Status Updates From Love and Capital: Karl and ...

“His inheritances had bought him freedom, and he used the time to work on his book… and dabble in the stock market. Marx told his uncle he had made four hundred pounds on one speculation and declared trading to his liking. This was an Engels stratagem: he had spent more than a decade in Manchester diverting funds from the factory system he loathed in order to support the man he hoped would destroy it.”

“The lords of the land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defense and perpetuation of their economic monopolies… To conquer political power has therefore become the great duty of the working classes… One element of success they possess - numbers; but numbers weigh only in the balance if united by combination and led by knowledge.”

“Astounded by Lupus’ gift, Marx gave an oration during the funeral, his voice failing him as he recalled his friend. But for Engels, Lupus’ death was particularly hard… Engels was so bereft he could not stay in Manchester, so Marx invited him to London. For the first time in two decades, from a rare position of comfort and wealth, the Marx family would be caring for Engels instead of Engels caring for them”

“I made a daily pilgrimage to the old Westphalen home which interested me more than any Roman antiquities because it reminded me of the happiest days of my youth and had harbored my greatest treasure. Everyday i’m asked about the most beautiful girl in Trier and the queen of the ball. It’s damned pleasant for a man when his wife lives on like this as an enchanted princess in the imagination of a whole town”

“Engels forgave Marx. Like Jenny, Lenchen, and countless others, he recognized Marx’s personal flaws but he, like they, loved him too much to allow those flaws to overshadow the brilliant qualities - his mind, his wit, even his capacity for love and loyalty (as hard as it must have been to remember those at such moments. Engels also felt it was his role to protect this man, from whom he expected great thing.”

“As the war progressed, Marx’s admiration for Lincoln grew. Marx declared that though couched in lawyerly phrases, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (which Marx called his ‘manifesto abolishing slavery’) was ‘the most important document in American history since the establishment of the Union’… Marx said of the U.S. at that moment, ‘events over there are such as to transform the world.’”

“Marx considered slavery the basest form of capitalist exploitation, and both he and Engels saw ending it as a major step in the global march toward revolution.”

“As he prepared to leave, Marx put Jenny and the family’s needs in Engels’ hands… He promised to write Engels from Holland and added an uncharacteristically candid closing: ‘You will know without my telling you how grateful I am for the outstanding proofs of friendship you have given me.’”

“Abraham Lincoln had just been elected president, and Southern states had begun seceding from the Union. Marx and Engels cheered Lincoln’s election and also the turmoil in the South.”

“He said he would discuss it with Jenny, his ‘critical conscious.’”