مارکس و لینکلن: انقلاب ناتمام

by Robin Blackburn, کیوان مهتدی (translator)

The impact of the American Civil War on Karl Marx, and Karl Marx on America.
Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln exchanged letters at the end of the Civil War. Although they were divided by far more than the Atlantic Ocean, they agreed on the cause of “free labor” and the urgent need to end slavery. In his introduction, Robin Blackburn argues that Lincoln’s response signaled the importance of the German American community and the role of the international communists in opposing European recognition of the Confederacy.

The ideals of communism, voiced through the International Working Men’s Association, attracted many thousands of supporters throughout the US, and helped spread the demand for an eight-hour day. Blackburn shows how the IWA in America—born out of the Civil War—sought to radicalize Lincoln’s unfinished revolution and to advance the rights of labor, uniting black and white, men and women, native and foreign-born. The International contributed to a profound critique of the capitalist robber barons who enriched themselves during and after the war, and it inspired an extraordinary series of strikes and class struggles in the postwar decades.

In addition to a range of key texts and letters by both Lincoln and Marx, this book includes articles from the radical New York-based journal Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, an extract from Thomas Fortune’s classic work on racism Black and White, Frederick Engels on the progress of US labor in the 1880s, and Lucy Parson’s speech at the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, American History, Philosophy, Civil War, Economics

332 pages, Paperback

First published April 18, 2011

Reviews

[Ollie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry, but what a deceptive book and a waste of time. The back of the book introduces the book by saying that Marx and Lincoln corresponded towards the end of the war and that there were issues they agreed and disagreed on. The truth is that Marx wrote a letter to Lincoln on behalf of the International congratulating him on his second term win and how the cause of the war is the cause of the working class. Lincoln then had his ambassador write a reply. HIS AMBASSADOR. There was no direct exchange!

All in all, this book is a mess. It starts off with a 100 page introduction for a 260 page book. That's more than a third of the book for an introduction! Right there it's a sign that there's very little meat to the book itself. The introduction discusses the ideas both men had and their values and what impact they had on America and Europe. The actual "meat" of the book are the two speeches Lincoln made at his inaugurations and his Emancipation Proclamation. That's it!

Marx's section is a collection of his writings and articles on the civil war, his letters back and forth to Fredrich Engels, an interview he made, and the letter he wrote on behalf of the International. Yes, these writings by Marx are interesting but mostly they talk about battle tactics during the war. This is the best the author and editors could come up with? Very very thin material here as of course, it appears that the truth is that these two men had very little connection.

At the end we have writings by some socialists who proclaim their hatred of capitalism (how it's the new slavery) and how women need to rise up and work for the 8 hour day. You know, like Marx always professed, GET IT? What's the point?

Honestly, what an embarrassment this book is.

[Titus Hjelm · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought the book based on its cover. Rarely have I seen such a misleading cover. First, this is not a comparison of the political philosophies of Marx and Lincoln, but a book about the US civil war. Second, it is not a book by Robin Blackburn (whom I much admire), but a book edited by him, with the two inaugural addresses and the Emancipation Proclamation by Lincoln, and assorted journalism on the US civil war by Marx. In addition there are random clippings from the correspondence between Marx and Engels and speeches and journalism from the era. Fair enough, Blackburn's intro takes up about 40% of the book, but it is mostly an overview of the civil war with little theoretical depth.

My expectations made the reading experience worse than it could have been. But the cover is still misleading.

[Matthew]

Maybe they're both vampire hunters.

[Orchid · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this book is neither that Marx and Lincoln shared the idea of socialism nor that there was a relationship between Marx and Lincoln. Anyone who reviews it as such clearly hasn't read beyond the first ten pages, as the book explicitly states the opposite; albeit, the summary did express that: "Marx and Lincoln exchanged letters," but if you read the paragraphs detailing it in the book, you'll realize this was one-sided. The very misleading cover/title could lead to confusion and conclusions as well. The title "An Unfinished Revolution" refers to the socialist revolution that Marx anticipated that never came due to the assassination of Lincoln (reconstruction becoming a massive setback and alternating the progress entirely) and the messy & unorganized socialist parties that sprung up post-Lincoln.

The book is, instead, an overview of the left that arose during and after the Civil War following the German immigration to help the union and Lincoln's pursuit of free labor, which (following Marxist philosophy of the historic dialect) will create new conditions leading to new modes of production and class consciousness, thus leading to socialism. 

Don't let the long introduction fool you either: the introduction is, in fact, the book. Either the editor messed up immensely or the author has a questionable structural approach as, within this 100 page long introduction, it has many subheadings that would've made good chapters. After the introduction, you just get a compiled archive of the speeches by Lincoln, essays, articles, and notes by Marx; articles from Woodhull, speeches by Lucy Parson, and extracts by Frederick Engel and Thomas Fortune. These are all rather necessary to give an insight and understanding of the flourishing and impact of leftists in the US during this period.

[Drew Reilly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Skip it. The premise is that Marx and Lincoln exchanged letters. These letters make up 3 pages of this book, and a majority of those three pages are a congratulations on reelection and gratitude for the congratulations.

[armin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Batshit... some collected speeches here and there (including Lincoln’s inaugural addresses and the Gettysburg address) and some crappy introduction... useless purchase... disappointed with Verso guys.

[Online-University of-the-Left · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Unfinished Revolution
Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln

By Robin Blackburn

__________

CarlD's comments

Here’s a little tidbit rescued from the memory hole about labor marches in NYC. In 1871, under the banner of the First International, some 70,000 marched in the city to protest the suppression of the Paris Commune.

“The parade brought together the Skidmore Guards (a Black militia), the female leadership of Section 12 (Woodhull and Claflin), and Irish band, a range of trade unions, supporters of Cuba’s right to independence marching under a Cuban flag, and a broad spectrum of socialist, feminist, radical and reform politics.”

Quite a crew. I wonder what 70,000 would be in relation to today’s NYC population numbers.

Another new thing, at least for me. I knew Marx's First International existed in the US, and some of its members were in the Civil War. But I had no idea of the scope of the organization, how many locals it had, and how many militias its members headed up


There’s lots more.

Just finished it. Blackburn's long introduction to the documents is the heart of it, and you'll learn about the period in a new way, looking back at it through the lens of the 1960s.

_________
Check out Robin Blackburn’s ‘An Unfinished Revolution: Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln. (Verso). --CarlD



Verso Press, 272 pages, published in 2011 in paperback, $19.95.

“Marx did not support the North because he believed that its victory would directly lead to socialism. Rather, he saw in South and North two species of capitalism — one allowing slavery, the other not. The then existing regime of American society and economy embraced the enslavement of four million people whose enforced toil produced the republic’s most valuable export, cotton, as well as much tobacco, sugar, rice, and turpentine. Defeating the slave power was going to be difficult. The wealth and pride of the 300,000 slaveholders (there were actually 395,000 slave owners, according to the 1860 Census, but at the time Marx was writing this had not yet been published) was at stake. These slaveholders were able to corrupt or intimidate many of the poor Southern whites, and they had rich and influential supporters among the merchants, bankers and textile manufacturers of New York, London, and Paris. Defeating the slave power and freeing the slaves would not destroy capitalism, but it would create conditions far more favorable to organizing and elevating labor, whether white or black. Marx portrayed the wealthy slave owners as akin to Europe’s aristocrats, and their removal as a task for the sort of democratic revolution he had advocated in the Communist Manifesto as the immediate aim for German revolutionaries.” (12, 13)

SO WRITES ROBIN Blackburn in his excellent overview of the Civil War and its aftermath. The book is 260 pages, but Blackburn’s 100-page introduction provides the key to approaching the book’s other sections: the inaugural addresses of President Abraham Lincoln; the writings of Karl Marx; and a speech by labor activist Lucy Parsons to the founding convention in 1905 of the Industrial Workers of the World.

Lincoln was not unaware of Marx. He was an avid reader of the weekly national edition of Horace Greeley’s New York Daily Tribune, and Marx was the London correspondent for the paper from 1852 to 1861 on European affairs. After Marx left the Tribune in late 1861, he continued his commentary on the then-expanding Civil War in Die Presse, a daily published in Vienna, Austria.

Lincoln and Greeley got to know each other from their brief stint in 1848 in the U.S. Congress. Lincoln was anti-slavery, as was Greeley and his newspaper. And when Marx drafted the address of the International Workingmen’s Association to president Lincoln, applauding his reelection in 1864, Lincoln responded through the U.S. ambassador in Britain. The Times of London, a daily, printed the response. (211-214)

In a letter from Marx to Frederick Engels on August 7, 1862, Marx ends it by capturing the essence of the war, “The long and short of the business seems to me to be that a war of this kind must be conducted on revolutionary lines, while the Yankees have so far been trying to conduct it constitutionally.” (197)

Blackburn lays open the process by which a war to “preserve the Union,” a war to defend the Constitution, became a war for revolutionary democracy, a war to overturn the system of chattel slavery.

In Lincoln’s inaugural address in March of 1861, he bent over backwards to appease the slaveholders, promising to support an amendment to the Constitution “to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service.” (113)

Despite this posturing, when a Federal facility, Fort Sumter, was fired upon and taken by South Carolina rebels the following month, Lincoln called up volunteers — the time for compromise and negotiation were over. The constitutional war had begun.
Confiscating “Contraband”

Many Democrats, as well as Republicans, flocked to the call of the Union. One such individual was Benjamin F. Butler, a Massachusetts Democrat. He was appointed a brigadier general and was in charge of Union troops at Fort Monroe, in the tidewater area of Virginia in the spring of 1861.

Subsequently three slaves working on Confederate fortifications rebelled and escaped to the Fort. Next, a Confederate colonel showed up, flying a flag of truce, and demanded that General Butler return his “property.” Butler replied that the Fugitive Slave Law didn’t apply since the colonel was outside the Union, making the escaped slaves “contraband of war,” enemy property. (Battle Cry of Freedom, The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson, 1988, Oxford University Press, 355)

Butler consulted afterwards and got the agreement of the Lincoln administration. Northern newspapers picked up on the phrase, “contraband of war.” By the summer of 1861, Fort Monroe sheltered over a thousand escaped slaves as “contraband,” putting them to work as civilian auxiliaries of the Union Army. (McPherson, 355)

The escaped slaves forced a breach in Lincoln’s constitutional war stance. The property question was rearing its head. Other commanders started to welcome African-American slaves who went on strike against the slaveholder.

That same summer, Congress passed a Confiscation Act, which declared persons in bondage working for the Confederate Army could be seized as “contraband.” (Marx and Lincoln, 36)

As the Union Army and Navy took more coastal areas in the South, including the sea islands off the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia, thousands of slaves escaped to the lines of the Blue. When New Orleans, the biggest city in the Confederacy, was taken in the spring of 1862, waves of “contraband” entered the city.

As Union commander, General Butler knew that among the thousands were not only hands used by the Confederate Army, but also hands that worked the sugar plantations. This prompted the Republican-controlled Congress to pass a second Confiscation Act in the summer of 1862 — allowing field officers to seize plantation laborers as well as military laborers.

The “contraband” were the property of the state, not citizens, and the question of arming them was not even to be considered — this was the view of Lincoln and his administration. (37) Any Union general who crossed that line lost his command. Such was the fate of John C. Fremont in Missouri in the summer of 1861; David Hunter in South Carolina and John W. Phelps in Louisiana during the summer of 1862. (36)

Abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips (35), and Frederick Douglass let loose scathing attacks on Lincoln, and called for immediate emancipation of the slaves.

However, let’s take a closer look at two other Union generals: Ulysses S. Grant in the West and George B. McClellan in the East:

“Grant informed his family that his only desire was ‘to put down the rebellion. I have no hobby of my own with regard to the Negro, either to effect his freedom or to continue his bondage…. I am using them as teamsters, hospital attendants, company cooks and so forth, thus saving soldiers to carry the musket. I don’t know what is to become of these poor people in the end, but it weakens the enemy to take them from them.’” (McPherson, 502)

Lincoln went down to the Virginia tidewater area to visit McClellan in July of 1862.

“…the general handed him a memorandum on the proper conduct of the war. ‘It should not be a war looking to the subjugation of the [southern] people,’ McClellan instructed the president. ‘Neither confiscation of property…[n]or forcible abolition of slavery should be contemplated for a moment…. Military power should not be allowed to interfere with the relations of servitude…. A declaration of radical views, especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our present armies.’” (Ibid.)

Grant provides a crystal clear example of the implementation of the Confiscation Acts, McClellan the exact opposite.

In the spring of 1861, Lincoln might have agreed with McClellan. But by the summer of 1862, Lincoln’s views were shifting radically — the constitutional war was about to become a revolutionary democratic war. Before the year was out, McClellan would be relieved of his command.

Lincoln believed in the gradual emancipation of the slaves, coupled with ample compensation for the slave owners. (Marx and Lincoln, 35) He rested his case on the withering away of slavery in the North after the Revolution of 1776 and the more recent example of British abolition of slavery in its Caribbean colonies in the 1830s. He repeatedly sought to convince Congressional representatives from the border states — Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware — of this perspective. Most would have none of it.

As Lincoln, the supreme pragmatist, began to grapple privately with the possibility of slave emancipation, he publicly floated the idea of shipping the “contraband” to Liberia and other parts of Africa. The abolitionists rejected the plan and Lincoln finally gave it up after discussions with a few of the “contraband” in the White House. (50, 51)

On July 13, 1862, Lincoln privately told Secretary of State William H. Seward and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles

“…of his intention to issue an emancipation proclamation. As Welles recorded the conversation, Lincoln said that this question had ‘occupied his mind and thoughts day and night’ for several weeks. He had decided emancipation was ‘a military necessity, absolutely essential to the preservation of the Union. We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued. The slaves were undeniably an element of strength to those who had their service, and we must decide whether that element should be with us or against us.’”

Lincoln brushed aside the argument of unconstitutionality. This was a war, and as commander in chief he could order seizure of enemy slaves just as surely as he could order destruction of enemy railroads.

“The rebels…could not at the same time throw off the Constitution and invoke its aid…. Decisive and extensive measures must be adopted…. We wanted the army to strike more vigorous blows. The Administration must set an example and strike at the heart of the rebellion.” (McPherson, 504)

The die was cast. The Confiscation Acts formed the legislative bridge to emancipation. On July 22, Lincoln announced his intentions at a cabinet meeting. Following the expulsion of a Confederate Army invasion of Maryland — the battle of Sharpsburg, or Antietam — a preliminary proclamation was issued September 22, enjoining the States in secession to rejoin the Union or suffer the full force of emancipation by January 1, 1863.

The constitutional war thus became a revolutionary democratic war, confirming the prognosis of Marx and Engels. Marx and Engels had fought in the democratic upheavals of the German states in 1848 against autocratic and monarchical governments. Combined with a historical analysis of the 1789 French Revolution and a study of the political economy of the ascending class of industrial and financial titans, Marx and Engels discerned the anti-slavery logic at the outbreak of the war.

At the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln — the political representative of this new class of bankers and railroad magnates, and Marx — the political representative of the gestating class of those who toiled for wages, converged politically.

The Proclamation rallied public opinion in Europe to the Union side, making it more difficult for the British and French governments to recognize the Confederacy. (40) The revolutionary democratic war stimulated the incipient unions of the textile and industrial workers of Britain and France, aiding the eventual formation of the International Workingmen’s Association.

And it is this formation that chose Marx to write its address congratulating Lincoln on his reelection in 1864. Lincoln’s Democratic Party opponent in the contest was none other than George B. McClellan.

The former “contraband” became freedmen and freedwomen, and the freedmen enlisted in the Union Army. As that army penetrated deeper and deeper into the South, tens of thousands of escaped slaves flooded the lines. Grant takes Vicksburg in July, 1863, William T. Sherman Atlanta in September, 1864. Grant defeats General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and takes Richmond in April, 1865.

Blackburn chronicles the development of Reconstruction and the subsequent rise of the labor movement. His book, in paperback, is a good read and an extraordinary handbook on the Civil War.

This year is the 150th anniversary of all the events that occurred in 1862 — the year of the transition from constitutional to revolutionary democratic war.

[Al Owski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robin Blackburn skillfully illuminates American history leading up to the Civil War, through Reconstruction, and Redemption as interpreted by Karl Marx. Marx’s writings show that he was acutely aware of what was happening in the US during the 19th century. Marx interpreted the American Civil War as a titanic struggle for the freedom of the laboring classes over and against “300,000 oligarchs,” the plantation owners in the South.

The author does a brilliant job of summarizing Marx’s analysis in the first half of the book. The second half of the book contains Marx’s essays published in European newspapers, letters exchanged between Marx and Engels, and finally a congratulatory letter to President Lincoln upon his reelection to a second term.

This is not your father’s Civil War history. The author catalogs the events leading to the Civil War, providing details not commonly known. This history is very relevant to what is happening today. The Old South never died and its ideology was never properly dealt with. It has become the white supremacist nationalism of today. I close with a quote by the author: “The freed people, the former abolitionists of whatever race, sex, or class had to contend with the consequences—angry white men in the South and greedy businessmen in the North.”

[Jaime · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’re reading this to decide whether or not to read this book for yourself: if you read the same Jacobin article I did that implied a more intimate relationship via correspondence of Marx and Lincoln, this is bullshit. Having said that it was enlightening to read Marx’s opinions on the Civil War and the political implications of emancipation. Also obviously the large number of German emigres to the US leading up to this period and advocating socialist ideas in the republic are probably the main point of focus for the writer.

Also the narrative of Lincoln being a hero of emancipation is sturdily undermined. He didn’t advocate for blacks to be considered equals to whites after emancipation.

I just feel like there must be a better book out there to give a background to Marx’s opinions on America in this period and to give context to his articles on the subject. Hopefully I find it.

[Peter Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting appendix to any reading on the American Civil War for those coming from a Marxist perspective. Blackburn's extended introductory essay sets the war in a wider radical context suggesting that this represents an unfinished revolution starting with the emancipation of the slaves through to the failures of reconstruction and subsequently the workers' struggles leading to the failure of the USA to produce an organised workers party. The initial premise of "letters exchanged" between Lincoln and Marx is a little flimsy, but the extracts are interesting, especially Marx's articles for the New York Tribune and Die Presse and the extracts from the correspondence between Marx and Engels.

[Feargal McGovern · Rating 5 out of 5]

volume of select articles relating to the us civil war and its répercussions from Marx, Lincoln and the first workers international.
the articles here are all very important and essentiel reading for anyone with an interest in the us civil war, however they really fonction as an appendix to Blackburn's book 'the reckoning' which deals specifically with the overthrow of slavery in the US (as well as Brazil and Cuba)

[Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unusual book, but a valuable one. Blackburn's 100-page essay is a really excellent analysis of the US Civil War from Marx's standpoint - truly essential reading. The collection of documents is really interesting, and traces the evolution of US Marxism, via the Marx-Engels correspondence, a great interview with Marx by an American journalist, the IWMA's missives to the US government, and a handful of later documents that help to trace the emergence of an early interracial American socialism.

[Devin Lowell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great introductory essay by Robin Blackburn and curation of speeches and writings by Lincoln, Marx, and others. The thing I really came away with was that Marx's analysis of the American Civil War, including of the motivations of both sides, the political economy of it, and its implications was very incisive (and IMO, correct).

[Violet Jo Swanson-Peet · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title isn't true. The book doesn't show the letter that got sent to Lincoln until pg 211 of the book. This book is more of Fredrich Engels and Karl Marx's opinion of the civil war and of Lincoln not their real relationship. Other than that it was a solid book.

[Roberto Yoed · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could have been a decent article, not a book.

[Antonio Martinez · Rating 1 out of 5]

can’t believe this book was actually published. don’t waste your time or money.

[شفيق · Rating 2 out of 5]

انا شخصيا أحب و أقدر كارل ماركس كثيرا وأعشق نظريته نعم تخللها بعض النقص والفشل لكنها كانت ثورة حقيقية

[Michael Anderson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Engaging summary of Lincoln's thoughts and political strategies in conducting the US Civil War, coming up with the Emancipation Proclamation and its effect on the war, and the rise and fall of worker unions and political organizations after the war. This summary is less than 40% of the book, the rest being speeches and writings of Lincoln and Marx -- these I will merely skim. I agree that the book is somewhat of a cheat. Lincoln and Marx never directly communicated, and only once indirectly in a trivial manner.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

They were aware of each other, but didn't have much contact. The title of the book suggests more of a connection. That said, the author explores the impact of each man's work on the other, and how the times affected both. It was very interesting to see the Civil War in the context of the mid-Nineteenth Century revolutionary movements in Europe, and the impact that revolutionary German exiles who fled to the US had on the Civil War itself.