Starr King in California Part 2

In this connection it should be remembered that when President Lincoln at the outbreak of the war called for 75,000 men, California was expected to furnish her quota of 6,000 soldiers, but so threatening was the local situation that not a loyal man could be spared from the State.

On the contrary it was found necessary to retain in the State certain regiments of the regular army badly needed elsewhere. In the summer of 1861, the War Department proposed to transfer a portion of the regular army stationed in California to Texas, where the situation demanded immediate succor for the friends of the Union. How grave the situation had become in California may easily be determined by a fact which seems to have escaped so far the attention of historians. On August 28, 1861, the leading men of San Francisco sent a communication to Hon. Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, remonstrating against the withdrawal of United States troops from California for the following reasons:

1. "A majority of our present state officials are avowed secessionists, and the balance being bitterly hostile to the administration are advocates of a peace policy at any price."

2. "About three-fifths of our citizens are natives of slave-holding states and are almost a unit in this crisis."

3. "Our advices, obtained with great prudence and care, show us that there are about 16,000 Knights of the Golden Circle (a secret military organization of secessionists, said by many authorities to have been much stronger than was at the time believed) in the state, and they are still organizing even in our most loyal districts."

4. "Through misrepresentation the powerful native Mexican population has been won over to the secession side."

This doc.u.ment, remarkable in itself, becomes weighty evidence, when it is stated that after full and careful consideration, the pet.i.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 authorities in Washington, "Col. Wright ought to remain in command. The safety of the whole coast may depend upon it."

(italics ours).

A few weeks after the death of Starr King, the Pacific Monthly, leading magazine of the day, reviewed the situation at the beginning of the great conflict, as it was then known and understood by all intelligent Californians:

"On the breaking out of the rebellion, public opinion on this coast was sorely distracted at the issues raised. The great majority of the people were warmly attached to their Government; but they had drunk deep at the fountains of Southern eloquence, and had been measurably debauched by the dangerous teachings of the able men who had ruled the state from its infancy. When we consider the critical condition of public sentiment at that dark hour (1860-1861); how the public mind had been thrown off its poise by the false teaching of a long succession of political charlatans; how the insidious doctrine of separation and a Pacific Republic had been hissed by serpents into the ears of the people; how the great dark cloud of impending ruin hung over our central Government; how legions of armed patricides were almost battering at the gates of our National Capital; how rebellion had baptized itself in blood and victory at Bull Run--when we think how the effect of all these adverse teachings and adverse fortunes had rendered the public mind plastic to whoever had the genius to seize and direct it, and reflect that a man of King's abilities, but without his patriotism, might have grasped the opportunity to drift us upon shoals and rocks and quicksands of treason, we cannot feel too thankful that the man and the hour both arrived.

His was a n.o.ble task, and n.o.bly did he fulfill it. What he did for California and the Union can never be fully estimated,--the work he wrought in saving her to the country, and engraving upon her heart, the golden word--'Union'."

Leaving aside for a little s.p.a.ce this fervent tribute to King's work, the quotation just given is evidence of a grave situation, of a state divided in opinion, of just such an "hour of decision" as gives the strong man his opportunity. There can be no doubt that the verdict of the Visalia Delta, a loyal and well-known newspaper, as to conditions in its own community would apply to every considerable town in the State:

"Treason against the Government and const.i.tution is preached from the pulpit, printed in the newspapers, and openly advocated in the streets and public places."

A work just from the press, "California--Men and Events"--by Mr. G. H.

Tinkham, affords valuable testimony to the necessity and value of King's mission as patriotic leader:

"At a time when some Union men were paralyzed with dread, and others undecided which way to turn, Thomas Starr King traveled over the state bolstering up the weak-hearted, and urging loyal men to stand firmly for the Union. In his lectures, 'Washington,' 'Daniel Webster,' 'The Great Uprising,' and 'The Rebellion in Heaven,' in unanswerable arguments and matchless eloquence he kindled the patriotism of the people into a glowing flame. It is conceded that no individual did more to keep California in the Union than did Thomas Starr King."

How necessary it was that some one should "kindle the patriotism of the people into a glowing flame" is further evident from the fact that the California Legislature of 1861 numbered as its members 57 Douglas Democrats, 33 Southern Democrats, and but 24 Republicans. What this alignment signified may be judged from the following incident. Edmund Randolph, (a former Virginian, and a man of fiery eloquence) on July 11, 1861, delivered unrebuked in the State Democratic Convention at Sacramento, this diatribe against Abraham Lincoln: "For G.o.d's sake speed the ball, may the lead go quick to his heart--and may our country be free from this despot usurper, that now claims to the name of President of the United States."

A few days earlier, July 4, 1861, a Confederate flag waved undisturbed in Los Angeles, as well as in other nearby towns, the Union men in that section being largely in the minority. For a considerable time in the United States Marshal's office in San Francisco, a Confederate flag waved from a miniature man-of-war named "Jeff Davis."

In Merced County, Union men were in a sorry minority! A favorite campaign song in that region was ent.i.tled, "We'll Drive the b.l.o.o.d.y Tyrant Lincoln From Our Dear Native Soil." A little later, the Equal Rights Expositer of Visalia characterized President Lincoln as "a narrow minded bigot, an unprincipled demagogue, and a drivelling, idiotic, imbecile creature."

Unpleasant testimony of this sort, demonstrating the presence and power of a bitter spirit of disloyalty, running all through the State, but most in evidence in certain localities peopled from the South, might be given at great length. But enough. We have no wish to reproduce the evil pa.s.sions 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 G.o.d, the undaunted leader of Union sentiment in California was none other than Starr King.

A prominent San Francisco paper, indulging in the partizan speech of the period, calling all friends of the Administration at Washington, "Abolitionists," gave ungracious testimony to King's standing and influence as follows:

"The abolitionists are bent on carrying out their plans, and will not hesitate to commit any act of despotism. If the const.i.tution stands in their way, they will, to use the words of their champion in this state, Rev. T. Starr King, drive through the const.i.tution."

"Their champion in this state." The opprobrium rested upon him then; let the honor be his now. This in simple justice to the truth of history.

It is infinitely to be regretted that what men called "the irresistible charm of his eloquence" cannot by any manner of speech be here portrayed. If excuse is necessary let these words from King's lecture on "Webster" plead for us:

"Alas for the perishableness of eloquence! It is the only thing in the higher walks of human creativeness that pa.s.ses 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, pa.s.ses and dies with the occasion."

Not wholly, for even in "cold type" some measure of the power and persuasiveness of the orator's argument is suggested. It is easy to imagine the force and fire of patriotism that must have glowed in such words as these:

"Rebellion sins against the Mississippi; it sins against the coast line; it sins against the ballot-box; it sins against oaths of allegiance; it sins against public and beneficent peace; and it sins, worse than all, against the cornerstone of American progress and history and hope,--the worth of the laborer, the rights of man. It strikes for barbarism against civilization."

The intense fervor of King's loyalty to Union and Liberty is seen in his righteous indignation against an Oregonian who would not fight to save the country unless he could be shown that his own personal interests were involved. "For one wild moment," wrote King, "I longed to throttle the wretch and push him into the Columbia. I looked down, however, and saw that the water was clean."

Think of the force of the following declaration uttered to men who meant well, but were undecided:

"The Rebellion--it is the cause of Wrong against Right. It is not only an unjustifiable revolution, but a geographical wrong, a moral wrong, a religious wrong, a war against the Const.i.tution, against the New Testament, against G.o.d."

Thus did he condemn all forces within the State at war with liberty and right. Stern words he used,--words that like Luther's were half battles.

Of peace-at-any-price-men he said:

"The hounds on the track of Broderick turned peace men, and affected with hysterics at the sniff of powder! Wonderful transformation. What a pleasant sight--a hawk looking so innocent, and preaching peace to doves, his talons loosely wound with cotton! A clump of wolves trying to thicken their ravenous flanks with wool, for this occasion only, and composing their fangs to the work of eating gra.s.s! Holy Satan, pray for us."

When the report reached California that Robert Toombs had said, "I want it carved over my grave,--'Here lies the man who destroyed the United States Government and its Capitol,'" King replied, "Mr. Toombs cannot be literally gratified. But he may come so near his wish as this,--that it shall be written over his gallows, as over every one of a score of his fellow-felons, 'Here swings the man who attempted murder on the largest scale that was ever planned in history.'"

That our orator knew how to be sarcastic as well as severe must have been plain to those who heard him exclaim:

"There are those who say that they are Union men, and in favor of the Government, and yet they are bitterly opposed to the administration, and cannot support its policy. But in a war for self existence, this divorce is impossible. One might as well say at a fire, while his house is beginning to crackle in the flames, 'I am in favor of this engine, I go for this water; the hose meets my endors.e.m.e.nt. Certainly, I am for putting out the fire, but don't ask me to help man the brakes, for I am conscientiously opposed to the hose pipe. Its nozzle isn't handsome. It wasn't made by a Democrat.'"

How ardently King longed for the liberation of the Blacks is seen in the following, addressed in all probability more to the President of the United States than to the people:

"O that the President would soon speak that electric sentence,--inspiration to the loyal North, doom to the traitorous aristocracy whose cup of guilt is full! Let him say that it is a war of ma.s.s against cla.s.s, of America against feudalism, of the schoolmaster against the slave-master, of workmen against the barons, of the ballot-box against the barrac.o.o.n. 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 n.o.ble peroration in the "Reply to Hayne," "Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable," and in lofty strain of patriotic prophecy announces that:

"Mr. Webster's thought breaks out afresh in the proclamation of the President that America is one and cannot be broken; it bursts forth in the banners thick as the gorgeous leaves of the October forests that have blossomed all over eighteen or twenty States; it shows itself in the pa.s.sion of the n.o.ble 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 Const.i.tution, 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 Const.i.tution must rule, and the public law must be obeyed.

"And when the work of the government shall be accomplished,--when the stolen money of the nation shall be refunded; when hostile artillery shall be with-drawn from the lower banks of the Mississippi; when the flag of thirteen stripes and thirty-four stars shall float again over Sumter, over New Orleans, over every a.r.s.enal that has seen it insulted, over Mount Vernon and the American dust of Washington, over every State Capitol and along the whole coast and border line of Texas; when every man within the present limits of the immense republic shall have restored to him the right of pride in the American Navy, and of representation on common terms in the National Capitol, and of citizenship on the whole continent; when leading traitors shall have been punished, and the Const.i.tution vindicated in its unsectional beneficence, and the doctrine of secession be stabbed with two hundred thousand bayonet wounds, and trampled to rise no more,--then the debate between Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Webster will be completed, the swarthy spirit of the great defender of the Const.i.tution will triumph, and a restored, peaceful, majestic, irresistible America will dignify and consecrate his name forever."

"A restored, peaceful, majestic, irresistible America,"--this was the vision that nerved King to herculean labor, to a most real martyrdom.

Condemned to the slow suicide of over-work, he gave his life a conscious offering to freedom. "What a year to live in," he writes, "worth all other times ever known in our history or any other." Again,--"I should be broken down if I had time to think how I feel. I am beginning to look old, and shall break before my prime."

Why is the song so sweet, and why does it move us so strangely? The singer's heart is breaking. Why is the word so effective? It is laden with love and winged with sacrifice. A man is dying that others may live in verity, not longer in shadow; a hero is suffering crucifixion that the sad ages may a little change their course. Not only is it true that the "blood of martyrs slain is the seed of the church," but it is also true that a man never touches the heights of power until he has made a total, irreversible, affectionate surrender to the cause he professes to serve. When he has done this the cause becomes incarnate in the man; and he speaks as one inspired. And this was the power of Starr King in that great Summer and Fall of 1861 in California. Of course he did not speak in vain. Leland Stanford, backed by a Union Legislature, was elected Governor of California, and by October, King joyfully writing an Eastern friend was able to say "the State is safe from southern tampering."

Part IV. Philanthropist and Preacher

"As a philanthropist, Starr King raised for 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 service our Preacher-Patriot rendered the cause he loved.

It seems almost beyond belief that the North rushed into the Civil War wholly unprepared to care for the Nation's Defenders, either in health or in sickness. Transportation 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 wrapped in shoddy blankets upon rotten straw.

Under such conditions these brave volunteers suffered severely and camp diseases became alarmingly prevalent. But the miserable 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 attendants 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 humanely transporting the sick and wounded, all were wanting during early months of the war.