Articles by Karl Marx in Die Presse 1862
Comments on the North American Events
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Lincoln’s proclamation( emancipation proclamation) is even more important than
the Maryland campaign. Lincoln is a sui generis figure
in the annals of history. he has no initiative, no idealistic
impetus, cothurnus, no historical trappings. He gives his most important actions always the most commonplace form. Other people claim to be “fighting for an idea”, when it is for
them a matter of square feet of land. Lincoln, even when he is motivated by, an idea, talks about “square feet”. He sings the bravura aria of his part hesitatively, reluctantly and unwillingly, as though apologising for being compelled by circumstances “to act the lion”. The most redoubtable
decrees - which will always remain remarkable historical documents-flung by him at the enemy all look like, and are intended to look like, routine summonses sent by a lawyer to the lawyer of the opposing party, legal chicaneries, involved, hidebound actiones juris. His latest proclamation,
which is drafted in the same style, the manifesto abolishing slavery, is the most important document in American history
since the establishment of the Union, tantamount to the tearing tip of the old American Constitution.
Nothing is simpler than to show that Lincoln’s principa l political actions contain much that is aesthetically. repulsive, logically inadequate, farcical in form and
politically, contradictory, as is done by, the English Pindars of slavery, The Times, The Saturday Review and tutti quanti. But Lincoln’s place in the history of the United States and of mankind will, nevertheless, be next to that of Washington! Nowadays, when
the insignificant struts about melodramatically on this
side of the Atlantic, is it of no significance at all that the significant is clothed in everyday dress in the new world?
Lincoln is not the product of a popular revolution.
This plebeian, who worked his way tip from stone-breaker to Senator in Illinois, without intellectual brilliance, without a particularly outstanding character, without exceptional importance-an average person of good will, was placed at the top by the interplay of the forces of universal suffrage unaware of the great issues at stake. The new
world has never achieved a greater triumph than by this
demonstration that, given its political and social organisation, ordinary people of good will can accomplish feats which only heroes could accomplish in the old world!
Hegel once observed that comedy is in act superior to tragedy and humourous reasoning superior to grandiloquent reasoning.[Lectures on Aesthetics] Although Lincoln does riot possess the grandiloquence of
historical action, as an average man of the people he
has its humour. When (foes he issue the proclamation declaring that from January 1, 1863, slavery in the. Confederacy shall be abolished At the very moment when
the Confederacy as an independent state decided on
“peace negotiations- at its Richmond Congress. At the very, moment when the slave-owners of the border states believed that the invasion of Kentucky by the
armies of the South had made “the peculiar institution”
just as safe as was their domination over their compatriot,
President Abraham Lincoln in Washington.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1862/10/12.htm
Before becoming President, Lincoln owned a German language newspaper. The large number of German immigrants who had been on the rvolutionary side with Marx and Engels in 1848 were an important block of abolitionists, and supporters of Lincoln's election. The Marxist organizer Wedenmeyer was a professional soldier , and main correspondent with M and E in this period. He lived in Illinois. We can speculate as to whether Lincoln was aware of _The Communist Manifesto_ , or even Marx and Engels articles on the Civil War. They may have written him letters.
"1859 Abraham Lincoln acquires the "Illinois Staatsanzeiger" paper and struggles through German grammar " http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/GermAmChron.htm
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