If Thomas Starr King had been only a political orator, he would still have had an immense impact on California during the Civil War, given the state's dearth of actual politicians with the gift of eloquence. In fact, he went beyond the realm of talking about war and public policy to stir Californians at the deepest level of imagination by talking poetically about the landscape. In a series of lectures, moreover, he introduced them to his favorite New England poets. At the same time, he also wrote about California for a northeastern audience, giving other Americans the sense that California's treasures were not confined merely to gold. Also, he nurtured the state's young talent in both the literary and the visual arts. It is impossible to gauge his effectiveness in solidifying Unionist sentiment without discussing the cultural work he performed, work that advanced the same larger purpose as the explicitly political speeches.

What gave the cultural project special urgency in California was the state's sheer remoteness from the rest of the country. How could Californians feel connected to the struggle taking place so far away? How could they come to support political measures that might be initially unpopular, such as emancipation? Literature, perhaps, might help maintain and strengthen national loyalties, playing the role that William Ellery Channing had envisioned for it in his “Remarks on National Literature.” Clearly no one else in the state was as well qualified to open up a cultural front as Channing's coreligionist King, and King responded to the challenge with the same sort of energy that he was putting into political oratory.