848, the entire population (not in
cluding Indians) numbered only 14,000, and
Yerba Buena (San Francisco) the only Pueblo
of any size contained barely 900 inhabitants.
This be it noted was but twelve years before
the arrival of Starr King, so close was the old
aristocratic rule of Spain to that stirring conflict
in which he was to become a central figure.
As we have already observed it is the unex
pected that happens in California history.
In this same month of January, 1848, gold was
discovered in the upper Sacramento Valley,
an event that rivals the discovery of America
by Columbus, if regarded in the light of results
affecting the development of modern society.
"The Gold that Drew the Worid" so Edwin
[23]

Starr King in California
Markham heads his story of that strange
hegira which converted far-away California
into a new Mecca and made of San Francisco,
that sleepy Spanish Pueblo, in a few months'
time a cosmopolitan city of fifty thousand
people. Two years earlier, as a result of the
Mexican War, California had been declared
an American Territory, though not formally
ceded to the United States until February 2,
1848. It was generally believed that the
Mexican War had been waged and California
acquired in the interest of negro slavery.
James Russell Lowell voices this belief in the
Bigelow papers as follows:
"They just wanted this California
So's to lug new slave states in.
To abuse ye and to scorn ye,
And to plunder ye like sin."
However this may have been, it is certain
that among the immigrants of the fifty's there
was a large number of forceful and brilliant
men, loving the old South, and fully deter
mined to swing the new state into line as a
pro-slavery asset. It is true they were not
strong enough to prevent the adoption in 1849
of a constitution prohibiting slavery, yet for
all that, as Southern men they rejoiced when
[24]

California in 1860
September 9, 1850, California was admitted
to the Union.
It is no part of our purpose to give in detail
the strange story of California during her first
ten years as an American Commonwealth.
By 1850 her population had increased to
120,000 people, mostly young men drawn by
the lure of gold from every quarter of the
civilized world, including not less than 4000
Chinese. Yet the majority were Americans,
and of the Americans the larger number were
from the slave states. Nor was this condition
much altered up to the outbreak of the Civil
War. Trustworthy authorities estimate that
not less than forty per cent of her entire popu
lation were at that time of Southern birth,
naturally Democratic in politics and for the
most part pro-slavery in sentiment. It should
be remembered that during the decade under
consideration the national government was
under the brilliant leadership of the slave-
masters who were ever alert as to the attitude
of this new Eldorado of the West. Conse
quently every position of trust and honor
under national control in California was given
to "safe men" whose attitude towards the
"peculiar institution" was favorable beyond [25]

Starr King in California
suspicion. To such an extent was this a
matter of public knowledge that the Customs
Station of San Francisco was popularly dubbed
the "Virginia Poor House." During all these
years California was under the absolute control
of the Democratic Party, and the party was
under control of its Pro-slavery leaders.
"The common people," says a late historian,
"stood in awe for many years of these suave,
urbane, occasionally fire-eating and always
well-dressed gentlemen from this most aristo
cratic section of the Union. The Southerners,
born leaders of men, and with politics the
paramount interest in their lives, controlled
both San Francisco and California."
J. W. Forney, a politician and reporter of
the time, is more emphatic and declares that
"California was a secession rendezvous from
the day it became a part of the Union."
f That the State was strongly Southern in
sympathy is proven by the fact that of fifty-
three newspapers published within her borders
only seven advocated the election of Lincoln
to the Presidency in 1860. A stronger proof
still is found in the character and conduct of
the public men of California during all the
period under consideration. With-on^-or-two-
[26]

California in 1860
exceptions, of whom honorable mention later,
every official of any importance, state or
national, favored the South and voted in her
interest. This condition was partly due, with
out doubt, to the political leadership of
Senator Wm. M. Gwin. A Tennessean by
birth, he was forty-six years of age, when he
landed in San Francisco, June 4, 1849. Al
most immediately active in politics he became
the most brilliant and unscrupulous leader
California has ever had. He held the reins
of power and of national patronage until the
war brought chaos to the old order and always
Wm. M. Gwin was a faithful servant of the old
aristocratic South of John C. Calhoun. He
was ably seconded in his efforts to hold Cali
fornia to the pro-slavery cause by David S.
Terry, Chief Justice of the State, and a fiery
Texan, fearless and fierce in every conflict
which might affect adversely Southern Chiv
alry. After these distinguished leaders there/
followed in monotonous succession Senators,
Representatives, Governors, Legislators, rep
resenting doubtless their constituents in
opposition to every movement looking to the
abolition, or even serious limitation of the
slave power. [27]

Starr King in California
The first man to challenge the almost solid
cohorts of pro-slavery Democracy in Cali
fornia was David C. Broderick, United States
Senator from 1857 until his untimely death
in 1859, Broderick was the son of a stone
cutter and in early life followed his father's
trade. Born in Washington, D. C, he grew to
manhood in New York City. When only
twenty-six years old he became "Tammany's
candidate for Congress." He was defeated
and in June, 1849, he too arrived in San Fran
cisco, determined never to return East unless
as United States Senator. Plunging into the
political life of the state as a loyal Democrat
he was sent almost at once to the legislature
in Sacramento, where he speedily became an
influential member. In 1851 he was made
presiding officer of the Senate and by 1852
his leadership within the State was so firmly
established that it was said of him "he is the
Democratic Party of California." January
10, 1857, after years of bitter struggle, Brod
erick was elected United States Senator, and
the following March was duly received as a
member of that august body. From the first
his had been a strenuous career, he had been
the storm center of heated contests, personal
[28]

California in 1860
and political, in which he had commanded the
suffrages of his fellows so completely that it
was said, "men of all ages followed him like
dogs." He had made many bitter and unre
lenting enemies, and now that he had reached
the goal of his ambition, he was to enter upon
a last dread battle, the most severe and deadly
of all he had known.
Stripped of all misleading complications the
question then agitating 'Congress and the
country was simply this : Shall Negro Slavery
be forced upon the new territory of Kansas
against the will of a majority of her people?
This, of course, was only preliminary to the
larger question: Shall the National Govern
ment, under lead of the Slave Oligarchy, be
given power to spread over new territory, at
will, the blight and curse of human bondage?
Upon this foremost question of the day.
Senator Broderick stood side by side with
Stephen A. Douglas in opposition to the
Buchanan Administration, and its mad at
tempt to force slavery upon the people of the
New West. The attitude of California politi- ,
cians on this matter is evidenced by the fact
that the legislature in session at Sacramento
promptly instructed Broderick to vote for
[29]

Starr King in California
the administration program, and a later legis
lature condemned him by resolution for failing
to comply with the instructions of its pre
decessor and declared that his attitude was a
disgrace and humiliation to the Nation. They
demanded his immediate resignation. Let it
be noted clearly that Broderick was con
demned, not for opposing negro slavery, but
simply and solely for opposing the extreme
southern contention. Not long, however, was
Broderick permitted to display his anti-
slavery sympathies. During the exciting
campaign of 1859, David S. Terry, believing
himself aggrieved because of certain utter
ances of Broderick, challenged the latter to
deadly combat. Reluctantly, but thereto
compelled by long usage in California, Brod
erick met Terry upon the so-called "field of
honor," September 13, 1859. Three days later
Broderick was dead, a sacrifice, so all for
ward-looking men believed, to the wrath of
the slave power. "His death was a political
necessity, poorly veiled beneath the guise
of a private quarrel." This was said at his
Tuneral, and widely accepted among the peo
ple. It has been claimed that the death of
Broderick saved California to the Union;
[30]

California in i860
that the revulsion of feeling following his
bloody death was so great that his beloved
State became good soil for the new teaching
of Lincoln and the Republican Party. Gen
erously one would like to accept this theory
were not the evidence so strongly against it.
To Broderick belongs the high honor of in
augurating the fight on the Pacific Coast
against the extension of slavery. In the outset
of that conflict he perished, and the manner
of his taking off gave to his message some
thing of the force of martyrdom. But not to ;
the extent his admirers have imagined. It
should be clearly noted that Broderick be
lieved in local self-government regarding slav
ery. He believed that the people of Kansas,
and the people of Virginia (as of all other states)
possessed the right under our national consti
tution, of deciding this question for them
selves without let or hindrance by the general
government. Farther than this he did not go.
To the day of his death, he was a loyal
Douglas Democrat. It should be further
noted that inthis last campaign of Broderick's
life the pro-slavery Democracy swept the
State, its candidate for Governor being elected
by a vote nearly twice the combined vote of
[31]

Starr King in California
the Douglas and Republican candidates: And,
also, that a year after Broderick's death
Abraham Lincoln polled only twenty-eight
per cent of the popular vote in California for
President of the United States. Whatever
may have been the influence of the Senator's
brave conflict in Congress, or his untimely
death, it is evident that the crisis in Califor
nia's attitude toward the Union had not yet
arrived, that the hour in which any man
might change the course of events still lay
within the unknown future.
The same may be said of the life and work
of a still more brilliant opponent of slavery
on this Coast, Col. Edward D. Baker, a man
of phenomenal eloquence, with a well earned
reputation as a successful lawyer and poli
tician, with an honorable record for gallant
service in the Mexican War, and for useful
service in the House of Representatives in
Washington. When he located in San Fran
cisco in 1852, an immigrant from the great
State of Illinois, he brought new strength to
the minority who were in conscience opposed
to the growing dominion of the Slave Power.
For certain reasons, well understood at the
time and which do not concern us here, Col.
[32]

California in 1860
Baker did not wield the influence which his
talents would naturally have secured for him.
Yet as the contest deepened, his majestic elo
quence was beyond question a force for free
dom in a community where the love of oratory
amounted to a passion. In the Fremont Cam
paign, at the grave of Broderick, and in his own
canvass for Congress in 1859, he rendered most
valuable service in laying the foundations of
Republicanism on the Pacific Coast. But it
should be remembered by all who would deal
with those great days fairly that the work of
Edward Dickinson Baker at its best was only
the work of a brilliant forerunner. Before the
real battle was on he removed from the State, '
and as the newly elected United States Sena
tor from Oregon, from this Coast. It is true
that on his journey to Washington a few days
before the National election in November,
1860, Baker delivered in San Francisco an
effective speech on Lincoln's behalf, but it is
foolish hero-worship to say, after the manner
of certain writers, that this one speech turned
the tide for Northern principles and gave to
the new party of liberty the suffrages of the
State of California! Not only had Baker been
defeated overwhelmingly a few months earlier
[33]

Starr King in California
as Republican candidate for Congress, but
\Lincoln himself received the electoral vote of
California only as the result of a three-sided
contest in which the combined opposition
polled nearly three-fourths of all the votes
cast. In fact Lincoln distanced his nearest
Democratic rival by only 711 votes. Out of
one hundred and fourteen members of the
' state legislature but twenty-four belonged to
the party of Lincoln. The Congressional
Delegation was solidly Democratic, and the
Governor was a Southern sympathizer. Such
was the condition after Baker's work was done
in California, and when the greater work of
Starr King was just beginning.
In justice to Colonel Baker, though it is no
part of our duty here, we make grateful men
tion of the fact that not on the Pacific Coast
but in Washington, as the friend and adviser
of President Lincoln, and on the floor of the
United States Senate, this gallant defender of
Union and Liberty rendered a unique and
memorable service to his country. His replies
in the Senate to those giants of the Confed
eracy, John C. Breckenridge and Judah P.
Benjamin attained the dignity of national
events, and his heroic death early in the war
[34]

California in 1860
on field of battle renders it forever impossible
for any just man to beHttle the deeds or in
fluence of Edward D. Baker. What he might
have effected had he remained in California,
or had his life been longer spared, we may not
say. The fact remains that after his mission
among us was over Southern and Democratic
sentiment was still in the ascendant. It was
reserved for another, — the privilege and the
honor of "saving California to the Union."
One other phase of the situation merits
careful attention. Almost from the very be
ginning of American Settlement in California
a dream of Pacific Empire, separate and inde
pendent of "the States" had fascinated many
of her strongest men. And little wonder, for
here by the Pacific Sea was a vast territory
walled away by lofty mountains and wide
deserts, two thousand miles west of the frontier
settlements of Minnesota and Kansas. Not
until after the outbreak of the Civil War was
there telegraphic communication with the
East, and the nearest railway ended some
where in central Missouri. Mail was received
regularly once in twenty-six days, sometimes
as often as once in two weeks. But there was
little direct communication and less unity of
[35]

Starr King in California
purpose between the older sections of the
United States and far away California. In
fact there was considerable antagonism felt
and expressed toward the government of
Washington. The original Mexican popula
tion cordially hated, and with good reason^
the national authority. Foreigners in the
mines cared nothing for the Union or the quar
rel between the states, and many of the
settlers from the East, which they still lov
ingly called "back home," felt that they had
a real grievance against the general govern
ment. This feeling, which was of long standing,
was naturally intensified by the troubled out
look in 1860. Men prominent in state and
national politics openly advocated indepen
dence as the proper policy for the Pacific
Coast. "Why depend on the South or the North to
regulate our affairs," wrote our Junior Senator
from Washington. "And this, too, after they
have proved themselves incapable of living in
harmony with one another." Starr King had
been a resident of the state nearly a year when
the San Francisco Herald published the fol
lowing letter received from Congressman
John C. Burch :
[36]

California in 1860
"The people of California should all be of
one mind on this subject of a Pacific Republic.
Raise aloft the flag of the hydraheaded cactus
of the western wilds and call upon the en
lightened nations of the earth to acknowledge
our independence and protect us from the
wreck of a once glorious Union."
Governor John B. Weller, a man not only
holding the highest office within the gift of
the people of the state, but also one who had
represented California in the United States
Senate made deliberately this declaration :
"If the wild spirit of fanaticism which now
pervades the land should destroy the magnifi
cent confederacy — which God forbid — Cali
fornia will not go with the south or north, but
here on the shores of the Pacific, found a
mighty republic, which may in the end prove
the greatest of all."
These quotations which might be greatly
extended are sufficient to prove that a strong
feeling existed in favor of a Pacific Republic
standing wholly aloof from the coming strug
gle. It is unthinkable that a Senator and a
Congressman, and especially the Governor
of the State, should have voiced such senti
ments had there not been at least a probability [37]

Starr King in California
that this might be the course adopted in case
the Union was broken up.
James G. Blaine, whose history of the time
must be regarded as impartial so far as Cali
fornia is concerned, makes this statement:
"Jefferson Davis expected, with confidence
amounting to certainty, and based, it is be
lieved, on personal pledges, that the Pacific
Coast, if it did not actually join the South,
would be disloyal to the Union."
This beyond reasonable doubt was the
situation in the Spring of 1860: Our immense
State with its coast line of more than seven
hundred miles, sharply divided as between
Southern and Northern California; the ma
jority of our people in Los Angeles and neigh
boring counties frankly favoring the proposed
confederacy of slave-holding states; many of
the larger towns in the San Joaquin and
Sacramento valleys of a similar mind; the
political leaders of the State almost solidly
Democratic and the majority with strong
Southern leanings; many of our foremost men
believing that the time had come to launch
the long dreamed of Pacific Republic, and our
ranches and mines containing a large popula
tion either hostile or indifferent to the cause
[38]

California in 1860
of Union and Liberty. Over against these
varied forces a probable patriotic majority
scattered from one end of California to the
other, some belonging to the new Republican
Party and some to the Douglas Democracy,
and many without party affiliation, unor
ganized, badly scattered, and now that Brod
erick was dead and Colonel Baker away,
without competent leadership. If ever a situa
tion called for a man who might at once com
mand the confidence of the people and arouse
the latent patriotism of our wide-spread popu
lation, a man who might do the work of years
in a few months' time, who might in his own
persuasive personality become a center of
patriotism around which Union-loving men of
all parties, and of no party, could unite in
defense of the imperilled country; one un
fettered by old antagonisms, or misled by
personal ambition, a heaven-sent man destined
to a work no other could accomplish — this the
situation plainly demanded.
The record, impartially examined, shows,
we believe beyond reasonable doubt, that
California's destiny in this critical hour was
chiefly determined by the word and work of
her patriot-preacher, Starr King. [39]

PART III
CALIFORNIA'S HOUR OF DECISION

PART III
California's Hour of Decision
THE period that determined California's at
titude during the Civil War, coincides al
most 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 Chi
cago, and the great debate was on.
It should be remembered that King's repu
tation as a lecturer had preceded him, and
that he was hardly settled in his new home
before he was flooded with invitations to lec
ture 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
[43]

Starr King in California
the troubled time to launch the Pacific Re
public, and thus avoid all danger of the coming
conflict between North and South. A free,
independent California, which should practi
cally 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 roil 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
[44]

California's Hour of Decision
your eye along its western slope till the Rocky Moun
tains 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 beau tif ur 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 con
figuration 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 re
turned 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,
[45]

Starr King in California
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 privi
lege of your life; and you would devote yourselves,
out of inspiration and joy, to the obligations of patriot
ism, 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 him
self 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
[46]

California's Hour of Decision
Northern state thus signalized." Men of sub
stance, 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 op
ponent'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 intellec
tual 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
[47]

Starr King in California
fixed, where everything was in the making,
where the most serious questions of duty and
destiny were stirring the hearts and con
sciences of men, — is made clear to us by the
testimony of contemporaries whose sole de
sire 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 ora
tor 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 lec
tures on patriotic subjects but always declaring for
the Union and the Republican candidates as the surest
guaranty of its preservation."
TuthiU, in his history of the time writes
with more of warmth, and probably more of
truth: "There was a charm in King's delivery that few could
resist. He was received with applause where Repub
lican orators, saying things no more radical, could
not be heard without hisses. Delicately feeling his
way, and never arousing the prejudices of his hearers,
[48]

California's Hour of Decision
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
Percy 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 the hands of disfoyal 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
[49]

Starr King in California
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 spUt.
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 Presi
dents — 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 de
cided, either for, or against, the extension of
[50]

California's Hour of Decision
human skvery; 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
Califomia. 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
Califomia, as in the Border States. Com
munities 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
[51]

Starr King in California
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 Fran
cisco Bay, a majority of whom were loyal to
the North, and consequently, Sumner's first
reports were encouraging. "There is a strong
Union feeling," hewrites, "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 im
mediately."
r In this connection it should be remembered
I that when President Lincoln at the outbreak
[52]

California's Hour of Decision
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 regi
ments of the regular army badly needed elser
where. In the summer of 1861, the Wan
Department proposed to transfer a portion
of the regular army stationed in California to
Texas, where the situation demanded im
mediate succor for the friends of the Union,
How grave the situation had become in Cali
fornia may easily be determined by a fact
which seems to have escaped so far the atten
tion of historians. On August 28, 1861, the
leading men of San Francisco sent a com
munication to Hon. Simon Cameron, Secre
tary of War, remonstrating against the with
drawal of United States troops from Cali
fornia 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 advo
cates 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.
[53]

Starr King in California
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 organiza
tion of secessionists, said by many authorities to
have been much stronger than was at the time
believed) in the state, and they are still or
ganizing 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, be
comes weighty evidence, when it is stated that
after full and careful consideration, the peti
tion 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 authori
ties in Washington, "Col. Wright ought to re
main 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
[54]

California's Hour of Decision
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 mea
surably 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'."
[55]

Starr King in California
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 op
portunity. 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 weakhearted, 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."
[56]

THOMAS STARR KING
"No heart ever ached because of him until he died." — Page 76.

California's Hour of Decision
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 Demo
crats, 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 Confed
erate 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 Fran
cisco, 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
[57]

Starr King in California
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 un
principled demagogue, and a drivelling, idiotic,
imbecile creature."
Unpleasant testimony of this sort, demon
strating the presence and power of a bitter
spirit of disloyalty, running all through the
State, but most in evidence in certain lo
calities 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 w£is none other than
Starr King.
A prominent San Francisco paper, indulg
ing in the partizan speech of the period, calling
all friends of the Administration at Washing
ton, "Abolitionists," gave ungracious testi
mony to King's standing and influence as
follows :
"The abolitionists are bent on carrying out their
[58]

California's Hour of Decision
plans, and will not hesitate to commit any act of des
potism. 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 op
probrium 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 por
trayed. 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:
[59]

Starr King in California
"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 corner-stone 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 declara
tion 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 :
[60]

California's Hour of Decision
"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 Govemment, 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
[61]

Starr King in California
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 libera-
\tion 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 For
ever, One and Inseparable," and in lofty
strain of patriotic prophecy announces that:
[62]

California's Hour of Decision
"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 Con
stitution, 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 ac
complished, — ^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
[63]

Starr King in California
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 benefi
cence, and the doctrine of secession be stabbed with
two hundred thousand bayonet wounds, and trampled
to rise no more, — then the debate between Mr. Cal
houn 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 mar
tyrdom. 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
[64]

Starr King in California
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 Stan
ford, backed by a Union Legislature, was
elected Governor of California, and by Oc
tober, King joyfully writing an Eastern friend
was able to say "the State is safe from south-
em tampering."

[65]

PART IV
PHILANTHROPIST AND PREACHER

PART IV.
Philanthropist and Preacher
"AS a philzmthropist, Starr King raised for
XjL the most beneficent of all charities the
most munificent of all subscriptions," These
words were spoken at the King Memorial
Service held in the city of Boston, April 3,
1864. They call our attention to a unique ser
vice our Preacher-Patriot rendered the cause
he loved.
It seems almost beyond belief that the
North rushed into the Civil War wholly un
prepared to care for the Nation's Defenders,
either in health or in sickness. Transporta
tion facilities were of the poorest! Young men
just from the home, the farm and the college
were crowded into cattle cars as though they
were beasts, frequently with no provision
whatever for their comfort. And rarely were
proper arrangements made for their reception
in camp. The bewildered soldiers stood for
hours under broiling southern sun, waiting for
rations and shelter, while ignorant officers
were slowly learning their unaccustomed
duties. At night they were compelled to lie
[69]

Starr King in California
wrapped in shoddy blankets upon rotten
straw. Under such conditions these brave
volunteers suffered severely and camp diseases
became alarmingly prevalent. But the mis
erable makeshifts used as hospitals were so
bad that sick men fought for the privilege of
dying in camp with their comrades rather
than undergo the privations, and sometimes
the brutality of inexperienced and careless at
tendants in the crowded and poorly equipped
quarters provided by the government. The
largest hospital available contained but forty
beds, and not one afforded a trained, efficient,
medical staff. Competent nurses, sanitary
kitchens, proper medicines, means of hu
manely transporting the sick and wounded,
all were wanting during early months of the
war.
I This condition which the government did
almost nothing to remedy led to the organiza
tion of the United States Sanitary Commis
sion. Strangely enough the founder of this
most necessary and timely organization. Rev.
H. W. Bellows, of New York, encountered the
opposition of high officials who deemed the
whole plan quixotic. Even President Lincoln
at first regarded the Commission unnecessary
[70]

Philanthropist and Preacher
and called it "a fifth wheel to the coach."
Brief experience, however, demonstrated that
the govemment could not provide all thaKwas
necessary for the soldier, either in sicknfess
or in health, and the Sanitary Commissior
became often the only hope of brave men ir
dire distress. In fact, at this day, it is diffi-\
cult to see how the Northern cause would
have triumphed at all but for the widespread
and wholly helpful activity of the army of
Sanitary workers.
The greatest difficulty encountered by thej
leaders of this noble philanthropy was to'
provide necessary funds. Again and again it
seemed that the work must stop because the
heavily burdened people could give no more.
At sundry critical junctures California came
to the rescue, and made possible the con
tinuance of this "most beneficent of all
charities." But at whose motion, and under
whose influence?
Fitz Hugh Ludlow says, "Starr King was'^
the Sanitary Commission of California." This'
is but slight exaggeration, for King made it
his peculiar mission to raise money as rapidly
as possible for the suffering soldiers. In the
interest of the Commission he traveled to
[71]

Starr King in California
every part of the Coast, and in the face of the
greatest obstacles became the principal factor
in raising $1,235,000, about one-fourth of the
entire sum contributed by the country at
\large. Under the most favorable circumstances
this would have been a phenomenal achieve
ment, but when we learn that in 1862 a flood
destroyed over fifty million dollars' worth of
property in the Sacramento and San Joaquin
valleys; that California shipping to the extent
of six and one-half millions was also destroyed ;
that in 1863 a drought entirely ruined the
wheat crop, and made hay so scarce that it sold
for sixty dollars a ton, resulting in a stagna
tion in business which threw thousands of men
out of employment, in view of these multi
plied disasters, we wonder by what fire of
patriotism and by what charm of eloquence,
Starr King drew from the people so large a
sum for use on distant battle fields. Old Cali
fornians still remember those thrilling appeals
which few could resist. We are almost led to
believe in the sober truth of such extreme
eulogy as we find in "Lights and Shadows of
the Pacific Coast," by S. D. Woods, a ven
erable San Franciscan, who vividly recalls
King's heroic service in that far off time:
[72]

Phh^anthropist and Preacher
"King's personality was magnetic and winning.
Gentleness radiated from him as light radiates from
the sun. No one could resist the charm and fasci
nation of his presence. It is hard to make a pen pic
ture of his face, for there were lines too pure, lights too
fleeting to be caught by words. In the poise of his
head there was nobility and power inexpressible.
There was in his face the serenity of one who had seen
a vision, and to whom the vision had become a bene
diction. At the time of his death he was the first
pulpit orator in America, and without doubt had no
superior in the world."
This large praise might lead to incredulity
were it not for the deliberate judgment of
Rev. Dr. H. W. Bellows, that as an orator
"Beecher and Chapin were his only com
petitors. He was the admirer and friend of
both, and both repaid his affection and his
esteem. He had the superior charm of youth
and novelty, with a nature more varied, and
more versatile faculties and endowments than
either. He had a far more artistic and forma
tive nature and genius. His thoughts ran into
moulds of beauty."
The judgment of California as to Stan-
King's unequalled service to the State and the
Nation was officially rendered when upon the
announcement of his death, the Legislature
[73]

Starr King in California
adjourned for the space of three days after
resolving "that he had been a tower of
strength to the cause of his country."
Brilliant as was the record of King as the
champion of the Sanitary Commission in
California it Wcis by no means the beginning
and end of his philanthropic labors. The
forlorn condition of the Chinese — as men
without rights of citizenship — stirred his sym
pathy and he made earnest effort to secure for
them such civic rights as belong to industry.
The cause of labor, seldom thought in those
days to come within the scope of a minister's
interest or duty, commanded his eager at
tention, and he improved every opportunity
to declare his reverence for the world's workers
in earth, and stone, and iron. In a fine passage
in a lecture on "The Earth and the Mechanic
Arts," he writes:
"If we were to choose from the whole planet a score
of men to represent us on some other globe or in some
other system in a great human fair of the universe,
it would not be kings, dukes, prime-ministers, the
richest men, we should appoint as ambassadors to
show what our race is, and what it is doing here, but
the great thinkers, artists, and workers, the thinkers
in ink, the thinkers in stone and color, the thinkers in
force and homely matter, the men who are bringing
[74]

Philanthropist and Preacher
the globe up towards the Creator's imagination and
purpose; and on this mission the leaders of mechanic
art would go side by side with Shakespeare and Milton,
Angelo and Wren, Newton and Cuvier.
"In England, now, they are preparing statues of Bru
nei the engineer, and the Stephensons, father and son,
to be finished and erected about the same time with
those of Macaulay and Havelock. The nation is be
ginning to bow to the occupations and the genius that
have added to her power ten thousand fold, — is begin
ning to bow to labor, noble, glorious, sacred labor."
Not alone in public pleas for unpopular
causes but in private charity King seemed
tireless. "He had the rare facility in every
thing he said and did of communicating him
self; the most precious thing he could bestow."
We are told that a multitude in distress came
to this overburdened man. Ringing his door
bell they found entrance, and always as they
came back, the "step was quicker which was
slow before, the head was up which was down
before, and the lips wreathed in smiles that
were sad before."
Thus we can see that it was not solely his
eloquent defense of liberty and justice which
caused a San Francisco Journal, reporting his
funeral, to say, "Perhaps more deeply beloved
by a vast number of our people than any other
[75]

Starr King in California
who has lived and toiled and died among us."
His good deeds made him worthy of this, one of
the most beautiful eulogies ever given mortal
man, "No heart ever ached because of him until
he died." This was Starr King the philanthro
pist, a friend to all who needed his friendship.
It would almost appear that in telling the
story of "Starr King in California" we were
altogether forgetting that he did not come to
the State to influence its political action, or
even to alleviate poverty and distress. He
came as a preacher of Liberal Christianity,
and to build up the church that had honored
him with a call to its pulpit. Long before he
left Boston it was written concerning him,
"That he loved his calling, and that it was his
ambition to pay the debt which every able
man is said to owe to his profession, namely to
contribute some work of permanent value to
its literature." At that early period a dis
criminating critic bears testimony, "that his
piety, pure, deep, tender, serene and warm,
took hold of positive principles of light and
beneficence, not the negative ones of darkness
and depravity, and — himself a child of light —
he preached the religion of spiritual joy."
It was King's first and chief ambition to be
[76]

Philanthropist and Preacher
an effective preacher. In a letter, written in
1855, he says, "How we do need good preach
ing. Would that I could preach extempore."
A wish that six years later "came true" in his
San Francisco pulpit. In the inspiring atmos
phere of his new field, and under the stress
of a great era. King cast his manuscript aside,
and though he made careful preparation, as
every man must who speaks worthily, he
never again submitted to the bondage of the
"written sermon." To a man of King's gifts
and temperament this was an immense gain.
Indeed, Bostonian Californians were a unit
in declaring that Easterners could have no
conception of the man and orator Starr King
became in those last great years of his brief life.
Speedily the little church in which he
preached proved too small for the throng of
eager listeners who gathered to hear him, and
on the 3d day of December, 1862, the comer
stone of a larger and more beautiful edifice
was laid.
We shall find it no easy matter to analyze
the sources of his power and popularity.
Often-times success and failure are equal
mysteries. Doubtless no small part of his
triumph arose from the peculiar character
[77]

Starr King in California
of the new society to which he brought talents
that commanded instant attention. The eager
temper of the time fitted his sincere and ear
nest spirit. It was a perfect adjustment of
the man and the hour, the workman and his
task. No small part of his popularity arose from
the fact that he insisted upon his right and
duty as a minister to discuss great questions
of state in the pulpit. The vicious gulf church
men discover between the sacred and the
secular was hidden from his eyes. All that
affected the humblest of his fellow men ap
pealed to him as part and parcel of the gospel
of righteousness he was commissioned to
preach. In the old Boston days he had dis
cussed freely in the pulpit such themes as the
"Free Soil Movement," "The Fugitive Slave
Law," and "The Dred Scott Decision." Burn
ing questions these, and they were handled
with no fear of man to daunt the severity of
his condemnation when he declared that in
the Dred Scott Decision the majority of the
Supreme Court had betrayed justice for a
.jpoli tical purpose. It was not likely that such
^ man would remain silent in the pulpit upon
the so-called "war issues" of 1861. Early in
[78]

Philanthropist and Preacher
that memorable year he boldly informed his
people as to the course he intended to pursue
so long as the war lasted. He would not
equivocate and he would not be silent.
Henceforth stirring patriotic sermons, as the
demand for them arose, were the order of the
day in the congregation to which he minis
tered. The character of these discourses may,.
be partly determined from such titles as,
"The Choice between Barabbas and Jesus,"
"The Treason of Judas Iscariot," "Secession
in Palestine," and "Rebellion Pictures from
Paradise Lost." "After the lapse of more
tha;n sixty years," so the Hon. Horace Davis
assured the writer, "I can distinctly remem
ber the fire and passion of those terrible in
dictments of treason and rebellion."
"Terrible indictments" truly, and in the
storm and tempest of the time irresistibly at
tractive to men and women whose sympathies
were on fire for the Northern cause. King's
patriotism won for him a liberal hearing on
subjects that otherwise the people would have
declined to consider.
But we must not forget that "our preacher"
was endowed with that rare and radiant gift, —
an altogether charming and persuasive per-
[79]

Starr King in California
sonality. Appearance, manner, voice, were all
instruments of attractiveness, fitting modes of
expression to a gentle and noble spirit. When
a friend and comrade of King's earlier min
istry was asked to name the preacher's pre
eminent gift, he immediately answered, "his
voice." The reply seems trivial. Yet it was
seriously spoken by one whose knowledge of
King during his Boston ministry was close
and personal. William Everett, who had
listened to New England's renowned orators,
to Emerson's sweet and satisfying voice, and
to the music of Wendell Phillip's speech, said
of King, "His was one of the noblest and
sweetest voices I ever heard." Edward Ev
erett Hale once wrote, "Starr King was an
orator, whom no one could silence and no one
could answer." Says another, "There was
argument in his very voice. It thrilled and
throbbed through an audience like an organ
carrying conviction captive before its won
derful melody." If it is true that William
Pitt once ruled the British Nation by his
voice, as good authority affirms, if it is true
that Daniel O'Connell's voice
Glided easy as a bird may glide,
And played with each wild passion as it went,
[80]

Philanthropist and Preacher
may it not also be true that Starr King's clear,
penetrating, musical voice, answering to the
moods of the soul as a loved instrument to the
hand of the player, was in itself a kind of
gospel of good will to men?
Horace Davis, Starr King's son-in-law, was
accustomed to insist that writers had wholly
failed to note one element of the great orator's
power, namely, his humor. Not wit, Mr. Davis
would remark, but a most genial and kindly,
and at the same time illuminating humor. A
careful examination of King's published ser
mons, speeches and lectures gives but slight
evidence of this gift, owing doubtless to false
ideas of what constitutes decorum in the work
of a preacher. Occasionally satisfying evi
dence is found of the truth of Mr. Davis'
judgment, as in the following:
"On many a tombstone where it is written, 'Here
lies so and so, aged seventy years', the true inscription
would read 'In memory of one who in seventy years
lived about five minutes and that was when he first
fell in love.' "
Writing of his lecture work in California
which he called "detestable vagrancy," he
says: "There is a great flood in the interior. California is a
[81]

Starr King in California
lake. Rats, squirrels, locusts, lecturers, and other like
pests are drowned out. I am a home bird, and enjoy
it hugely." King greeted the mention of his name as
candidate for United States Senator with the
statement, "I would swim to Australia be
fore taking a political post," and added, "a
dandy lives from one neck-tie to another, a
fashionable woman from one wrinkle to an
other and a politician from one election to
another." Certainly there is a smile, as well as a truth,
in the following:
"Our popular definition of a ghost is just the reverse
of truth ; it makes one consist of a soul without a body,
while really a specter, an illusion, a humbug of the
eyesight and the touch, is a human body not vitalized
through and through with a soul."
"King was the best story teller of his time,"
thought Dr. Bellows. "Gifted with an ex
quisite, a delicious sense of the ludicrous, and
given to bursts of uncontrollable merriment,
happy as childhood and as innocent," this is
the verdict of one of his earliest biographers,
— E. P. Whipple. That sunny mirth and in-
fectuous laughter was no mean element of his
power over the people, we can readily believe.
[82]

Philanthropist and Preacher
Another explanation of his far reaching
influence both in the pulpit and on the plat
form, is found in the rare skill with which he
made the discoveries of science, and the
beauties of nature, serve his need as a teacher '
of morals and religion. And here, again, he
was helped by the spirit of his age. Darwin'&^
"Origin of Species" was published in 1859,
a kind of crown and culmination of a half
century of brilliant progress in science. Starr
King but shared the temper of his time as he
turned with delight to the writings of the
masters and reveled in the new universe there
revealed. Modern science, which troubled the
faith of many, only deepened and strengthened
his own, as he idealized and spiritualized each
new wonder of earth and heaven. The comet
of July, 1861, gave noble opportunity to en
force in his pulpit the religious lessons of that
mother of all the sciences. Astronomy. "I am
glad," he began, "at every new temptation to
consider in the pulpit and the Church the
wonders and laws of modern astronomy."
"Does it ever occur to you, brethren, how we waste
truth? Have you ever felt what a sad thing it is that
so little of the vast accumulation of inspiring knowl
edge should reach our deepest, our religious senti-
[83]

Starr King in California
ments, to kindle and feed them? The most certain
knowledge which men now hold is that which is
gathered from the sky. Astronomy, dealing with
objects thousands of millions of miles away, and with
forces that rule through limitless space, is the most
symmetrical and firm of all the structures of science
which have been reared by the human mind. Im
measurably more than David could have known, the
heavens, as Herschel reads them, declare the glory of
God. Yet how seldom do we think of the splendors
and harmonies which a modern book of astronomy
unveils as part of God's appeal to our wonder; how
seldom does the solemn light from the uppermost
regions of immensity, the light of nebulae which
science has broken up into heaps of suns, converge
upon a human soul with power enough to stimulate
devout awe and make the heart bend before the
Creator of the universe."
A few days at Lake Tahoe, when not a hun
dred white men had visited its shores, inspired
a sermon long remembered by those who
heard it, and today, after numerous nature-
sermons by the world's most gifted preachers,
this discourse remains an almost perfect ex
ample of what such a sermon should be. The
following single excerpt must suffice to sug
gest its beauty:
"I must speak of another lesson, connected with
religion, that was suggested to me on the borders of
[84]

Philanthropist and Preacher
Lake Tahoe. It is bordered by groves of noble pines.
Two of the days which I was permitted to enjoy there
were Sundajrs. On one of them I passed several
hours of the afternoon in listening, alone, to the mur
mur of the pines, while the waves were gently beating
the shore with their restlessness. If the beauty and
purity of the lake were in harmony with the deepest
religion of the Bible, certainly the voice of the pines
was also in chord with it.
"The oracles of Greece are connected with the oak.
And the lightness, the gaiety, the wit, the suppleness,
of the Greek mind find in the voice of the oak their
fit representatives; for the oak, though so stubborn
and sinewy in its substances, is cheery and gay in its
tone when the wind strikes it. But the evergreen
trees, though so much softer in their stock, are far
deeper and more serious in their music; and the ever
green is the Hebrew tree. The Cedar of Lebanon is
the tree most prominent when we think of Palestine
and the clothing of its hills. As I lay and listened
to the deep, serious, yet soft and welcome sound of
those pines by the lake shore, I thought of the in
spiration of old which had wakened such lasting and
wonderful music from the great souls of Israel. When
we want knowledge or the quickening of intellect, we
enter the groves of Greece; when we would find
quickening, when we would feel the deeps of the soul
appealed to, we enter the deeper and more sombre
woods of Palestine. The voice of the pine helps us to
interpret the Hebrew genius. Its range of expression
is not so great as that of the oak or the elm or the
[85]

Starr King in California
willow or the beech, but how much richer it is and
more welcome in its monotony! How much more
profoundly our souls echo it! How much more
deeply does it seem to be in harmony with the spirit
of the air! What grandeur, what tenderness, what
pathos, what heart-searchingness in the swells and
cadences of its 'Andante Maestoso,' when the wind
wrestles with it and brings out all its soul."
To the graces and gifts we have mentioned
it is but necessary to add that King's gospel of
religion was in itself a veritable glad tidings
to the people. Not a mere deliverance of
doubt, or morality veneered with icy culture,
but faith clear, strong and radiantly beautiful.
His thought of God, of Man, of Immortality,
was full of comfort and inspiration. "God is
the infinite Christ," he was wont to say.
"Jesus revealed under human limitations the
mercy and love of the Father."
King rivalled Theodore Parker in the
strength and tenderness of his faith that "man
is the child of God." Saint and sinner, master
and slave, learned and ignorant, rich and poor,
all are children of the Infinite God, — born of
His love ere the world was, certain of His love
when the world shall have passed away. He
felt that if this is not true, there is not enough
left of religion to so much as interest an
[86]

Philanthropist and Preacher
earnest soul. Religion is everything, — the sun
in the heavens, — or it is a star too distant,
faint and cold, to cast upon our path a single
ray of light.
And the unseen world! How very real it
was to this man of faith and prayer. The im
mortal life is the life. These earthly years but
lead us thither. Such was his faith. In excess
of world-wisdom we say, "Eternity is here
and now." Well and good. But if we lose for a
kind of technicality the dear old trust in a
higher and nobler life beyond the swift-coming
night of death, what have we gained? Said our
beloved preacher, our "Saint of the Pacific
Coast," as he lay dying, "I see a great future
before me." Without that vision he would not
have been Starr King.

[87]

PART V
IN RETROSPECT

PART V
In Retrospect
A BOVE that of all other men the fame
±\. of the orator is transient. Eloquence
may be "logic on fire" as Dr. Lyman Beecher
defined it. Oratory may be, as Emerson said,
"the noblest expression of purely personal
energy." But it is so far personal, so allied
to grace of gesture, to charm of manner, to
melody of voice, to perfection of speech, to
a commanding presence, that it carries to the
future but a fraction of its power. The cold
type and the insentiate page constitute at best
only the record of nature's rarest gift.
Moreover oratory today is at its ebb, as it
has been a hundred times before, and with us
the man of eloquence passes to quick oblivion.
It would be futile to deny that the common
fate of orators has overtaken Starr King. Even
in California the present generation knows
painfully little of his great services to the
State. This is the first serious attempt, let us
hope it will not be the last, accurately to
measure the extent and value of that service
so nobly rendered. It is gratifying, however, [91]

Starr King in California
to recall that Californians of his own time, and
the years immediately following, paid ample
tribute to his work and his memory. Extraor
dinary honors, such as never have been given
to any private citizen, were freely and lovingly
accorded the patriot-preacher.
On the evening of March 4, 1864, the day of
King's death, the San Francisco Bulletin,
then, as now, one of the leading papers of the
city, contained the following tribute:
"The announcement of the death of Rev. Thomas
Starr King startles the community, and shocks it like
the loss of a great battle or tidings of a sudden and
undreamed of public calamity. Certainly no other
man on the Pacific Coast would be missed so much.
San Francisco has lost one of her chief attractions;
the State, its noblest orator; the country one of her
ablest defenders."
Scarcely forty years of age, a Californian
only from 1860 to 1864, he had in this brief
period so won the hearts of men that in honor
of his funeral the legislature and all the courts
adjourned, the national authorities fired min
ute guns in the bay, while all the flags in the
city and on the ships hung at half-mast, in
cluding those of the foreign consuls and those
on the vessels of England, Russia, Hamburg,
[92]

In Retrospect
Columbia and France. It is believed that in
American history no private individual has
been so honored by the federal army and by
foreign nations.
That Starr King's tomb might serve as a
daily reminder to the people of his unique
devotion to Union and Liberty, a city ordi
nance forbidding burials within certain dis
tricts of the city was set aside, and to this day
his grave can be seen close to one of San
Francisco's busy thoroughfares. Nor is this
all. One of the giant trees of the Mariposa
bears his name and a proud dome of the
Yosemite is called Starr King. On the 27th
of October, 1892, a beautiful and impressive
monument was dedicated in Golden Gate Park
to his memory. Its base bears the inscription:
"In him eloquence, strength and virtue were de
voted with fearless courage to truth, country and his
fellow-men." The dedication address was given by the
Hon. Irving M. Scott, a leading business man
of San Francisco. Speaking with the care and
sobriety the occasion demanded, Mr. Scott
made the following statement, which the
writer believes will also be the sober verdict
of history:
[93]

Starr King in California
"We do not say that Starr King determined for Cali
fornia the course which she pursued ; but we do say
that he was the most potent factor in effecting that
determination." "The most potent factor in effecting that determi
nation, "to establish this beyond the possibility
of cavil or denial, we have told here once again
his inspiring story. The fact that as late as
1913, the Legislature of California appropria-
ated $10,000 to place a bust of Starr King in
our National Capitol at Washington would
seem to indicate that the people have resolved
that this man shall go down to latest genera
tions as par excellence, — "our hero."
It would be natural, and entirely proper, to
close by recounting the numerous tributes
that in the years since King's death have been
paid to his memory, in magazines, memoirs,
speeches and poems, but it would seem like
sweetness too long drawn out. And, perhaps,
few could resist the feeling that no human
being ever really deserved such "largeness
of love." But they seem so real, they ring so
true, that the conviction grows almost to a
certainty that here was one who drew men to
him by the incarnate sweetness and nobility
of his nature. "Doubtless," writes his friend,
[94]

In Retrospect
and co-worker in the Sanitary Commission,
Dr. Henry W. Bellows, "he had his own con
sciousness of imperfection and sin — for he was
human, but I have yet to know and yet to
hear the first suggestion of what his faults and
errors were."
In no spirit of fulsome adulation did a prom
inent San Franciscan write, on the Sunday
following King's departure to "what lies
beyond," these tender words, "Bells sadly
ringing this Sabbath morning remind me that
one pulpit stands empty; and that it must
stand empty, to all intents and purposes, until
the church walls crumble, and pulpit, pillars,
and all are resolved into dust."
Another prominent resident of the State,
writing a half century later, — seeing all after
the sobering lapse of years, writing as though
the cloud of sorrow for his friend had never
been lifted, thus pays his sincere tribute of
respect:
"And so, in the prime of life, at the zenith of his
achievement, before its noon, this sweet, great soul
passed away, leaving to those who loved him, dust and
anguish. Well do we remember that almost at his
death a minor earthquake shook the city, and men
said, 'Even the earth shudders at the thought that
Starr King is dead.' "
[95]

Starr King in California
Of the many poetical tributes, two at least,
are of permanent significance. One by his
friend Bret Harte, dear companion of those
great years in San Francisco, on "A Pen of
Thomas Starr King," is at once so penetrating
and so just that it well deserves here a place:
"This is the reed the dead musician dropped.
With tuneful magic in its sheath still hidden;
The prompt allegro of its music stopped.
Its melodies unbidden.
But who shall finish the unfinished strain.
Or wake the instrument to awe and wonder.
And bid the slender barrel breathe again.
An organ-pipe of thunder!
His pen! what humbler memories cling about
Its golden curves! what shapes and laughing
graces
Slipped from its point, when his full heart went out
In smiles and courtly phrases.
The truth, half jesting, half in earnest flung;
The word of cheer, with recognition in it;
The note of alms, whose golden speech outrung
The golden gift within it.
But all in vain the enchanter's wand we wave:
No stroke of ours recalls his magic vision :
The incantation that its power gave
Sleeps with the dead magician."
[96]

In Retrospect
Could Starr King have been given the privi
lege of selecting his poet-laureate we may be
sure he would have named Whittier. For they
were both lovers of nature and of man. Both
earnest abolitionists, intensely patriotic, lov
ing liberty and the rights of the humblest of
God's creatures, they were kindred spirits.
So Whittier wrote not alone for New England,
not alone for East and West, but from the
deeps of his own loyal and gentle soul, as he
penned, these beautiful lines:
"The great work laid upon his two-
score years
It's done, and well done. If we
drop our tears.
Who loved him as few men were
ever loved.
We mourn no blighted hope nor
broken plan
With him whose life stands
rounded and approved
In the full growth and stature of
a man.
Mingle, O bells, along the Western
slope.
With your deep toll a sound of
faith and hope!
Wave cheerily still, O banner, half
way down,
[97]

Starr King in California
From thousand-masted bay and
steepled town!
Let the strong organ with its lof
tiest swell
Lift the proud sorrow of the land,
and tell
That the brave sower saw his
ripened grain.
O East and West! O morn and
sunset twain
No more forever! — ^has he lived
in vain
Who, priest of Freedom, made ye
one and told
Your bridal service from his lips
of gold."
Whittier refuses to believe that King's life,
though he lived but "two score years" was a
"broken plan." All who believe that life is of
divine ordering, our days, our duty, our
destiny to the last hour will, with resignation,
accept this teaching of faith. To others it will
seem in the nature of an irreparable loss that
one so good, and so greatly useful, should
have died so young.
And though he met death with a smile, and
said, "Tell my friends that I went lovingly,
trustfully, peacefully," yet it is true that he
was cut off in the midst of noble dreams of
[98]

In Retrospect
service he would still render humanity. Some
one has said that "aspiration, not achieve
ment, is the measure of human worth." If
this be true, or partly true, we may not pass in
silence the unfulfilled ambitions of Starr King.
His first great dream looked toward a career
in Boston. He would found a lectureship,
somewhat like, yet most unlike, that after
ward conducted by Joseph Cook. How grandly
he would have interpreted from such a plat
form the spiritual significance of modern
science is made evident in those great lectures,
"Substance and Show," "Laws of Dis
order," and in those memorable sermons deal
ing with natural phenomena. All the progress
of more than half a century has not rendered
them obsolete. They can still be read with
pleasure and profit.
King also planned, when leisure should be
afforded him, a work in philosophy. Some
thing of permanent value to all thinkers and
students. One needs but to read King's lec
ture on "Socrates" to understand how rich
and valuable such a work would have been.
Indeed, here are paragraphs that could have
been written only by one of philosophic mood
and habit of mind. How much of modern [99]

Starr King in California
"New Thought Philosophy" is expressed in
the following:
"Few acknowledge that thoughts are as substantial
as things, that a feeling is as real as a paving stone,
that the soul is a congeries of actual forces as truly
as the body is, that a moral principle is as persistent
and fatal a thing as a chemical agent, and that, in the
deeps of the mind and of society, laws are at work as
constant and stern as those which spin the planets and
heave the sea and poise the firmaments."
Accepting as the ground work of his philoso
phy such principles as these King tells us that
"Socrates came to the conclusion that the
stone which his chisel chipped was less sub
stantial than the soul in every human form:
and that the beauty which his cunning carved
into the block was less charming and perma
nent than the beauty of truth, temperance,
and holiness, which faith and culture could
leave upon the invisible essence of man. He
therefore resolved to abandon the lower for
the higher art of sculpture, and instead of
being an artist in marble to be a fashioner of
men." King's aptness for historical and philo
sophical generalization is quite evident as we
read: [100]

In Retrospect
"Socrates was the father of a new method of study.
His thoughts were the seed corn of systems. His
pupils were the teachers of centuries. Each bump
of his brain was the nucleus of a philosophical school.
Hardly had he left the world, than the strong and
simple light he shed was scattered in various hues by
the prismatic minds that had surrounded him or that
succeeded him; and in almost every case, — ^as so often
happens when the strands of the solar beam are bril
liantly dishevelled, — the actinic ray was lost."
In all our reading we have never met a de
scription of the Grecian philosopher so com
plete and accurate as one brief phrase in the
lecture from which these excerpts are taken,
"Socrates, the slouehy ambassador of rea
son." Or what could be truer of Socrates and
Plato than to say that "Arm in arm, the
stately duke and the democrat of philosophy
walk down the lists of fame"?
Read and re-read the closing paragraph of
King's "Socrates" impresses the thoughtful
mind more and more by its depth and beauty,
and we ask, — ^what might not this man in his
full maturity and in scholarly leisure have
contributed to enrich the philosophy of our
time? "Down the River of Life, by its Athenian banks, he
had floated upon his raft of reason serene, in cloudy
[101]

Starr King in California
as in smiling weather, for seventy years. And now
the night is rushing down, and he has reached the
mouth of the stream, and the great ocean is before
him, dim heaving in the dusk. But he betrays no
fear. There is land ahead, he thought; eternal con
tinents there are, that rise in constant light beyond
the gloom. He trusted still in the raft his soul had
built, and with a brave farewell to the few true friends
who stood by him on the shore he put out into the
darkness, a moral Columbus, trusting in his haven on
the faith of an idea."
It was an open secret among King's friends
in California that he meditated writing of the
Yosemite as he had written of the White Hills
of New Hampshire. Had he done so that
region of incomparable beauty would have
been known to the people of our country at
least twenty years earlier. What a volume it
would have been, "The Beauty and Glory
of the Yosemite" by Starr King! What a
vision he would have given us of that mighty
gorge; of the crystal clearness of Mirror Lake;
of the majesty of Cathedral Rock, of Sentinel
Dome, or El Capitan ; of the bright waterfalls.
Vernal and the Bridal Veil; or in exquisite
artistry of word painting how he would have
pictured for us the wonderful coloring of the
Yosemite, the morning tints of gray, the per-
[102]

In Retrospect
feet white of noon shading into blue, the after
noon tinge of silver and gold, the sunset's
gauze of crimson, and then the varying shades
of approaching night. But our artist never
lived to paint the picture for us, and are we
not the poorer? Is there any such thing in
this sad world as superfluous genius? Let our
philosophers answer. At all events these were
the noble and the unfulfilled ambitions of
Starr King.
It would seem that of American statesmen
Mr. King most admired Daniel Webster. He
never shared the feeling of his fellow abolition
ists that Webster's well-known longing to be
President had caused him to be false to liberty,
but rather that the great "Defender of the
Constitution" endeavored to preserve the
Union for the sake of liberty. As we have al
ready noted, when the Civil War broke out
King found in the service Webster had ren
dered the Nation some of his strongest argu
ments for the Northern Cause. He was quite
ready to accept the judgment of the English
publicist that "Webster was not only the
greatest man of his age, — he was the greatest
man of any age." No doubt he had followed
every stage of that momentous career to the
[103]

Starr King in California
very end. All thoughtful Americans went into
retirement with Daniel Webster, and in his
last sickness watched in a kind of reverent
awe as his life ebbed away. From the solemn
death chamber in Marshfield, his home by the
stormy Atlantic, came tidings of the great
statesman's last moments, in which he re
peated, again and again, the Lord's Prayer and
the Twenty-third Psalm. Loving friends bore
tearful witness to the pathos and heavenly
beauty of the old words as they fell from the
trembling lips of the dying man, "Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou
art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they com
fort me."
If it be a coincidence, it is one of striking
appropriateness that when the last hour came
to our foremost "Defender of the Constitu
tion and the Union," that with unclouded
mind, here by the Pacific Sea, he, too, should
have passed to his rest, even as the older
patriot, whispering with untroubled faith,
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." "I
will fear no evil," these were his last words,
[104]

In Retrospect
and it is good to read that having so spoken,
without a struggle or a pang, he entered upon
his exceeding great reward. His work on earth
was done, and well done.

[105]

HERE ENDS STARR KING IN CALIFORNIA,
AS WRITTEN BY REVEREND WILLIAM DAY
SIMONDS, PUBLISHED IN BOOK FORM BY
PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY, AND SEEN
THROUGH THEIR TOMOYE PRESS BY RICARDO
J. OROZCO, IN THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO,
DURING THE MONTH OF APRIL, NINETEEN
HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN

3 9002 00778 4300

[4.1ft,