3. President Lincoln and Karl Marx
Abraham Lincoln’s Marxist views most likely came from the original fount of Marxism, Karl Marx himself. The author of The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital had been a prolific contributor to the New York Daily Tribune, the most influential Republican newspaper of the 1850s, when the GOP was founded. In 1848, the Tribune’s publisher had invited Marx to become a correspondent, and over the following decade, Marx, sometimes with the help of Friedrich Engels, wrote over 500 articles for the Republican newspaper.
Unsurprisingly, considering how much Marx detested labor exploitation, he rooted for Lincoln, and cheered him on as he wrecked slavery, the era’s most exploitative labor system. In 1864, Marx wrote a letter on behalf of the International Working Men’s Association, to congratulate Lincoln on his reelection and wish him success in the US Civil War. Lincoln instructed the American ambassador in Britain, where Marx lived, to thank him, and let him know that the United States: “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“.
