Sacramento, this diatribe against Abraham Lincoln: "For God's sake speed
the ball, may the lead go quick to his heart - and may our country be
free from this despot usurper, that now claims to the name of President
of the United States."

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

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

Unpleasant testimony of this sort, demonstrating the presence and power
of a bitter spirit of disloyalty, running all through the State, but
most in evidence in certain localities peopled from the South, might be
given at great length. But enough. We have no wish to reproduce the evil
passions of an evil time further than to make it absolutely clear that a
real danger of disunion existed, and that friend and foe alike
recognized that, under God, the undaunted leader of Union sentiment in
California was none other than Starr King.

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