"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: "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 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: "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.'"