Lost History – The letter Karl Marx wrote to Abraham Lincoln

On 28th January 1865, the recently re-elected President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, received a letter of congratulations from an unlikely correspondent. Writing on behalf of the International Working Men’s Association, the radical German philosopher, Karl Marx, expressed his sincere admiration for the President’s leadership and praised his government’s progressive policies (especially regarding slavery). 

This confluence of two extraordinarily different characters might sound surprising at first, but the aforementioned missive is not the only connection these two political icons shared. Out of several mutual contacts, German-speaking socialist, Charles A Dana, was their closest acquaintance in common. Dana edited the New York-based, Republican paper, Tribune, and after meeting Marx in the 1850s, he hired him to contribute to the publication as its correspondent in London. Lincoln, like most Republicans, was an avid reader of Tribune and relied on its support during his first election. 

Given how often Marx wrote for the paper (from 1852-1861) and how regularly Lincoln read it, we can safely assume that Lincoln glanced over at least a few articles by the firebrand critic. When Lincoln achieved office, Marx’s editor, Dana, was asked to serve the administration in the War Department. 

Throughout the Civil War, he frequently offered Lincoln military personnel advice, lambasting the reputations of certain generals and endorsing others. It was via this direct influence over Lincoln’s patronage that Dana was able to advance the career of famed commander, Ulysses S Grant, whose drinking habits had started to worry the War Department. 

As well as sharing several friends, they also shared several interests. Marx was fascinated by America and paid particular attention to the subjugation of the black slaves. Alongside the liberation of the Russian serfs, he ranked the emancipation of African-Americans as essential events that would ensure the advent of an international revolution.

Lincoln was no socialist, but the political ideals he defended and fought for at times echoed the sentiments (and terms) Marx endorsed and deployed in his famous works. In 1861, the Republican President gave his now celebrated annual address.

The speech closes with a ruminative passage on the relationship between capital and labor: “Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” He of course goes on to qualify the statement and enormously diverge from the vision of Marx, but the overlap is worth noting. Perhaps after reading the paper, to which Marx contributed for nine years, some of his thoughts seeped through to Lincoln?

Other than Marx’s acerbic take on slavery and routinely impressive eloqeunce, the letter Lincoln was handed in 1865 is not a particularly important document. You can read it here.

It was promptly answered by ambassador Charles Adams, who wrote:

Sir,

I am directed to inform you that the address of the Central Council of your Association, which was duly transmitted through this Legation to the President of the United [States], has been received by him.

So far as the sentiments expressed by it are personal, they are accepted by him with a sincere and anxious desire that he may be able to prove himself not unworthy of the confidence which has been recently extended to him by his fellow citizens and by so many of the friends of humanity and progress throughout the world.

The Government of the United States has a clear consciousness that its policy neither is nor could be reactionary, but at the same time it adheres to the course which it adopted at the beginning, of abstaining everywhere from propagandism and unlawful intervention. It strives to do equal and exact justice to all states and to all men and it relies upon the beneficial results of that effort for support at home and for respect and good will throughout the world.

Nations do not exist for themselves alone, but to promote the welfare and happiness of mankind by benevolent intercourse and example. It is in this relation that the United States regard their cause in the present conflict with slavery, maintaining insurgence as the cause of human nature, and they derive new encouragements to persevere from the testimony of the workingmen of Europe that the national attitude is favored with their enlightened approval and earnest sympathies.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

Charles Francis Adams

Lincoln’s “sincere and anxious desire” to “prove himself not unworthy of the confidence” Marx and his following placed in him, reveals a forgotten respect that the President harboured for the controversial theorist.