n unheralded but equally eloquent
speaker, Thomas Starr King, who arrived in April, 1860, and later toured
the state, giving lectures on patriotic subjects but always declared for
the Union and the Republican candidates as the surest guaranty of its
preservation."

Tuthill, in his history of the time writes with more warmth, and
probably more truth:

"There was a charm in King's delivery that few could resist. He was
received with applause where Republican orators, saying things no more
radical, could not be heard without hisses. Delicately feeling his way,
and never arousing the prejudices of his hearers, he adroitly educated
his audiences to a lofty style of patriotism. The effect was obvious in
San Francisco where audiences were accustomed to every style of address;
it was far more noticeable in the interior."

The celebrated critic and writer, Edwin Percey Whipple, made a careful
examination of King's record in California and sums up his impressions
as follows:

"As a patriotic Christian statesman he included the real elements
of power in the community, took the people out of hands of disloyal
politicians, lifted them up to the level of his own ardent soul, and not
only saved the state to the Union, but imprinted his own generous and
magnanimous spirit on its forming life."

Writing a little later and with even more enthusiasm, another authority,
speaking of King's charm of manner, says:

"I am persuaded that could he have gone through the Southern states,
shaking hands with secessionists, he would have won them back to their
allegiance by the mere magnetism of his touch."

It is, perhaps, impossible at this late date to estimate the effect
of Starr King's appeal to the voters of California in the presidential
election of 1860. As we have already noted, Lincoln carried the State
by a very narrow plurality, and we need not ascribe the swaying of many
votes to the eloquence of King's advocacy to make it appear that his
influence was marked in that memorable campaign.

But here must be emphasized a fact, quite often overlooked, and always
to the serious perversion of history. In California, as in every
doubtful state, the Hour of Decision did not precede, but in every
instance, followed the elevation of Lincoln to the presidency. It
was upon this rock that the nation split. Shall a Black Republican be
permitted to sit in the seat of Washington? Shall a man elected, as a
matter of fact, by a sectional minority