1862
Dear Weber,
I have just had some TICKETS from Urquhart for a meeting next Monday.[381]
Of the 3 TICKETS enclosed, one is intended for you. You can also take in some friends on it.
Will you please let the Workers' Society[3] have the other' 2 TICKETS. (These will gain admission for as many as wish to go.) At the same time, I should be obliged — since I have not got the Society's address — if you would inform them that I cannot give a lecture [3 8 2] on Monday because of the meeting.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
a the German Workers' Educational Society in London
200. Marx to Engels. 25 February
200
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 25 February 1862
Dear Engels,
My prolonged silence is due, not to anything 'intrinsic', but to the sordid state of affairs which I didn't want to bore and plague you with.
As you know, on New Year's Day, I was able to SETTLE only that part of my debts which couldn't, or so it seemed, be put off any longer (e. g. my LANDLORD, to whom I shall owe a whole year's rent by the end of next month). Most of the money went on debts upon which bills had been drawn.
The Vienna 'Presse', as was only to be expected in view of the present rotten state of affairs in Germany, has not turned out to be the milch-cow it should have been. I am supposed to receive £1 per ARTICLE. But since the fellows only print perhaps one article in four, and quite often none at all, damn-all comes of it except loss of time and annoyance at having to write on spec, whether or no the gracious editorial board condescends to accord the article its imprimatur.
I had to give way in my lawsuit with Koller,(1) the main reason being that, as soon as the SOLICITOR wanted a £30 advance since the case went to a SUPERIOR COURT, I was not, of course, able to produce that sum. I had to pay/the SOLICITOR £5 for himself and for the COUNSEL he had retained, and also come to an arrangement with Koller whereby I am to pay him £18 by monthly instalments of £2; I paid him the first £2 on the last day of January, and have to pay the next £2 at the end of February, but what with, I don't know.
During the past 2 months the Presse has printed so little of my stuff that I have no balance there worth mentioning.
What makes the situation even PLEASANTEK is that for nearly 2 months now little Jenny has been undergoing medical treatment. The child has grown visibly thinner. Jenny is now already old enough to feel the full strain and also the stigma of our circumstances, and I think this is one of the main causes of her
201. Marx to Johann Philipp Becker. 26 February
physical indisposition. (Apropos. Yesterday Allen prescribed wine for her, and I'd therefore be grateful if you could send down a few bottles.) For instance, unbeknown to us, she called on Mrs Young to see whether she mightn't go on the stage.
TAKE ALL IN ALL, leading such a dog's life is hardly WORTH WHILE. As regards the copies of Urquhart's paper,(1) I haven't yet been able to get hold of them. Write and let me know with which issue to begin, and Collet will do what is necessary. Herewith the chap's denunciation of Bakunin,b whom I haven't seen. He is living at Herzen's place.
Have you by any chance inquired whether Lassalle's opusc did in fact go off to August Philips?
Salut.
Your
K. M.
201
MARX TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER[383]
IN GENEVA
London, 26 February 1862
Dear Becker,
You must attribute my prolonged silence to one thing only — my inability to help. The American civil war has meant the total loss of my principal source of income for a whole year. Subsequently (a couple of months ago), this 'business' was resumed, but on a very 'restricted' basis.[384] So far as acquaintances are concerned, however, I can count very few who have any means at their disposal. E. g., it is some while since that I wrote to Siebel on your behalf[42] but I am told by Borkheim that he gave no signs of life. In Manchester, a few 'revolutionary adventurers, who were sailing to the United States for the good cause,' had scraped the bottom of the barrel.
Now, as regards the subscription to your work,[3] I shall do my utmost but can hold out little hope. All the riff-raff in the associations here — with the exception of the Workers' Educational Society,(2) which has nothing in the way of funds— is constitutional, and actually favours the Prussian National Association.[24] The fellows would sooner give money to have a work like yours suppressed. As you probably know, these Germans, both young and old, are all of them pert men of sterling worth and practical insight, and look upon people like you and me as immature fools who have still not recovered from their revolutionary fancies. Nor is the riff-raff at home any better than it is abroad. The time I spent in Berlin,b etc., convinced me that any attempt to influence the canaille by literary means would prove utterly futile. The fellows' self-complacent stupidity, which possesses in its press— that pitiable press — an extraordinary elixir of life, is beyond belief. And then the spiritual passivity to boot — nothing short of a sound thrashing would reanimate your stolid German who, having lost his philosophical illusions and applied himself to money-making and 'Little Germany' and 'practical constitutional-ism', is now no better than an impulsive CLOWN. So far as I'm concerned, Germany may altogether [...],' but a roomful of precocious and decrepit children."(3)
The Hermann is the property of the erstwhile Royal Prussian Procurator Heintzmann: 'with God for King and Fatherland', 'a modicum of Little Germany' and moderation in the exercise of freedom. A namesake of yours, one Becker from Leipzig, who writes for that paper, is a good chap but not influential enough to help us in a matter such as a subscription. Engels only returned to Manchester a few days ago after an absence of several months. He and Wolff (of Breslau)d will do what they can. However, with the exception of the above-named and 3 or 4 others, the numerous German population in Manchester consists of the same philistines as it does here and everywhere else.
Quoade 'Vogt'f, do with it as you please. It goes without saying, of course, that I could not but be delighted if the pamphlet which
202. Engels to Marx. 28 February
the press has all but killed by silence in Germany, could be used to some effect at least in Switzerland. A French translation was made in Paris, without my previous knowledge, and was already being printed but vanished by supreme imperial ukase.a
So, in fact, there is no French edition.
Let me assure you, my dear friend, that nothing could be more painful to me than to have to stand by helpless and passive and witness the struggles of a man such as yourself. I admire your steadfastness, your fervour, and your energy. The Ancients — I think it was Aeschines — said that one should endeavour to acquire worldly goods so that one might help one's friends in need! What profound and humane wisdom lies therein!
At the earliest possible opportunity I shall let you know the result of communications to various persons about the subscription.
In the meantime, farewell. My wife asks to be kindly remem-bered to you.
Yours
K. M.
202
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Manchester, 28 February 1862
Dear Moor,
Today I am sending you, CARRIAGE PAID, a case containing: 8 bottles of claret, 4 bottles of old, 1846, hock, 2 bottles of sherry. I haven't any port that would suit the circumstances. I trust it will do Jenny good. Poor child! However, I don't imagine that the
203. Marx to Engels. 3 March
thing is of any consequence. She has grown a lot and, with care and exercise, will doubtless regain her strength.
I shall get the £2 for Koller(1) off to you tomorrow or on Monday.b
This year, I am spending more than my income. The crisis is affecting us badly,[385] we have no orders, and, starting from next week, shall be working merely half-time. Nevertheless, I have to get hold of the £50 for Dronke within 4 weeks and next week there's a year's rent to be paid for my lodgings. I'm moving out; this morning that damned Sarahc stole the money from my coat pocket. So, don't address anything more to Thorncliffe Grove. I'm living with Mary nearly all the time now so as to spend as little money as possible; unfortunately, I can't dispense with my LODGINGS, otherwise I should move in with her altogether. I haven't got any new lodgings as yet and shall have to go and look for some.[386] Write again soon and let me know how things are going. What is the Tribune up to?[384]
Would you like a military article on America for the Presse?
The numbers of The Free Press I am short of are October-February 1861/62.
Best wishes to your wife and the girls.
Your
F. E.
203
MARX TO ENGELS[249]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 3 March 1862
Dear Engels,
I am sending my wife to a LOAN OFFICE today to see what can be done there, for I've had a disgustingly rude letter from my LANDLORD, and, if the fellow puts a BROKER into the house, I shall be sued by all and sundry.
3 1862
The wine hasn't arrived yet. I should be grateful if you could let me have this week (by Friday morning b) an article in English on the American war.[387] You can write it without the slightest misgiving. T h e Tribune will print it as the LETTER OF A FOREIGN OFFICER. Nota bene: T h e Tribune hates McClellan, who is in league with the Democratic Party and, throughout the period in which he was COMMANDER IN CHIEF OK AIL THE ARMIES, prevented any action by intervening directly not only on the Potomac (where this may have been justified), but in every theatre of war, especially in the west. (He was also at the bottom of the highly infamous intrigue against Fremont.[388]) Moreover, out of esprit de corps and a hatred of CIVILIANS, this same Mac has sheltered all the army's traitors, e.g., Colonel Maynard and General Stone. The latter's arrest took place a day or 2 after Clellan had been dismissed as COMMANDER IN CHIEF of all the armies. Similarly, the New York Herald's impudent 'REPRÉSENTA FIVE' c in Washington was arrested as a SPY against McClellan's wishes, having on the previous day entertained McC.'s entire STAFF to a champagne breakfast.
You will recall my having told you from the start that nothing would come of the expectations regarding the China trade. This is confirmed by the latest BOARD OF TRADE report: d
1860 1861 [£] [£] China 2,872,045 3,114,157 Hong Kong 2,445,991 1,733,967
Total 5,318,036 4,848,124
So, a decrease in total exports. More of them direct, fewer via H o n g Kong. In the meantime, the Russians have seized another fine island off Korea.'c Add to this their new 'OCCUPAI IONS' in Java," and their supremacy of the NORTHERN PACIFIC is assured.' [8 9] T h e extent to which Pam's influence has russified the entire English press is borne out by its profound silence over Russia's PROGRESS in this area, ditto its passive attitude vis-à-vis Poland.
204. Engels to Marx. 5 March
Apropos. Will you be so good as to let me know at long last what has become of the Lassallea that was intended for my cousin Philips,b since, failing that knowledge, I am unable to write to the said cousin.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
204
ENGELS TO MARX[249]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 5 March 1862
Dear Moor,
Enclosed POST OFFICE ORDER for £2, Camden Town. The book" went off long ago, i.e. on 9 October,in a parcel to our agent E. Schröder in Amsterdam, and was enclosed in bale no. 118 for B. ter Haar and Son of that city. I enclosed a note to Schröder at the time, asking him to see to the thing. Everything was correctly addressed to your cousin ;c so all he can do, if he ' hasn't got it yet, is approach Schröder.
You shall have the article.[387] The braggarts of the South are now getting a splendid thrashing. Most cheering of all is the reception met with everywhere by the gunboats on the Tennessee river as far up as Florence, Alabama (here the mussel shoals begin, disrupting navigation). So in west Tennessee, in the plains, the majority is also decidedly pro-Union. 15,000 prisoners, including Johnston, the Confederates' best general, who decided Bull Run by his rapid concentration on the centre, is no laughing matter.[390]
I shall be seeing Lupus this evening. If he can advance me something until 1 July, I shall get it for you. I myself shall be au
205. Marx to Engels. 6 March
sec1 until then. Should there be [no] peace or some other settlement in America, it may well be that my total income from 1 July 1861-62 will be reduced to £100 and I shall thus run into debt. We have a whole heap of goods and can't sell a thing and, if we are saddled with them until matters in America have been straightened out, we are likely to lose all the profit made up till the end of December.[385] However, I imagine the scrap will continue, for I don't see how the fellows can make peace.
What's this about a Russian island off Korea?b And what's this about occupations in Java? (QUERY Japan?) Je n'en sais rien? How about the Free Presses?
By the way, according to your figures, trade with China has surely increased significantly. 10 years ago, if I remember rightly, it alternated between 1 and 3 millions.
How is little Jenny? Warm regards to her, your wife and Laura.
Your
F. E.
205
MARX TO ENGELS[249]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 6 March 1862
Dear Frederick,
My best thanks for the POST OFFICE order and the wine. That swine Koller, who has an I.O.U. of mine, had already dunned me yesterday.d
I enclose herewith the 3 last Free Presses? I haven't yet seen Collet in person, but feel sure he will be able to get hold of the other numbers as well.
In my letter to you, read Japan for Java.1 I obtained the actual FACTS from sundry numbers of the Tribune which contained the official Russian communiqués and reports from American con-suls — all of them suppressed by the English press. I sent the relevant numbers to Urquhart and haven't yet got them back. I had previously used them for a Presse ARTICLE on the Russian advance in Asia. However, the jackasses didn't print it. Now, you know what a bad memory for names I've got. So, at the moment I can't provide you with the names. The first islanda lies exactly half way between the south-western extremity of Japan and the Korean mainland. It has a large harbour and, according to the American account, is capable of becoming a second Sevastopol.b As regards the other islands that are actual Japanese possessions, one of them, if I am not mistaken, is called Jeso.c However, I shall see if I can retrieve the documents.
Chinese trade, compared with what it was like up to 1852, has certainly increased, but by no means on the same scale .is have all other markets since the Californian-Australian discoveries.59]
Moreover, in earlier REPORTS Hong Kong, as an English possession, is shown separately from China, so that exports under the heading 'China' invariably (from the 40s on) amount to less than total exports. Finally, the increment achieved since 1859 fell back in 1861 to its former level.
In consequence of the American crisis, the BOARD OF TRADE report for 1861d shows a considerable change in the ranking order of the various markets for English exports. India leads with £17,923,767 (including Ceylon and Singapore. India alone, £16,412,090).
'Second market Germany, normally 4th. I860: £13,491,523. 1861: £12,937,073 (not including what goes via Holland and, to a lesser degree, via Belgium). In view of Germany's economic importance to England, what a diplomatic advantage it would give us, circumstances being different, over bluff John Bull!
France this year the 5th market. 1860: £5,249,980. 1861: £8,896,282. However, that includes Switzerland as well. England, on the other hand, now ranks as the premier market for France.
Out of the total exports of £125,115,133 (1861), £42,260,970 go to English 'POSSESSIONS' and 'COLONIES'. If one adds to that what England exports to other parts of Asia, Africa and America, there remains at most 23 to 24% for export to the countries of Europe.
6 1862
Should Russia continue to advance in Asia at the same rapid pace as during the past 10 years, until all her EFFORTS are concentrated on India, it will be the end of John Bull's world market, a demise that will be hastened by the United States's protective tariff policy, which that country will certainly be in no hurry to relinquish, if only out of REVENGE against John. Moreover, John Bull is discovering to his horror that his main colonies in North America and Australia are becoming protectionist to the same extent as he himself is becoming a FREE TRADER.392 T h e complacent, brutal stupidity with which John has acclaimed Pam's 'SPIRITED POLICY' in Asia and America, will one day cost him damned dear.
T o me it does not seem very PROBABLE that the SOUTHERNERS will have concluded peace by July 1862. When the NORTHERNERS have 1. secured the BORDER STATES — and it is upon these, in fact, that everything has centred from the start (1)—and 2. the Mississippi as far as New Orleans and Texas, the war may well enter a 2nd phase during which the NORTHERNERS will make no great exertions of a military nature but, by isolating the GULF STATES,[339] finally bring them to the point of voluntary RE ANNEXATION.
During this war Bull has acted with what must be wholly unprecedented effrontery.[393]
In terms of brutality on the English side, the Mexican Blue Book'' exceeds anything previously known in history. Menshikov appears a GENTLEMAN compared with Sir C. Lennox Wyke. Not only does this blackguard evince the most immoderate zèle' in the execution of Pam's secret instructions but, by his insolence, also seeks to avenge himself for the fact that, in the exchange of diplomatic dispatches, Sefior Zamacona, the Mexican Foreign Minister (how resigned) and erstwhile journalist, invariably proves himself superior. As for the chap's style, herewith a few examples from his dispatches to Zamacona.
6 1862
your above named note,a you will excuse me for stating that it cannot be treated of partially, without also taking into consideration the opinions of those who directly suffer from the practical operation of such ideas as emanating from yourself. ' 'I had a full right to complain ... of having first of all heard of this extraordinary measure ... by seeing it in printed bills placarded through the public streets....'b
'I have a duty to perform both to my own Gvt. and to that to which I am accredited, which impels me...,' etc.c
'I suspend all official relations with the Government of this Republic until that of Her Majestyd shall adopt such measures as they shall deem necessary.*'c
Zamacona writes and tells him that the INTRIGUES of FOREIGN DIPLOMATISTS in the past 25 years have been largely to blame for the TROUBLES in Mexico/ Wyke replies that
*'the population of Mexico is so degraded as to make them dangerous, not only to themselves, but to everybody coming into contact with them!'*^
Zamacona writes, saying that the propositions he [Wyke] has made would put an end to the Republic's independence, and were incompatible with the dignity of any independent state.h Wyke replies:
* 'Excuse me for adding that such a proposition as I have made to you does not necessarily become undignified and impracticable simply because you, an interested person,'* (i.e., Foreign Minister of Mexico) *'are pleased to say so.'*'
But satis superque) According to a letter from Schily to Rheinländer, things look most precarious in Paris and, unless there is war, Badinguet , 6 3
cannot hold on bor. another year. What bad luck for the chap that he should have the Parisians to govern, and not the Berliners, who admire him.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
PS. 1. How do I translate GIGS into German?
2. What are FEEDERS ON CIRCULAR FRAMES? 3. Could you inform me of all the different types of workers employed, e.g., at your mill (all, that is, EXCEPT THE WAREHOUSE), and in what proportion to each other? For in my book [3 1 0] I need an
206. Engels to Marx. About 8 March
example showing that, in mechanical workshops, the division of labour, as .forming the basis of manufacture and as described by A. Smith, does not exist. The proposition itself has already been set forth by Ure.a All that is needed is an example of some kind.
I must write and tell the chaps at the Presse that some new ARRANGEMENT will have to be made. It's all the same to me if they don't print the best articles (although I always write them in such a way that they can print them). But financially it's no go if, out of every 4 or 5 articles, they print 1 and only pay for 1. That places me far below the PENNY-A-LINERS.
206
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
[Manchester, about 8 March 1862]
Dear Moor,
Encl. what I had promised. The second article will follow next week.b I haven't seen Lupus yet; shall call on him this evening. The Free Presses and your letter have arrived/
Do you know a Prussian refugee by the name of Sippel (Sippel),d a mathematician? Apparently, the chap was tutor to a family by the name of Montgomery in Hampstead, was arrested before the amnesty[256] while travelling with this family in Prussia and not released until several months later, and is now said to be applying for a post as professor of mathematics at the University of Belfast. Someone up here wants to know more about the man, presumably in connection with some BUSINESS or other.
207. Marx to Engels. 15 March
Telegrams should be addressed in future to: 7 South Gate St. Mary's Manchester. In haste.
Your
F. E.
207
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 15 March 1862
Dear Engels,
Because your article" failed to arrive, I have been unable to write to New York today. My relations with the Tribune are no longer such that, if (assuming they print the article) I send them SOMETHING ELSE in place of the sequel, they will print it. Rather, I am convinced that they are on the point of giving me my congé again along with all the other European correspondents. Their format has been reduced. They print perhaps one article in 3 or none at all. These are the usual indications of such a procedure.
So, let me have the sequel by Tuesdayh or better still, the conclusion, since it is only the conjectural part relating to the future that can be of any real interest to them.
I'm not getting on very well with my book,[310] since work is often checked, i.e. suspended, for weeks on end by domestic disturbances. Little Jenny is still by no means as well as she should be.'
Salut.
Your
K. M.
time
208. Marx to Engels. 28 April
208
MARX TO ENGELS[249]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 28 April 1862
Dear Frederick,
My wife was discreet enough not to write to Dana. What the intention was is now unmistakably evident from the fact that the fellows don't even send me the Tribune any more.[390]
Enclosed letter from Friedländer. Arrived on Saturday.b Fine ideas these Germans have. I am to send him an article on the opening [of the exhibition[344]], which, with the SEASON TICKET needed to this end, the clothes I'd have to buy and sundry incidental expenses, would cost me at least 10 guineas — and, IN EXCHANGE, the prospect of selling a total of 4 to 6 articles à £8 (summa summarumr), or, at very best, à £12. And, since one must always assume the minimum where these chaps are concerned, I should actually lose money on the 4 articles! I have written to tell him[42]
that I am confined to my room and cannot therefore send off on Thursday the desired inaugural sermon but shall, from time to time, submit a few articles on the exhibition along with the other ones. So far as the 'other' articles are concerned, the cat is now out of the bag.d 1 article per week (o £1), and even that is hedged about with somewhat hypothetical clauses. I must accept, of course, and have already accepted, since something is better than nothing at all. What the chaps are particularly interested in at the moment is America, and I should be grateful if you would send me an article (before the end of the week that is) on the progress of the war (I mean the battle of Corinth[396]), and generally write to me from now on whenever military events take a new turn. If only to disseminate correct views on this important matter in the land of the Teutons. (I had already revised your earlier articles for them; were published, what's more.e)
In his new science, Vico says that Germany is the only country in Europe where an 'heroic tongue' is still spoken.[6] Had he had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with the Vienna Presse or the Berlin National-Zeitung, the old Neapolitan would have abandoned this preconceived idea.
On arriving in London,(1) I found a letter from my LANDLORD, in which he said he would call today (28 April) in order to get the rest of the £20. However, he can't have a centime. During my month's absence, the list of debts relating to IMMEDIATE NECESSITIES has, of course, grown. In addition, there are 2 extra items that must be paid for and are even more urgent than the LANDLORD. Firstly, £7 for the piano MASTER since, CIRCUMSTANCES being what they are, my wife had to give him notice and hence must also pay him. Secondly, £10's worth must be redeemed from the pawn-shop, whither have departed not only the children's things but also those of the maids, right down to their boots and shoes. Because of the LANDLORD, I have so far remained incognito (excepto Borkheim), so that my wife may tell him that I have not yet returned and attempt to put him off indefinitely. For it's a question of SHIFTING.
So far Borkheim has advanced £20; promises the remainder for the beginning of next week.[398]
My wife saw Dronke in the street with madame and offspring, but they didn't see her.
As regards Ariadne, adhuc sub judice lis est.[3] For the disputed point in this case is a legal one. In Diodorusb she figures as a star. I don't find her shown as a constellation. Rather, indeed, as a planetoid, No. 43, Plate II, Mädler, latest issue, 5th Edition (which I have), Berlin 1861. So, at all events, the girl is in the firmament. As things stand, it is a nice legal point as to whether you or Lupus have won. Your general contention that all those persons placed by the Greeks among the stars live on in the astronomical charts would also seem to be doubtful in the extreme.
What was it you wanted besides the English army ESTIMATES? AS soon as I am 'mobile' again, I shall see to the matter.
Kinkel has departed with his tail between his legs. He makes no reply. Instead, a line or two from his man Beta in which the swine attests that it was only after 6 months' urging on his part that Gottfried let him have the necessary biographical notes (which, from time immemorial, the said swine has been using regularly every 2 years) and the photograph, etc., at the request of Keil, editor of the Gartenlaube. But the real joke is that, after the MacDonald affair,[296] Keil and Beta (Juch has the relevant letter
209. Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 28 April
written by the last named and Eichhoff has seen it) refused to proceed with the matter, and it was only with difficulty that Gottfried engineered the final 'set-to'.[399] However, I am writing to Eichhoff, instructing him to drop the matter for the time being, since otherwise he'll take the edge off Gottfried's defeat.[42] For Juctr is too cowardly to come out with Beta's letter. Otherwise, he would have already done so of his own accord in a note appended to the latter's statement.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
Little Jenny is still far from being her proper self.(1) Our youngestb has been seriously ill but is now recovered. You should read the enclosed excerpts from Urquhart.c
209
MARX TO FERDINAND LASSALLE[400]
IN BERLIN
London, 28 April 1862 9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill
Dear Lassalle,
You'll be terribly angry with me, OLD BOY, and justifiably so, but, at the same time, with absolutely no justification. If I postponed writing to you from one day to the next, it was because I was hoping from one day to the next to put my affairs so far in order as to be able at least to pay off the £10 I owed you and, besides, write to you with an easy mind. Instead, the situation has grown worse every day. The Tribune, with which I had taken up again — though at V3 of my former income — has finally got rid of all its foreign correspondents. So, I now find myself in a complete vacuum. I have no intention of treating you to a tale of woe of any sort; it's a wonder I haven't actually gone mad. If I mention the beastly mess at all, it's simply so that my other misfortunes should not be compounded by a misunderstanding with you.
What you say about J. Ph. Becker in your last letter is absolutely wrong.[401] I. e., you don't know the man except from hearsay. He is one of the noblest German revolutionaries there has been since 1830, a man who can be reproached with nothing save an enthusiasm which fails to take account of circumstances. As for his connections with the Italians, a bosom friend of Orsini's[3] has entrusted me with papers that leave no room for doubt on this score, whatever the Italians, and even Garibaldi, may say. As for his relationship with Tiirr — whom I had denounced over here in The Free Press even before 1859[402]—all it amounts to is this: During the Baden campaign[403] Becker made Türr a lieutenant. Hence a kind of comradely relationship. Had Becker intended to exploit this connection and accept the offers made him in Paris by Türr
in the presence of one of my London friends,(2) he would not have endured the martyrdom which he, a man of 60, is in fact enduring. I know full well the sources whence Becker has obtained his exiguous financial support. They are confined to people within our closest circle. True, he fell foul of some of the Italians because his strongly Teutonic sentiments caused him to reject certain well-intentioned plans. It is indeed exasperating that men of Becker's stamp should be so egregiously slandered.
As for my book?b it won't be finished for another two months. During the past year, to keep myself from starving, I have had to do the most despicable hackwork and have often gone for months without being able to add a line to the 'thing'. And there is also that quirk I have of finding fault with anything I have written and not looked at for a month, so that I have to revise it completely. At all events, the work loses nothing thereby, and pro annoc the German public has, after all, far weightier things to think about.
Ad vocemd your booke which I have of course now quite finished, and individual chapters reread, it strikes me that you apparently haven't read Vico's 'new science'. Not that you'd have found anything in it immediately to your purpose; but it does provide a philosophical view of the spirit of Roman law, contrasting with that of the legal philistines. You would scarcely be able to work your way through the original, as it is not only written in Italian but in a very peculiar Neapolitan idiom." However, I commend the French translation, La Science nouvelle, etc.; traduite par l'auteur de l'essai sur la formation du dogme catholique. Paris, Charpentier, Editeur — 1844. To whet your appetite, I shall do no more than quote the following sentences:
'L'ancien droit romain a été un poème sérieux, et l'ancienne jurisprudence a été une poésie sévère dans laquelle se trouvent renfermés les premiers efforts de la métaphysique légale.' '...l'ancienne jurisprudence était très poétique, puisqu'elle supposait vrais les faits qui ne l'étaient pas, et qu'elle refusait d'admettre comme vrais les faits qui l'étaient en effet; qu'elle considérait les vwans comme morts, et les morts comme vivans dans leurs héritages.' 'Les Latins nommèrent heri les héros; d'où vient le mot hereditas ... l'héritier ... représente, vis-à-vis de l'héritage, le père de famille défunt.'b
Vico contains in embryo Wolf (Horher),c Niebuhr {Römische Königsgeschichte),A the fundamentals of comparative linguistics (even if in fanciful form) and a whole mass of really inspired stuff. So far, I have never been able to get hold of his legal writings proper.
Under the circumstances in which I now find myself (and have found myself for the better part of a year) I shall not be able to do a critique of your book until BY AND BY. On the other hand, I should be grateful, not for my own sake, but for that of my wife, if, without a prior quid pro quo on my part, you could let Brockhaus advertise the first part of the political economy.
Never have the English middle classes (and aristocracy) put their foot in it with such effrontery as during the great struggle that is taking place on the far side of the Atlantic. By contrast, the English WORKING CLASS, which suffers most from the bellum civile,' has never before shown itself as heroic and noble. This is the more admirable when one knows, as I do, all the mechanisms that were set in motion, both here and in Manchester, to incite them to stage
210. Engels to Marx. 5 May
a demonstration.[404] The only major organ they still have, the Newspaper owned by that low-down scoundrel Reynolds," has been bought by the SOUTHERNERS, as have the most important of their
LECTURERS. B u T ALL IN V A I N ! Varnhagen's bookb interested me a great deal and I can understand how timely its appearance was. On no account must you fail to congratulate Ludmilla about it on my behalf. Nevertheless, this has not raised Varnhagen in my esteem. I find him shallow, insipid and paltry and would ascribe his abhorrence of Counsellor to the Legation Kölle to the shock of encountering his own double.
Please return the enclosed letter from the régicide Simon Bernard. Do you think I should get involved in the matter? I rather think not.
My kindest regards to the Countess.c She shall soon havo a letter from me all to herself. I hope she has never allowed herself to be misled by trifles such as my omitting to write, nor ever doubted the lasting attachment and admiration I feel for her.
Your
K. M.
210
ENGELS TO MARX[249]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 5 May 1862
Dear Moor,
There was no end of trouble at the office last week, on top of which I didn't feel very well, hence didn't manage to write. Friedländer's magnanimous letter returned herewith. Those people have peculiar ideas of London !d As to the Tribune, I saw in the Manchester Examiner and Times' LITERARY GOSSIP an item to the effect that Dana is resigning from the Tribune 'ON ACCOUNT OF DIFFERENCES OF OPINION WITH MR HORACE GREELEY'. SO, that old jackass WITH THE FACE ANGELIC seems to have been behind it all.[405]
But I wouldn't let the fellows off just like that without at least writing to Dana, asking for further elucidation as to what it all means and who is now MANAGING the Tribune in his place, so that you know whom you are to have recourse to. If the chaps want to sever the connection, at least get them to say so; I wouldn't just tamely put up with indirect hints. If you were subsequently to go to another New York journal, they could always say that you were being disloyal to them. Besides, they must surely give a reason.
Borkheim writes to say that he has paid the balance of the money, so I hope you will be saved from arrest."
Ad vocemb Ariadne, there's no doubt I'm right.0 All the old constellations still exist on the modern charts. What Diodorus maintains is not authoritative. The fellow wasn't an astronomer. Moreover, it was a question of the wording. I betted on constellation. But subsequently it struck me, too, that she figures among the recently discovered asteroids; that, however, has absolutely nothing to do with the case, of course.
What I want besides the WAR DEPARTMENT ESTIMATES (for 1862) is a PAPER laid before Parliament which sets out the new organisation of the Indian native army (as it has existed since 1861) (i.e., the number of regiments with their old and new names and in what way these have been retained or renumbered).0
Can you send me The Free Press for April? I shall try and get hold of the May issue up here.
As regards America:
1. Battle of Corinth.[396] May be classed with all well fought major modern battles, in which the antagonists have been of approximately equal strength. Eylau, Wagram, Liitzen, Bautzen (admittedly the French were much stronger here, but, being without cavalry, they were incapable of pursuit), Borodino, Magenta, Solferino.[406] The battle, to use Clausewitz's words, smouldered away like damp powder, exhausting both sides, and, when it was over, the positive advantages gained by the victorious side were of a moral rather than a material nature.e At all events, the momentary advantage gained by Beauregard on Sunday(1) was more intensive and much greater than that gained by Grant and Buell on Monday. The bulk of the trophies went to the Confederates, even though they were ultimately beaten, i.e., compelled to forego their attack and withdraw. That is the tactical aspect. But the strategic one is this:
Beauregard had concentrated all the troops he could get hold of so as to pounce on the approaching Federal divisions, one by one when possible. This miscarried; the troops under Grant, Buell and Wallace were sufficient to repulse him. Had they lost this battle, the Federals would have lost Tennessee; now they have kept it. It was thanks only to the redoubts at Corinth that Beauregard was not at once compelled to move further south. Whether these earthworks are capable of protecting him from an attack by Halleck (who has now assumed command), there is no way of telling. No more can we credit the rumour that he has received massive reinforcements from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. If this is to some extent the case, they can certainly be nothing but raw recruits, who will be more of a hindrance to him than a help. On the other hand, the forces at Pittsburg Landing were so close to being evenly matched that, without reinforcements, Halleck, too, will find it difficult to carry out an assault on a fortified camp or undertake some other major offensive operation. We don't know what troops the Federals still have in Tennessee or Kentucky, other than those engaged at Pittsburg Landing, so it's hard to say what the odds are. In the meantime, the Unionists have cut the railway from Memphis to Chattanooga (i.e., to Richmond, Charleston, Savannah), both to the west as well as to the east of Corinth. Consequently, Beauregard is restricted to one railway (to Mobile and New Orleans), and the question arises whether his troops will be able to subsist in Corinth for any appreciable time.[407]
2. Virginia. Hero McClellan is IN A DEAD FIX. I think this will mark the passing of his spurious glory. He has had another division transferred to him from McDowell, but that won't help him much. All that can save him are the ironclads, yet another of which (the Galena) has sailed for Monroe. Concerning this topic, see today's Morning Star, American news; of great interest to Austria. You will also learn from it why, not long ago, the Monitor lay quietly at anchor when the Merrimac, the Yorktown, etc., seized the 3 trans-ports. If they cleared the rivers to right and left and engaged the flanks and rear with their guns, these ships could once again save this jackass or traitor,a in the same way as the gunboats at Pittsburg Landing saved Sherman (who had nothing but young troops, who had never been under fire before).
3. MOUNTAIN DEPARTMENT. Fremont is still at Wheeling, the result being that the mountainous portion of south Virginia as well as east Tennessee is still in enemy hands. I.e., the very best Union regional Impossible to explain why. At all events, the Confederate regiment that was raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, as recently as the beginning of April, will doubtless go over at the first shot.
Bonaparte is up to his tricks again in America. He'll take good care not to stir up that hornet's nest. Before the year was out (vide 'Morning Star'), his ironclads and likewise all French merchantmen would be gone from the ocean, and then farewell to pleasure!
Apropos. You will have seen in today's Standard (or Morning Herald) that General Hecker has become chief NK;GER catcher (Manhattanb). Be sure to keep the paper.
What do you make of the Prussian elections? So colossal is the government's defeat that it's tantamount to a decisive victory for the same.[408] For it can only drive handsome William to extremes. Now they are sending him nothing but democrats! The Hamburger Correspondent as well is already saying that, under the present electoral law, there is nothing to be done and that it is impossible to govern. The worthy Twesten has already completely relapsed into parliamentary cretinism and wants to move a vote of no confidence in the ministers. At any rate, troubles are mounting, and the tide is rising.
How is little Jenny placed for wine? Tell me which kinds Allen usually recommends. I can now send you some port as well, old, light, no spirits, which I highly recommend; but only after it has been well filtered, for the crust has loosened.
Warm regards.
Your
F. E.
211. Marx to Engels. 6 May
211
MARX TO ENGELS[249]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 6 May [1862]
Dear Frederick,
As soon as you have shown it to Lupus, send back the enclosed, exceedingly odd letter, which was published, although mutilated, in the Siècle, the Temps and the Progrès de Lyon, by the jeunesse hongroise à Paris* and sent to me by Schily.[409] This same 'jeunesse' now proposes to let loose a pamphlet containing remarkable revelations about the Kossuth-Klapka-Türr triumvirate in Paris.
Apropos. You might communicate the FACTS contained in the letter to Eichhoff, 57 Ranelagh Street, Liverpool. He can get the thing into the Zeitung für Norddeutschland (Hanover).
A little while ago, so Schily writes, the Bern Bundb (mightn't you be able to look this up at the Club?) carried a statement by a Hungarian refugee in which Vogt is called 'the Palais Royal's[410]
fattened sow', while Fazy, Kossuth, Klapka, and Türr figure as 'scoundrels and gamblers'.
I have got back 330 copies of Vogtc from that blackguard Koller. If only I knew of an opening! Might this not be the moment to dispose of them at a 100 p.c. loss? I. e., in Geneva and Bern. How opportune that would be just now!
I shall send you the April and May numbers of the Press.d In future you shall have them regularly. I shall procure the other stuff for you, i.e. the ESTIMATES.
As TO WINE, what the children most prefer, of course, is a motley collection. I believe that, according to Allen, claret and port are best.
I shall write to Dana again. I sorely miss their sending me the Tribune. This is a rotten trick of Greeley's and McElrath's. I discovered two things in the final March numbers of the Tribune. First, that McClellan had been fully informed a week beforehand about the withdrawal of the CONFEDERATES." Secondly, that during
212. Engels to Marx. 12 May
the Trent affair,[366] Russell of The Times was taking advantage of what he had ferreted out in Washington in order to gamble on the New York Stock Exchange.2
In Prussia, things will get to the point of a coup d'état, not however to a coup d'éclat!'
The explanation for Bonaparte's present manoeuvres in Mexico[411] (the affair was originally of Pam's contriving) is that Juarez will acknowledge only the official debt of £46,000 to France. But Miramôn and his gang had issued, through the Swiss bankers Jecker et Co., government bonds to the tune of 52,000,000 dollars (on which ABOUT 4 mill, dollars had been paid). These government bonds — Jecker et Co. merely hommes de paille"—fell into the hands of Morny et Co. for next to nothing. They are demanding that Juarez acknowledge the same. Hinc Mae lacrimae.d
Schurz is — a Brigadier-General with Fremont!!!
Your
K. M.
Borkheim paid me the balance last Friday."
212
ENGELS TO MARX[249]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 12 May 1862
Dear Moor,
Herewith in all haste £10 (O/A 40602, Manchester, 24 Jan. 1862), with which to set the butcher's mind at rest. Since I arrive in London at 5 o'clock tomorrow morning and have to leave again at 7 in the morning, I shall not, alas, be able to meet you.
213. Engels to Marx. About 18 May
What makes me lose confidence in any success where the Yankees are concerned isn't so much the military situation as such, which is what it is only as a result of the indolence and indifference apparent throughout the North. Where, amongst the people, is there any sign of revolutionary vigour? They allow themselves to be thrashed and are downright proud of the lambasting they get. Where, throughout the North, is there the slightest indication that people are in real earnest about anything? I've never encountered the like of it before, not even in Germany at the worst of times. On the contrary, what the Yankees would already seem to relish above all else is the prospect of doing down their government creditors.
Au revoir.
Your
F. E.
213
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
[Manchester, about 18 May 1862] Dear Moor,
You must excuse my not writing. Never have I been so overrun as I have this week. Austrians, backwoodsmen,[412] Frenchmen and, then, today, Borkheim is saddling me with his associé*—a nice prospect! I no longer know whether I'm coming or going. And, on top of it all, one's expected to go drinking with the whole crew and make oneself agreeable. May the devil take the exhibition.[344]
In the greatest haste,
Your
F. E.
214. Marx to Engels. 19 May
215. Engels to Marx. 23 May
214
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 19 May 1862
Dear Engels,
A week ago last Thursday, you wrote saying you intended to send some wine for little Jenny and Co.[413] I showed the children your letter. The wine failed to arrive so they were disappointed. I attach importance to it just now because it's a distraction for them, and the house is otherwise very forlorn.
Nothing could be worse than the kind of oppressiveness which now broods over the whole place.
Luckily, I have neither heard nor seen anything of the EXHIBITION[344] or its visitors, and hope that this 'immunity' will continue, since I am now in no position to entertain PEOPLE.
As soon as you have a moment to spare, let me know briefly what you think of the military operations in the UNITED STATES, particularly McClellan's deeds of derring-do.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
215
ENGELS T O MARX[249]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 23 May 1862.
Dear Moor,
The wine was delayed for the same reason as the letter. In such matters I have to attend to everything myself and, before getting to the stage of buying the hamper, etc., I'm frequently distracted.
I have had to dispense with port on this occasion too, since it is at my lodgings and I wasn't able to get it sent over to the WAREHOUSE. The hamper is leaving today. The red wine and 1846 Hochheimer are specially for little Jenny. The 3 bottles with the red seal and no label are 1857 Riidesheimer (the same as we drank up here); too stimulating for invalids, though excellent for those in good health.
Strdhn was here (as you can see, cela ne finit pas with these visits"). He was in Berlin shortly before the dissolution[408] and indulged in much carousing with the Rhenish deputies. The fellows took the whole situation tremendously seriously, trusted in their omnipotence, and have relapsed into parliamentary cretinism almost as felicitously as at any time in 1848.[414] Red Becker,b whose hair has become much paler in the meantime, trotted round all day in EVENING DRESS, black from top to toe, and a dress-coat. His paunch is fatter than ever. Mr Rudolf Schramm, LATE OF Striegau,[415]
was also gadding about there and complaining to all who would listen to him that nowhere did the public wish to elect him, which was beyond his comprehension. One evening Schramm was talking some colossal rubbish about England, whereupon Strohn said to him: 'Now listen, Mr Schramm, if I'd been in England as long as you, I'd be ashamed to talk such nonsense; you must have been asleep the whole time you were there.' Whereat Schramm, usually so insolent, replied: 'In England, you know, I was compelled, on account of my wife, to mix with company where I was not in my element and, for that very reason, couldn't see the people I should like to have seen!!!'
McClellan is carrying on in his familiar manner. The Confederates always give him the slip because he never makes straight for them, his excuse being that they are A GOOD DEAL stronger than he is. That is why they keep on running away. Never before has a war been waged like this, in return for which he will get his vote of thanks. In the meantime, these wretched little rearguard actions and the constant desertions are certainly enough to demoralise the Confederates severely, and, if it comes to a decisive battle, they'll find this out.
The capture of New Orleans was a daring feat on the part of the navy.[416] Quite outstanding — the passage of the forts, especially. Afterwards everything was simple. The moral effect on the Confederates was obviously enormous, and the material effect will already have made itself felt. Beauregard in Corinth now has nothing left to defend; the position had served a purpose only so long as it protected Mississippi and Louisiana, particularly New Orleans. Strategically, Beauregard has been put in a position where one lost battle will leave him no alternative but to disband his army and employ them as guerrillas, for without a large city in the rear of his army as a focal point of railways and resources, he cannot marshal massed bodies of men.
If the Confederate army is beaten in Virginia, it must, after the demoralising incidents of the past, quickly disband of its own accord and operate as guerrillas. Admittedly, its prospects are better, because the numerous rivers run from the mountains to the sea athwart its line of withdrawal, and also because it is facing that jackass McClellan; however, it is in the nature of things that it will be forced either to accept a decisive battle or to split up into bands without a battle. Just as the Russians were compelled to fight at Smolensk and Borodino[417] against the will of the generals who had judged the situation correctly.
If Beauregard, or the army of Virginia, wins a battle, however big, it can be of little help. The Confederates are not in a position to derive the slightest benefit from it. They can't advance 20 English miles without getting stuck and hence must await a fresh attack. They lack everything. Incidentally, I regard such an eventuality as quite impossible without outright treachery.
So, the fate of the Confederate armies now hangs on one single battle. We have still to examine the prospects for guerrilla warfare. Now, it is exceedingly surprising that in this of all wars the part played by the population should have been not so much small as non-existent. In 1813, French communications were repeatedly disrupted and harassed by Colomb, Lützow, Chernyshev and a score of other leaders of irregulars and Cossacks; in 1812, in Russia, the population vanished completely from the French line of march; in 1814 the French peasants took up arms and killed allied patrols and stragglers, but here nothing whatever is happening. They abide by the outcome of the big battles and console themselves with victrix causa diis, etc.(1) All that boasting about a war to the knife has turned out to be just rubbish. And how can guerrillas be expected to fare on such a terrain? I certainly anticipate that the WHITE TRASH of the South[418] will try something of the sort after the final disbandment of the armies, but I'm too convinced of the bourgeois nature of the planters to doubt for .one instant that this would at once turn them into rabid pro-Unionists. Just let those others make an attempt at BRIGANDAGE and the planters everywhere will receive the Yankees[312] with open arms. The BONFIRES along the Mississippi may be attributed solely to the 2 chaps from Kentucky who are said to have arrived in Louisville— certainly not by the Mississippi. The fire in New Orleans was easily organised and will be repeated in other cities; elsewhere, too, a great deal will undoubtedly be burnt down, but the affair must inevitably bring to a head the SPLIT between the planters and the merchants on the one hand, and the WHITE TRASH on the other, and then it will be all up with secession.
The fanatical support for the Confederation among the New Orleans merchants is accounted for simply by the fact that the fellows had to accept a mass of CONFEDERATION SCRIPS in exchange for cash. I know of several examples here. This should not be forgotten. A good, big forced loan is a splendid means of shackling the bourgeois to the revolution and diverting them from their class interests by way of their personal interests.
Kindest regards to your wife and the girls.
Your
F. E.
Lupus was again suffering badly from gout. He is going to Germany in 5 weeks' time.
You must surely have read that thing about Bernard saying that they have put him into a lunatic asylum?(2) Is the affair above-board or is there some suggestion of FOUL PLAY?
216. Marx to Engels. 27 May
216
MARX TO ENGELS[249]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 27 May 1862
Dear Frederick,
The children and the WHOLE FAMILY send you their best thanks for the spirituous hamper.
In Eichhoff's letter enclosed herewith, you will find, recaptured to the life, the kind of polemics beloved of Parson Kinkel. Where would Gottfried be without his piss-a-bed!(1)
I may not have written to tell you yet that Dr Klein in Cologne has won 35,000 talers in the Prussian lottery; he will now probably marry Mrs Daniels, provided he hasn't changed his mind.
It's quite true that Bernard, always very eccentric and having in any case overworked during the past few weeks, has become subject to 'hallucinations'. The only UNFAIR thing about it is that this was instantly seized upon as an opportunity to put him away, which was quite unnecessary since the family in Dorking to whom he was tutor was prepared to look after and assume responsibility for him. Ditto Allsop. But the presence of the latter, who had provided the money for Orsini's assassination attempt,[419] and his renewed intercourse with Bernard, had long been worrying Bonaparte's police, at whose request the English police had long been keeping an eye on Bernard.
Last Saturdayb I received from my Gas Company a summary demand that I pay them £1 10/- before next Saturday, failing which (it's a final notice) I shall be 'cut off. Since I am now sans sou,c I am forced in this mess to turn to you.
The blowing up of the Merrimac seems to me a clear indication of cowardice on the part of the Confederate swine.[420] The curs might still have hazarded another throw. It's truly marvellous how The Times (which backed all the anti-Irish COERCION BILLS[421] with such intense enthusiasm) is now lamenting that 'liberty' will be lost should the North tyrannise over the South.d The Economist is no less pleasing. In the last issue, it declares that it finds the financial good fortune of the YANKEES — the non-depreciation of their paper money— incomprehensible (although the thing is as plain as a pike-staff).[3] U p till then it had, for week after week, consoled its readers with talk of such depreciation. Although it now admits to not understanding what it should know about ex officio and hence to having misled its readers on the subject, it presently consoles them with gloomy reflections on the 'military operations', of which it officially understands nothing.
What made paper operations exceptionally easy for the YANKEES[422] (given the main factor — confidence in their cause and hence in their government) was undoubtedly the circumstance that, as a result of secession, the West was virtually stripped of paper money, i.e. of a CIRCULATING MEDIUM generally. All the banks whose principal SECURITIES consisted in BONDS issued by the SLAVE STATES, went bankrupt. In addition, there was a drain of CURRENCY amounting to MILLIONS which had circulated in the West in the form of actual bank notes issued by the SOUTHERN BANKS. Then, partly as a result of the Morrill Tariff[423] and partly as a result of the war itself, which had largely put a stop to the import of luxury goods, throughout the whole period the YANKEES had a favourable balance of trade, and hence rate of exchange, vis-à-vis Europe. An unfavourable rate of exchange might have gravely affected the philistines' patriotic confidence in paper.
How absurd, by the by, is John Bull's concern over the interest UNCLE SAM will have to pay on the national debt! As though it weren't a bagatelle by comparison with Bull's national debt, besides which the UNITED STALES is now undoubtedly richer than were the BULLS in 1815, with their debt of a milliard.
Hasn't Pam got Bonaparte into a fine old mess in Mexico?[424]
I have now — if only out of DESPERATION — really put my nose to the grindstone and am writing away for dear life — at the political economy I mean.[310]
1 article a week is coming out in the Presse. That, in fact, is all I send them, in accordance with Mr Friedländer's letter.(2)
Salut.
Your
K. M.
My regards to MRS BORTMAN AND SISTER.42''
217. Engels to Marx. 29 May
217
ENGELS TO MARX[249]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 29 May 1862
Dear Moor,
Herewith the POST OFFICE ORDER for £2, payable Kentish Town, which, if I'm not mistaken, is the office closest to you.
Siebel has been blessed with a baby daughter. Anneke is with Buell's Army and, as from today, will be writing for the Augsburg paper.(1) I feel somewhat anxious about Halleck's troops; the thing's been dragging on so long and he would not seem to be getting any reinforcements after all,[426] although Spence's lies in The Times certainly do not mean anything.(2) Willich is colonel (THE ETERNAL COLONEL!) commanding the 32nd Indiana Regiment.
As for the business of Klein,c I am heartily glad for his sake, poor devil. I'll return Eichhoff's letter to you as soon as I've read it to Lupus, but I can't go and see him at the moment, as I have a swollen tonsil, which has kept me at home these past few evenings.
It now seems as though some kind of guerrilla warfare has started up after all, but certainly nothing of any significance and, should there be just one victory, reinforcements will move up together with some cavalry and soon put paid to the thing. A defeat might well prove disastrous.
Your
F. E.
218. Engels to Marx. 4 June
218
. ENGELS TO MARX[249]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 4 June 1862
Dear Moor,
I hope you got the POST OFFICE ORDER for £2 I sent off last Friday on Kentish Town POST OFFICE.(1)
So, at last we learn from Anneke's letter that on 26 April Halleck had rather more than 100,000 men and 300 cannon incl. Pope and Mitchel, and that he was awaiting the arrival of Curtis and Sigel with further reinforcements. Up till 29 April the state of the army appears to have been passable on the whole, nor does Anneke say anything about sickness. Hence, I consider the talk of sickness to be pure invention. Still, one is bound to admit that Stanton and Halleck have a way of making both press and public mistrustful; it should actually be easy enough to have one correspondent with each army who would write what the general tells him so that the public at any rate can get some sort of news.
The big battle, then, will doubtless be fought as soon as Sigel and Curtis arrive. Spence's estimate that 120,000 men are needed to keep the BORDER STATES in order is ludicrous; b in Kentucky hardly a man would appear to be under arms (apart, perhaps, from the recruits at the training camp at Louisville, from whom Sigel's corps will doubtless be formed) and in Nashville, according to Anneke, there are nothing but convalescents, etc.; otherwise, apart from Halleck's and McClellan's armies, the only ones still remaining in the BORDER STATES are Fremont (who apparently has no army at all yet), Banks (who must be very short of men) and McDowell, though they all count as part of the regular army. However, Spence errs in the other direction, 1. at this moment the armies of the FEDERALS certainly do not amount to a total of 500,000 men, 2. they have undoubtedly allocated more than 90,000 to the coast. My rough estimate is as follows:
On the coast 100,000 men Banks & Fremont 30,000 "
Sigel & Curtis 30,000 men McClellan 80,000 »* At Washington 30,000 »» McDowell 30,000 " Halleck 100,000 >»
Hence a total of 400,000 men in the field, to which should be added approx. 60,000 recruits, convalescents and small detach-ments who are probably dispersed about Missouri, along each bank of the lower Ohio and Tennessee, and partly among the cities of the North-East; summa summarum 460,000 men. I am confirmed in this by the new draft of 50,000 men which will be followed very shortly by another of equal size; evidently, the intention is to maintain the army at its normal strength of 500,000 men.
It was a colossal blunder on Stanton's part, and sheer boastfulness, to put a stop to recruiting. Materially, it has done a great deal of harm and was the cause of all that waste of time at Corinth and Richmond; and morally the present revocation will do even more harm — aside from the fact that it will now be much more difficult to get recruits. It's not as though there weren't plenty of men available; as a result of immigration, the Northern States must have, in terms of total population, at least 3-4% more men aged between 20 and 35 than any other country.
In other respects in his letters Monsieur Anneke appears to be the same grumpy old FAULTFINDER and knowall he always was, who judges the army, not in accordance with circumstances or even the enemy, but rather with the old, trained European armies and not even these as they are, but as they ought to be. The blockhead would do well to reflect on the confusion he himself must have experienced often enough during manoeuvres in Prussia.
The comedy in Berlin is getting very funny indeed. The ministry assures the Chamber of its liberalism and the Chamber assures the King of its royalism. Embrassez-vous et que cela finisse![427]
In other respects, it is undoubtedly a sign of progress that people are getting so nicely and so rapidly embroiled in parliamentary intrigue; however, there'll be a conflict all right. Very fine, too, that nothing came of the whole Hesse-Cassel affair until the Electora had personally insulted handsome William,b whereupon it really did come to nothing.[428]
219. Engels to Carl Siebel. 4 June
How is little Jenny getting on?
Warm regards to your wife and the children. Eichhoff 's thing[3]
returned herewith.
Your
F. E.
219
ENGELS TO CARL SIEBEL
IN BARMEN
Manchester, 4 June 1862
Dear Siebel,
You're a fine OrT», you are, notifying me of your daughter's birth after the same fashion as I [use] to acknowledge your various letters and packages. My heartiest congratulations. I hope you'll have a lot of fun with her. Is your wife all right?
Here things trundle along as always. All the same, I'm gradually beginning to notice how demoralising this quiet routine is; one is drained of all one's energy and becomes thoroughly indolent. I even read another novel recently.
The so-called—salva veniah—Schiller Institute[429] (also known as the Jerusalem Club) has become a purely Jewish institution and, between 1:30 and 3, the din there is enough to drive one out of one's mind. In fact, I very seldom visit the noble institution now. What's happening is typically Jewish. To start off with they thank God for having a Schiller Institute, and barely are they installed than, apparently, it's not good enough for them, and they want to put up a large building, a veritable temple of Moses, and to move the thing there. That, of course, is the shortest road to bankruptcy. And it's for that you had to write a prologue and act as producer! And that's what they call a German national institution! Mark my words, in a couple of years you'll be sent a circular: Re the bankruptcy of the late Schiller Institute', etc.
'Re' your letters, let me reply very briefly as follows. So far as the affair with Marx is concerned, he would certainly not have turned to you if my resources hadn't already been exhausted, as was indeed the case, which meant that I could do nothing just then. As for red Becker (whose pamphlet[3] was of great interest to me, partly because it contains a RECANTATION of his former 'wild' opinions, and also because the Prussian government has forcibly turned the chap into a local bigwig again, and hence into a Deputy), the fellow is no immediate concern of ours. He has never belonged to our party as such, has always been a mere democrat, and he only became involved in the business of the Communist trial in Cologne(1) because he regarded the affair as an opportunity for agitation. In fact, during the trial he disassociated himself completely from the rest of the accused and enjoyed a special position. Since then he has avowedly become a royal Prussian democrat, has come out in favour of the monarchy, etc. So, politically we have no connections whatever with the man, which would not, of course, preclude my being on a personally friendly footing with him until such time as we came into direct political conflict with his people. He will do well enough for the present Prussian Chamber.
I believe that, when I was in Barmen,[354] I mentioned to you a little Danish folk-song I had discovered in the Kjämpeviser and had translated into German verse specially for your benefit.[430] I enclose it. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do anything like justice to the lively, defiantly cheerful tone of the original — it's the liveliest I know. However, you'll have to content yourself with the translation (almost literal, by the way). I don't think the thing has been translated into German before.
Please*" convey my compliments and good wishes to your wife.
Your
F. E.
220. Marx to Engels. About 6 June
220
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London, about 6 June 1862]
Dear Engels,
You will forgive me for not acknowledging the £2 before now. During the past week, I have been so BOTHERED that I couldn't find time. The LANDLORD and half a dozen other monsters kept me
RUNNING.
Herewith 2 COPIES of the Lassalle[3] (1 for you, 1 for Lupus). Write and tell me what you think of it.
Have had a letter from Steffen, will send it to you within the next few days, as soon as I've answered it. He is in Boston. Seems very much depressed. Weydemeyer is a LIEUTENANT COLONEL.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
221. Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 16 June[67]
Dear Lassalle,
Bucher has indeed sent me 3 Julian Schmidts,(1) but none of the other works you mention.b Mr Schmidt, Mr Schmidt (of which I have sent Engels and Wolffc the copies intended for them) was all the more welcome to me for arriving at a time when I was feeling far from cheerful. Moreover, although I had only read, or rather leafed through, very little of Schmidt's stuff, I have at heart always detested the chap as the quintessence of MIDDLE-CLASS SNOBBISM, no less revolting in literature than elsewhere. As you rightly intimate, your attack is aimed indirectly at the MIDDLE-CLASS cultural vul-garians. Here it's a case of aiming at the donkey blows intended for the driver.3 Since we can't for the present actually CROP- the driver's ears for him, it increasingly behoves us to slice the heads off the noisiest and most pretentious of his cultural donkeys — with our pens, notwithstanding POOR Meyen who, in the Freischütz, found 'this literary playing at guillotines' as puerile as it was barbaric.b What especially tickled me was the Schwabenspiegel and the 'seven wise men'—I almost said 'seven Swabians'—of Greece.[431] Incidentally — since in the case of Julian Schmidt, Julian the Grabovite[432] (which is unjust, because it looks like a blow aimed at the Apostate,c or, at any rate, casts SOME RIDICULE on the other Julian), one may permit oneself to digress — I was at one time greatly interested in the awpos d as the mask peculiar to Greek philosophy (using mask here in the best sense). First, we have the seven Swabians or wise men as FORERUNNERS, mythological heroes, next, in the middle, Socrates, and finally, the <ro<po<; as the ideal of the Epicureans, Stoics, and sceptics.[433] I derived further amuse-ment from drawing a comparison between this owpoç and what is
(IN SOME RESPECTS) his caricature, the French 'sage' of the 18th century. And then the o,o<pi.o,Tr|çe as a necessary variant of the coco«;. It is typical of the moderns that the Greek combination of character and knowledge implicit in the crcxpàç has survived in popular consciousness solely in the form of sophists.
Julian — not Julian the Grabovite, but Julian the Apostate — was the cause of a recent brush I had with Engels who, as I was already aware when the dispute began, was essentially in the right. But so specific is my aversion to Christianity that I have a predilection for the Apostate and do not like to see him identified either with Frederick William IV or with any other romantic reactionary, not even mutatis mutandis! Don't you feel the same?
Your admonition as to Rodbertus and Roscher reminded me that I still had notes to make from and about both.[434] As regards the Rodbertus,a I failed to do it justice in my first letter to you.b
There's really much in it that is good. Except that his attempt to produce a new theory of rent is almost puerile, comical. For he would have us believe that, in agriculture, raw materials are not taken into account because — the German farmer, or so Rodbertus maintains, does not himself regard seed, fodder, etc., as expenditure, does not take these production costs into account, i.e., he reckons wrong. In England, where the FARMER has been reckoning correctly for over 150 years now, rent ought not, therefore, to exist. Hence the conclusion would not be that drawn by Rodbertus, namely that the tenant pays rent because his RATE of profit is higher than in industry, but rather because, in consequence of his wrong reckoning, he contents himself with a lower RATE of profit. This one example, by the by, suffices to show me how the partial under-development of German economic conditions necessarily tends to confuse people. Ricardo's theory of rent as it now stands is undoubtedly false, but every objection that has been raised against it is either due to a misunderstanding of it or at best demonstrates that certain phenomena do not, prima facie,c tally with Ricardo's theory. Now, this latter fact in no way discounts a theory. On the other hand, the positive theories that set out to refute Ricardo are vastly more false. Puerile though Mr Rodbertus's positive solution may be, it does, nevertheless, tend in the right direction, but to go into that here would take too long.
As regards the Röscher, it will be some weeks before I can sit down with the bookd beside me and write any comments on it. I shall reserve this fellow for a note. Such professorial schoolboys have no place in the text. Roscher undoubtedly has a considerable — and often quite useless — knowledge of literature, although even here I seem to discern the Göttingen alumnus" rummaging uneasily through literary treasures and familiar only with what might be called official, RESPECTABLE literature. But that's not all. For what avails me a fellow who, even though he knows the whole of mathematical literature, yet understands nothing of mathematics? And so complacent, self-important, tolerably well-versed, eclectic a dog, too! If only such a professorial schoolboy, by nature totally incapable of ever doing more than learn his lesson and teach it, of 16 1862
ever reaching the stage of teaching himself, if only such a Wagner" were, at least, honest and conscientious, he could be of some vise to his pupils. If only he didn't indulge in spurious evasions and said frankly: 'Here we have a contradiction. Some say this, others that. T h e nature of the thing precludes my having an opinion. Now see if you can work it out for yourselves!' In this way his pupils would, on the one hand, be given something to go on and, on the other, be induced to work on their own account. But, admittedly, the challenge I have thrown out here is incompatible with the nature of the professorial schoolboy. An inability to understand the questions themselves is essentiellement'' part and parcel of him, which is why his eclecticism merely goes snuffling round amidst the wealth of set answers; but, here again, not honestly, but ALWAYS WITH AN EYE TO THE PREJUDICES AND THE INTERESTS OK HIS PAYMASTERS! A stonebreaker is RESPECTABLE by comparison with such canaille.
Ad vocem' Toby. If you believe you can use Toby Meyen, then use him. Only don't forget that the company of a dunderhead can be very compromising unless great precautions be taken.
We are, indeed, but few in n u m b e r — and therein lies our strength.
We shall all be very glad to see you over here. It will greatly please my family, not to mention myself, as they hardly ever see a 'human being' now that my English, German and French acquaintances all live outside London. I haven't seen Mario. No doubt friend 'Blind' warned him against visiting 'such a dreadful person'.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
222. Marx to Engels. 18 June
222
MARX TO ENGELS[435]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 18 June 1862
Dear Engels,
The idea of pouring out my misère to you again sickens me, but que faire"? Every day my wife says she wishes she and the children were safely in their graves, and I really cannot blame her, for the humiliations, torments and alarums that one has to go through in such a situation are indeed indescribable. As you know, the £50 went on debts, more than half of which remain to be paid.[398] The £2 on gas. The wretched money from Vienna won't arrive till the end of July, and then there'll be damned little of it, since the swine aren't even printing 1 article a week now. To that must be added the fresh expenditure since the beginning of May. I won't say anything about what, in London, is the truly parlous situation of being without a centime for 7 weeks — since for us it is a chronically recurring state of affairs. But from your own experience, you will at any rate know that, all the time, there are current expenses that have to be paid in cash. This has been done by putting back in pawn the stuff that had been redeemed at the end of April. But that source was exhausted weeks ago, so much so that, a week ago, my wife attempted to sell some books of mine 'in vain'. I feel all the more sorry for the unfortunate children in that all this is happening during the EXHIBITION SEASON,[344] when their friends are having fun, whereas they themselves live in dread lest someone should come and see them and realise what a mess they are in.
For the rest, I myself, by the "by, am working away hard and, strange to say, my grey matter is functioning better in the midst of the surrounding misère than it has done for years. I am expanding this volume,[310] since those German scoundrels estimate the value of a book in terms of its cubic capacity. Incidentally, another thing I have at last been able to sort out is the shitty rent business (which, however, I shall not so piuch as allude to in this part).[434] I had long harboured MISGIVINGS as to the absolute correctness of Ricardo's theory, and have at length got to the bottom of the swindle.3 Again, since we last saw each other, I've hit on one or two pleasing and surprising novelties in connection with what's already going into this volume.
I'm amused that Darwin,*1 at whom I've been taking another look, should say that he also applies the 'Malthusian' theory to plants and animals, as though in Mr Malthus's casec the whole thing didn't lie in its not being applied to plants and animals, but only — with its geometric progression — to humans as against plants and animals. It is remarkable how Darwin rediscov-ers, among the beasts and plants, the society of England with its division of labour, competition, opening up of new markets, 'inventions' and Malthusian 'struggle for existence'. It is Hobbes' bellum omnium contra omnes'' and is reminiscent of Hegel's Phenomenology," in which civil society figures as an 'intellectual animal kingdom', whereas, in Darwin, the animal kingdom figures as civil society.
Buckle has played a trick on Ruge by dying. In his imagination, Ruge had envisaged another library to be written by Buckle and 'transposed' into German by Ruge. POOR Ruge! And POOR Buckle who, this very day, is traduced by a 'friend' in a testimonium pietatis' in The Times?
Have you and Lupus received the 2 Julian Schmidts1* I sent off?
Apropos. If it could be done very briefly, without making undue demands on you, I should like to have a sample of Italian book-keeping (with explanations). It would help to throw light on Dr Quesnay's Tableau Economique.4m
No one comes to see me, and I'm glad of it, for I don't give a for the sort we have here. A fine crew! Salut.
Your
K. M.
223. Engels to Marx. About 3 July
224. Marx to Engels. 5 July
I've heard from Lassalle. He may come over here in July. In the late autumn he will make a start on the initial draft of his 'Political Economy', which, however, is going to take him a 'long time'. He's in for a surprise.
223
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
[Manchester, about 3 July 1862] Dear Moor,
Since the new financial year has begun and I shall not have to pay back the £50 to Borkheim[398] for a fortnight or so, we can repeat our recent coup de main. You will find herewith I/Q 86445. Ten pounds, Manchester, 31 Jan. 1861. Bank of England note. The second half tomorrow.
The speculation on the cotton market and the consequent daily rise in prices has kept me so busy that I don't know whether I'm coming or going. I shall write as soon as I have time.
How is little Jenny?
Your
F. E.
224
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 5 July [1862] Dear Engels,
Best thanks for the £10 of which pars I (1) arrived today. I hear that Mr Gumpert was down here; didn't come to see me.
WELL, I SHALL TRY TO DO WITHOUT HIM.
225. Marx to Engels. 11 July
Herewith 1 Press* and two very clever 'talks' by Lassalle.(1)
The enclosed letter from- Lassalle was brought me by the Austrian 'Captain (retd.)' Schweigen, a worthy, stupid fellow. The joke is that Riistow — with the added support of 2 Rüstow brothers — has proposed or is proposing so to use the National Association,[24] the Gymnastic Association, etc., as to have, at the crucial moment — in the smaller German states, at least — a ready-made militia commanded by Mr Rüstow to pit against the army. It's a damn silly plan. And, on top of that, the money for it is to come from London! I don't believe Lassalle shares these DELUSIONS. AIL he wants is to make himself seem important in the eyes of Schweigert, etc.
I hope that yoi\, at any rate, will come to London IN THE COURSE OF THE SEASON. Little Jenny is no longer unwell, but has grown more delicate than her constitution warrants. Whatever happens, by the by, we must manage to arrange sea-bathing for her.
Is Lupus in Germany by now?[497]
What is the position with regard to the 'ASSOCIATES' of the BRITISH ASSOCIATION?[353] Are the old cards still valid? Lupus has got mine.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
225
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 11 July [1862]
Dear Engels,
Lassalle has been here for the past 2 days and proposes to stay for several weeks. Now, you really ought to come down for a few days, seeing that he is in any case much 'OFFENDED' by the failure on
226. Marx to Engels. 21 July
your and Wolff's part ever to acknowledge receipt of his writings. Anyway, you had intended to spend a few days visiting the [344] EXHIBITION.
If this letter is somewhat scanty, it's because I'm working like a Trojan on the book.[310]
Salut.
Your
K. M.
226
MARX T O ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 21 July [1862]
Dear Engels,
Have been to see Freiligrath, was ALL RIGHT?™ Izzy — whose vanity would tickle you immensely — is leaving next week. Come on Friday [3] if you can. Reinhardt, who has become a
commerçant? also came to see us yesterday. Salut.
Your
K. M.
What do you think of McClellan?'
227. Engels to Ferdinand Lassalle. 23 July
227
ENGELS TO FERDINAND LASSALLE
IN LONDON
Manchester, 23 July 1862
Dear Lassalle,
I should have written to you long since and thanked you for the many packages you have been kind enough to send me. I resolved to do so often enough over the past 18 months, but have been so taken up with doux commerce* that my private correspondence with all and sundry is badly in arrears. Now I hear you are in London and I would have liked to have come down last Saturday, but simply could not get away. I presently cherish a similar plan in respect of Friday(1) evening, but cannot yet say for certain whether I shall be able to carry it out. If at all possible, it shall be done, in which case I shall telegraph Marx at midday on Friday. But if it proves impossible, why shouldn't you come up here on Friday evening or Saturday morning and spend a few days taking a look at the home of cotton? Then we could also slip over to Liverpool which is well worth the trouble, especially since you are concerning yourself with political economy. There's a room in my lodgings at your disposal. It only takes you 5 [1]/b hours to get here.
So, think the matter over and, if I should be unable to take Saturday off, you can decide on the spur of the moment, leave London at 9 o'clock on Saturday morning, and be here by 2.45. We shall then be able to discuss everything else by word of mouth — either here or there.
In the meantime, cordial regards from
Yours,
F. Engels
228. Engels to Marx. 30 July
228
ENGELS TO MARX[249]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 30 July 1862
Dear Moor,
I was very sorry not to have been able^o come on Friday.[3] Apart from anything else, I had more or less iallen out with Ermen, and hence could neither ask a favour of him, nor stay away without saying a word. Otherwise, nothing would have prevented me from coming, not even the risk of missing sometning important on the Saturday.
Things are going awry in America and, in fact, Mr Stanton is AFTER ALL chiefly to blame in that, after the conquest of Tennessee, sheer boastfulness led him to stop recruiting, so that the army was doomed to grow constantly weaker at the very time when it particularly needed reinforcing with a view to a rapid and decisive offensive. With a steady influx of recruits the war had hitherto not, perhaps, been decided, but there could be no doubt about its successful outcome. Moreover, the run of victories had ensured a brisk supply of recruits.
This measure was all the more inane in that, at that very time, the South was calling up all men aged between 18 and 35, i.e. staking everything on one throw. It is these men, who have meanwhile become seasoned troops, that have since enabled the Confederates to gain the upper hand everywhere, and assured them the initiative. They pinned down Halleck, drove Curtis out of Arkansas, beat McClellan and, in the Sbenandoah Valley, under Jackson, gave the signal for guerrilla bands, which are now already penetrating as far as the Ohio. Stanton could not have acted more stupidly had he tried.[439]
Again, when Stanton saw that he would be unable to oust McClellan from the command of the Potomac Army, he perpetrated the stupidity of reducing McClellan's strength by detaching special commands to Fremont, Banks and McDowell, and dispersing the forces with a view to displacing McClellan. Not only was McClellan defeated as a result, but public opinion is laying the blame for that defeat, not on McClellan, but on Stanton. Serves Mr Stanton right.
None of this would have signified, and it might even have been all to the good in as much as the war might at last have been conducted along revolutionary lines. But there's the rub. Defeats don't spur these Yankee»; on, they just make them flabby. If things have come to such a pass that, to get recruits at all, they say they are prepared to take them on for only 9 months, then this is tantamount to admitting: 'We're in the shit and all we want is a make-believe army to do some sabre-rattling during the peace negotiations.' Those 300,000 volunteers, that was the criterion, and in refusing to muster them, the North is declaring that it doesn't, au fond' give a damn about the whole thing. And then, what cowardice on the part of the government and Congress! They shrink from conscription, from resolute fiscal measures, from attacking slavery, from everything that is urgently necessary; everything's left to amble along at will, and, if some factitious measure finally gets through Congress, the honourable Lincoln hedges it about with so many clauses that it's reduced to nothing at all. It is this flabbiness, this wilting like a pricked balloon under the pressure of defeats, which have destroyed an army, the strongest and the best, and left Washington virtually unde-fended, it is this complete absence of any resilience among the people at large which proves to me THAT IT is ALL UP. The occasional MASS MEETING, etc., means nothing at all, and doesn't even rival the excitement of a presidential election.
Add to that a complete want of talent. One general more stupid than the other. Not one who would be capable of the slightest initiative or of an independent decision. For 3 months the initiative has again rested wholly with the enemy. Then, the fiscal measures, each one crazier than the last. Fecklessness and cowardice everywhere except among the common soldiers. The same applies to the politicians — just as absurd, just as much at a loss. And the populus is more feckless than if it had idled away 3,000 years under the Austrian sceptre.
For the South, on the other hand — ITS NO USE SHUTTING ONES EYES TO THE FACT — the affair is a matter of life and death. Our not getting any cotton is one proof of this. The guerrillas in the Border States are another. But, in my view, what clinches the matter is the ability of an agrarian population, after such complete isolation from the rest of the world, to endure snch a war and, having suffered
229. Marx to Engels. 30 July
severe defeats and the loss of resources, men and territory, nevertheless to emerge victorious and threaten to carry their offensive into the North. On top of that, they are really fighting quite splendidly, and what remained of UNION FEELING, save in the mountain districts, will now, with the re-occupation of Kentucky and Tennessee, undoubtedly evaporate.
If they get Missouri, they will also get the TERRITORIES,[440] and then the North might as well pack up and go home.
As I have already said, unless the North instantly adopts a revolutionary stance, it will get the terrible thrashing it deserves— and that's what seems to be happening.
How is little Jenny getting on? Cordial regards to your wife and children.
Your
F. E.
229
MARX TO ENGELS[441]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 30 July [1862]
Dear Engels,
From the enclosed scrawls you will partly see how BOTHERED I am. So far, the LANDLORD has allowed himself to be placated; he has yet to receive £25. The piano chap, who is being paid in instalments for the piano, should already have had £6 at the end of June, and is a most ill-mannered brute. I have rate demands in the house amounting to £6. The wretched school fees — some £10 — I have fortunately been able to pay, for I do my utmost to spare the children direct humiliation. I have paid the butcher $6 on account (the sum total of my quarterly takings from the Presse]), but I'm again being dunned by that fellow, not to mention the baker, the TEAGROCER, the GREENGROCER, and such other sons of Belial as there may be.
The Jewish NIGGER Lassalle who, I'm glad to say, is leaving at the end of this week, has happily lost another 5,000 talers in an ill-judged speculation. The chap would sooner throw money down the drain than lend it to a 'friend', even though his interest and capital were guaranteed. In this he bases himself on the view that he ought to live the life of a Jewish baron, or Jew created a baron (no doubt by the countess[3]). Just imagine! This fellow, knowing about the American affair,[405] etc., and hence about the state of crisis I'm in, had the insolence to ask me whether I would be willing to hand over one of my daughters to la Hatzfeldt as a 'companion', and whether he himself should secure Gerstenberg's (!) patronage for me! The fellow has wasted my time and, what is more, the dolt opined that, since I was not engaged upon any 'business' just now, but merely upon a 'theoretical work', I might just as well kill time with him! In order to keep up certain dehors(1) vis-à-vis the fellow, my wife had to put in pawn everything that wasn't actually nailed or bolted down!
Had I not been in this appalling position and vexed by the way this parvenu flaunted his money bags, he'd have amused me tremendously. Since I last saw him a year ago, he's gone quite mad. His head has been completely turned by his stay in Zurich (with Rüstow, Herwegh, etc.) and the subsequent trip to Italy and, after that, by his Herr Julian Schmidt,b etc. He is now indisputably, not only the greatest scholar, the profoundest thinker, the most brilliant man of science, and so forth, but also and in addition, Don Juan cum revolutionary Cardinal Richelieu. Add to this, the incessant chatter in a high, falsetto voice, the unaesthetic, histrionic gestures, the dogmatic tone!
As a profound secret, he told me and my wife that he had advised Garibaldi not to make Rome the target of his attack but instead proceed to Naples, there set himself up as dictator (without affronting Victor Emmanuel), and call out the people's army for a campaign against Austria. Lassalle had him conjure 300,000 men out of thin air — with whom, of course, the Piedmontese army joined forces. And then, in accordance with a plan approved, so he says, by Mr Rüstow, a detached corps was to make, or rather set sail, for the Adriatic coast (Dalmatia) and incite Hungary to revolt, while, heedless of the Quadrilateral,[442] the main body of the army under Garibaldi marched from Padua to Vienna, where the population instantly rebelled. All over in 6 weeks. The fulcrum of the action — Lassalle's political influence, or his pen, in Berlin. And Rüstow at the head of a corps of German volunteers attached to Garibaldi. Bonaparte, on the other hand, was paralysed by this Lassallean coup d'éclat.(2)
He has just been to see Mazzini, and 'the latter, too,' approved and 'admired' his plan.
He introduced himself to these people as the 'representative of the German revolutionary working class' and assumed they knew (to use his own words) that his (Izzy's) 'pamphlet on the Italian warb had prevented Prussia's intervention' and, IN FACT, that he had controlled 'the history of the past three years'. Lassalle was absolutely furious with me and my wife for poking fun at his plans, quizzing him as 'an enlightened Bonapartist', etc. He shouted, blustered, flung himself about and finally got it fixed in his mind that I was too 'abstract' to understand politics.
As TO AMERICA, it's of no interest whatever, he says. The Yankees have no 'ideas'. 'The freedom of the individual' is merely a 'negative idea', etc., and other antiquated, mouldering, speculative rubbish of the same ilk.
As I have said, if circumstances had been different (and he hadn't disrupted my work), the chap would have amused me tremendously.
And on top of it all, the sheer gluttony and wanton lechery of this 'idealist'!
It is now quite plain to me — as the shape of his head and the way his hair grows also testify — that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied Moses' flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred with a NIGGER). NOW, this blend of Jewishness and Germanness, on the one hand, and basic negroid stock, on the other, must inevitably give rise to a peculiar product. The fellow's importunity is also niggerlike.
If, by the by, Mr Rüstow was responsible for thinking up the march from Padua to Vienna, I should say that he also has a screw loose.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
One of our NIGGER'S great discoveries — which, however, he only confides to his 'closest friends'—is that the Pelasgians were of
230. Engels to Marx. 31 July
Semitic descent. The main evidence: in the Book of Maccabbees,[3]
the Jews send emissaries to solicit the help of Greece on grounds of kinship. Furthermore, an Etruscan inscription has been found in Perugia, and this was simultaneously deciphered by Hofrat Stücker in Berlin and an Italian, and both independently converted the Etruscan into the Hebrew alphabet.
So that we can no longer discomfit him with 'BLUE BOOKS',[443] he has bought 20 pounds' worth of BLUE BOOKS (under Bucher's guidance).
He has converted Bücher to socialism, or so he maintains. Now Bucher's quite a fine little man, if a cranky one, and, in any case, I can't believe that he has accepted Lassalle's 'foreign policy'. Bücher is the 'compositress' in Julian Schmidt.[444]
If you'd been here just for a day or two, you'd have been able to lay in enough material to keep you laughing for a whole year. That's why I was so anxious to have you here. One doesn't get an opportunity like that every day.
230
ENGELS T O MARX
IN LONDON
[Manchester, 31 July 1862]
Dear Moor,
No doubt you will understand that, after the heavy outgoings last month, it will be impossible for me to get hold of £25 for you just now. I have postponed till August all heavy outgoings on my own account (LANDLADY and quarterly account), moreover, because of the bill, I have had to give Borkheim an order, which will similarly have to be met in August. I shall see what can be done before tomorrow. I still owe Lupus £10, and he will ask for it immediately on his return,[445] which might be any day now. If you
231. Engels to Marx. 1 August
add this to last month's outgoings, you will see that it takes a tidy slice out of the new financial year. However, I shall see this evening how much will have to be paid out, and hence how much I shall be able to send you.
If only I knew what the balance looked like and how I stand! But the day after tomorrow Charles[3] leaves for Warsaw, where we have incurred a bad debt, and then the whole caboodle will come to a dead stop again.
Your
F. E.
231
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Manchester, 1 August 1862
Dear Moor,
The enclosed £10 is all I am able to send you today. This is how things stand: Last month's outgoings: a quarter's stabling for my horse £15, LANDLADY £25 (old Hill agreed to debit this to July because I paid it yesterday), to Borkheim £50, to you £10, total £100. Still outstanding this month: to Lupus £10, Borkheim — for the order—£15, bookseller about £10 (carried over from 1861), in addition, petty expenses: tailor, shoemaker, shirts, and such like, cigars some £25 and the above-mentioned £10, in all £70, or £170 in two months, excluding CURRENT EXPENSES. So, you can see how I stand. On top of that, I am pretty well positive that I exceeded my income in the last financial year and that my income for this one will be very poor. I dare say you might succeed in staving the people off a bit longer, something that can't be done in the case of my creditors since the people here have a habit of descending on one at the office and demanding settlement so that, after the 2nd or 3rd CALLING, one is morally obliged to pay them.
Should Lupus not require the £10 I still owe him until the end •of September, or be satisfied with payment by instalments, I shall, of course, let you have it.
The stories about Lassalle are exceedingly funny. His strategical plan3 is the finest I have ever come across. That Rüstow should have approved it is quite possible. The chap's as vain as Izzy and well on the way to being just as crazy. Cf. his maunderings about the campaign of 1860 in Vol. II of the Demokratische Studien!'
The author' of the Europäische Pentarchie has unloosed a new opus, Europa's Cabinette und Allianzen. And a superb jackass the Russians have bought themselves, too. Never before have I come across anything so stupid and muddle-headed. When he theorises about international law, the fellow's really choice for he puts forward 3 or 4 different theories that are mutually exclusive. Added to which, Christianity à outrance? and flattery of all things Russian laid on so crassly that one can't help laughing out loud at the thought of the money the Russians have chucked away on him. It redounds to Germany's credit that they shouldn't have been able to buy a single fellow worth his salt to write in favour of Russia" and, when they chance to nab one, such as B. Bauer, that he should instantly turn into a dolt.446 His master-plan envisages a Russo-French alliance, Prussia at the head of Little Germany,[24]
Austria, her capital removed to Budapest, to get the Danubian principalities and all the territory north of*' the Balkans — this spread out like an old cowpat over 300 pages of the most dreary twaddle. If you'd like to have the thing, I'll send it you.
Your
F. E.
O/D 13134 Manchester 27, Jan. 1862—£5 O/D 24296 Manchester 27, Jan. 1862—£5
£10
232. Marx to Engels. 2 August
232
MARX T O ENGELS [4 4 7]
IX MANCHESTER
[London,] 2 August 1862
Dear Frederick,
Best thanks for the £10. I very much dislike your being in financial difficulties on my account, but que faire?'' Who is capable of withstanding such a crisis as the American one? iHl Not to mention my peculiar bad luck in having a rotten rag like the Vienna Presse to deal with. OTHERWISE, the fellows might, at least, have been able to make u p for the loss of the Tribune TO SOME EX FEM. Do you suppose, perhaps, that the time has now come for me to approach, say, the Evening Post (HIE ABOUEIOXISI PAPER in New York) about my contributing to it?
All things considered, it's a real miracle that I have been able to get on with my theoretical writing to such an extent. I now propose after all to include in this volume an extra chapter on the theory of rent, i.e., by way of 'illustration' to an earlier thesis of mine. [1]' [4] Let me say a word or two about what will, in the text, be a lengthy and complex affair, so that you may let me have your opinion on it.
As you know, I distinguish 2 parts in capital: constant capital (raw material, matières instrumentales^ machinery, etc.), whose value only reappears in the value of the product, and secondly variable capital, i.e., the capital laid out in wages, which contains less materialised labour than is given by the worker in return for it. E.g. if the daily wage=10 hours and the worker works 12, he replaces the variable capital + '/s of the same (2 hours). This latter surplus I call SV.RPI.VS VALVE.
Let us assume that the rate of surplus value (that is the length of the working day and the surplus labour in excess of the necessary labour performed by the worker to reproduce his pay) is given, e.g. = 50 p.c. In this case, in a 12 hour working day the worker would work e.g. 8 hours for himself, and 4 hours (s/[2]) for the EMPLOYER. And indeed, let us assume this to apply to all TRADES SO that any variations there may be in the AVERAGE WORKING TIME simply allow for the greater or lesser difficulty of the work, etc.
2 1862
In these circumstances, given equal exploitation of the worker in different TRADES, different capitals in different spheres of production will, given equal size, yield very different AMOUNTS OF SURPLUS VALUE and hence very different rates of profit, SINCE PROFIT IS NOTHING BUT
THE PROPORTION OF THF: SURPLUS VALUE TO THE TOTAL CAPITAL ADVANCED. T h i s will depend on the organic composition of the capital, i.e., on its division into constant and variable capital.
Let us assume, as above, that the surplus labour=50 p.c. If, therefore, e.g. £ 1 = 1 working day (no matter whether you think in terms of a day or a week, etc.), the working day=12 hours, and the necessary labour (i.e. reproductive of the pay) = 8 hours, then the wage of 30 workers (or working days)=£20 and the value of their labour=£30, the variable capital per worker (daily or weekly) = £ [2] / [3] and the value he creates = £ 1 . The AMOUNT of SURPLUS VALUE produced by a capital of £ 1 0 0 in DIFFERENT TRADES will vary greatly according to the proportion in which the capital of £100 is divided into constant and variable capital. Let us call CONSTANT CAPITAL C, and VARIABLE CAPITAL V. If, e.g. in the COTTON industry, the composition was C 80, V 20, the value of the product would=110 (given 50 p.c. surplus value or SURPLUS LABOUR). T h e amount of the surplus value= 10 and the profit rate=10 p.c., since the profit=the proportion of 10 (the SURPLUS VALUE) : 100 (the total value OF THE CAPITAL EXPENDED). Let us suppose that, in a large tailoring shop, the composition is C 50, V 50, so that the product=125, the surplus value (at a rate of 50 p.c. as above)=25 and the profit rate=25 p.c. Let us take another industry where the proportion is C 70, V 30, hence the product=115, the profit rate=15 p.c. Finally, an industry where the composition=C 90, V 10, hence the product =105 and the profit rate = 5 p.c.
Here, given equal exploitation of labour, we have IN DIFFÉRENT TRADES
V e r y DIFFERENT AMOUNTS OF SURPLUS VALUE AND HENCE VERY DIFFERENT' RATES OF PROFIT for capitals of equal size.
If, however, the above 4 capitals are taken together, we get:
Value of the product
1. C 80 V 20 110 profit rate=10 p.c. Rate of surplus 2. C 50 V 50 125 profit rate=25 p.c. value in all 3. C 70 V 30 115 profit rate=15 p.c. cases=50 p.c. 4. C 90 V 10 105 profit rate= 5 p.c.
Capital 400 Profits 55 2 1862
On 100, this makes a PROFIT RATE of 13% p.c. If the total capital (400) of the class be considered, the profit rate would=13[3]/4 p.c. And capitalists are brothers. As a result of competition (TRANSFER OF CAPITAL OR WITHDRAWAL OF CAPITAL FROM ONE TRADE TO THE OTHER), capitals of equal size in DIFFERENT TRADES, DESPITE THEIR
DIFFERENT OGRANIC COMPOSITIONS, YIELD THE SAME AVERAGE RATE OF PROFIT. In other words, the AVERAGE profit, which F.I. A CAPITAL OF £100 yields IN A CERTAIN TRADE, it yields, not as a capital specifically applied to the same nor, therefore, in the proportion in which it of itself produces SURPLUS VALUE, but as an aliquot part of the total capital of the capitalist class. It is a SHARE the dividend on which will be paid in proportion to its size out of the total amount of the SURPLUS VALUE (or unpaid labour) produced by the total variable (laid out in wages) capital of the class.
If then 1, 2, 3, 4 in the above illustration are to make the same AVERAGE PROFIT, each category must sell its goods at £113'/3- 1 and 4 will sell them at more than their value, 2 and 3 at less.
The price so regulated=THE EXPENSES OF CAPITAL+THE AVERAGE PROFIT
(F.I. 10 p.c.), is what Smith called the NATURAL PRICE, COST PRICE,448 etc. It is the AVERAGE PRICE to which competition between DIFFERENT TRADES (by TRANSFER OF CAPITAL or WITHDRAWAL OF CAPITAL) reduces the prices in DIFFERENT TRADES. Hence, competition reduces commodities not to their value, but to the cost price, which, depending on the organic composition of the respective capitals, is either above, below or = to their values.
Ricardo confuses value and cost price. He therefore believes that, if there were such a thing as absolute rent (i.e., rent independent of variations in the fertility of the soil), AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE, etc., would be constantly sold for more than its value, because at more than cost price (THE ADVANCED CAPITAL+THE AVERAGE PROFIT). That would demolish the fundamental law. Hence he denies absolute rent and assumes only differential rent.
But his identification of VALUES OF COMMODITIES and COST PRICES OF COMMODITIES is totally wrong and has traditionally been taken over from A. Smith.
The facts are as follows: If we assume that the AVERAGE COMPOSITION of all NOT AGRICULTURAL CAPITAL is C 80, V 20, then the product (assuming that the rate of surplus value is 50 p.c.)=110 and the profit rate=10 p.c.
If we further assume that the AVERAGE COMPOSITION of AGRICULTURAL CAPITAL is C 60, V 40 (in England, this figure is statistically fairly correct; rent for pasture, etc., has .no bearing on this question, being determined not by itself, but by the CORN RENT), then the 2 1862
product, given equal exploitation of labour as above =120 and profit rate=20 p.c. Hence, if the farmer sells his AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE for what it is worth, he is selling it at 120 and not at 110, its cost price. But landed property prevents the farmer, like his BROTHER CAPITALISTS, from equalising the value of the product to the cost price. Competition between capitals cannot enforce this. T h e landowner intervenes and pockets the difference between value and cost price. A low proportion of constant to variable capital is in general an expression of the poor (or relatively poor) development of the productive power of labour in a particular sphere of production. Hence, if the AVERAGE COMPOSITION of AGRICULTURAL CAPITAL is e.g. C 60, V 40, while that of NOT AGRICULTURAL CAPITAL is C 80, V 20, this proves that agriculture has not yet reached the same stage of development as industry. (Which is easily explicable since, apart from anything else, a prerequisite for industry is the older science of mechanics, while the prerequisites for agriculture are the completely new sciences of chemistry, geology and physiology.) If the proportion in agriculture becomes C 80, V 20 (in the above premise), then absolute rent disappears. All that remains is differential rent, which I shall also expound in such a way as to make Ricardo's assumption of the constant DETERIORATION OF AGRICULTURE appear MOST RIDICULOUS AND ARBITRARY.
Having regard to the foregoing definition of COST PRICE as distinct from VALUE, it should further be noted that, besides the distinction between constant capital and variable capital, which arises out of the immediate production process of capital, there is the further distinction between fixed and circulating capital, which arises out of the circulation process of capital. However, the formula would become too involved if I were to seek to incorporate this in the above as well.
T h e r e you have — ROUGHLY, for the thing's fairly complicated— the critique of Ricardo's theory. This much you will admit — that by taking into account the ORGANIC COMPOSITION OF CAPITAL, one disposes of a mass of what have so far seemed to be contradictions and problems.
Apropos. There are certain reasons, of which I shall inform you in my next letter, why I should be very glad if you would write me a detailed military critique (I shall deal with the political aspect) of Lassalle-Rüstow's liberation nonsense. [3]
Your
K. M.
•' See this volume, pp. 389-90, 393.
16* 2 1862
Regards to the ladies. Imandt has announced himself. Izzy leaves on Monday. It will be evident to you that, given my view of 'absolute rent', landed property (UNDER CERTAIN HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES) does INDEED put up the prices of raw materials. Very important, communistically speaking.
Assuming the correctness of the above view, it is by no means essential for absolute rent to be paid under all circumstances or in respect of every type of soil (even if the composition of AGRICULTURAL CAPITAL is as assumed above). It is not paid when landed property does not exist, either factually or legally. In such a case, AGRICULTURE offers NO PECULIAR RESISTANCE TO THE APPLICATION OF CAPITAL, which then moves as easily in this element as in the other. T h e agricultural produce is then sold, as masses of industrial products always are, at cost price for less than its value. In practice, landed property may disappear, even when capitalist and landowner are one and the same person, etc.
But it would be otiose to go into these details here. Differential rent as such—which does not arise from the circumstance that CAPITAL is employed ON LAND INSTEAD OF ANY OTHER FIELD OF EMPLOYMENT — presents no difficulty in theory. It is nothing other than SURPLUS PROFIT which also exists in every sphere of industrial production wherever capital operates under better than AVERAGE CONDITIONS. It is firmly ensconced in agriculture only because founded on a basis as solid and (relatively) stable as the DIFFERENT
DEGREES OF NATURAL FERTILITY o f VaHOUS types o f SOÜ.
233. Marx to Engels. 7 August
233
MARX TO ENGELS[369]
IN MANCHESTER
London, 7 August [1862]
Dear Engels,
The LANDLORD came to see me on Monday" and told me that, after having foreborne so long, he would hand things over to his LAND AGENT, unless I paid him within the shortest possible time. And that means putting the BROKER in. I likewise — oddly enough on the same day — got a final demand for the rates, as well as letters from the épiciers? most of them acquainted with the LANDLORD, threatening to prosecute me and withhold PROVISIONS.
Lassalle left on Monday evening. I saw him once more after all these EVENTS had taken place. From my DEJECTED air, he saw that the crisis, which he had long known about, had led to a catastrophe OF SOME kind. Questioned me. Having heard my tale, he said he could let me have £15 by 1 January 1863; also that bills could be drawn on him for any desired AMOUNT, provided payment over and above the £15 were promised by you or someone else. More he could [not] do, he said, in view of his straitened circumstances. (That I can well believe, for, while here, he spent £1 2/- daily on CABS and cigars alone.)
Might you perhaps be able to do something in this way, using Borkheim as escompteur? so as to stave off the crisis? Of the £10, I paid 6 to the piano man, a nasty brute who wouldn't have hesitated to bring me before the COUNTY COURT.7 With 2 of the pounds I redeemed things that were in pawn and put what was left at my wife's disposal.
I assure you that if it wasn't for FAMILY DIFFICULTIES, I would far rather move into a MODEL LODGING-HOUSE than be constantly squeezing your purse.
There is, in addition, another circumstance, namely Dr Allen's telling me that it's absolutely essential for little Jenny to spend at least a fortnight at the seaside, ditto for our youngestd who had jaundice of sorne kind last year and isn't ALL RIGHT once again.
Izzy also told me that he would perhaps found a paper when he returned in September. I told him that, if he paid well, I would be its English correspondent, without assuming any other kind of 7 1862
RESPONSIBILITY or political PARTNERSHIP, since all we had in common politically were a few remote objectives.
I don't quite share your views on the AMERICAN CIVIL WAR,3 I do not believe THAT ALL IS UP. From the outset, the NORTHERNERS have been dominated by the representatives of the BORDER SLAVE STATES,1' who were also responsible for pushing McClellan, that old PARTISAN OK Breckinridge, to the top. The South, on the other hand, acted as a single whole right from the very start. T h e North itself turned slavery into a pro- instead of an anti-Southern military FORCE. T h e South leaves PRODUCTIVE LABOUR to the slaves and could thus take the field undisturbed with its fighting force intact. It had a unified military leadership; the North did not. That there was no strategical plan is evident if only from the manoeuvrings of the Kentucky Army after the capture of Tennessee. In my view, all this is going to TAKE ANOTHER TURN. T h e North will, at last, wage the war in earnest, have recourse to revolutionary methods and overthrow the supremacy of the BORDER SLAVE STATESMEN. O n e single NIGGER REGIMENT would have a remarkable effect on Southern nerves.
T h e difficulty of raising 300,000 men is, I should say, purely political. T h e North-West and New England [4 4 9] wish to and will compel the government to abandon the diplomatic warfare they have waged hitherto, and are now making TERMS ON WHICH THE 300,000 MEN SHALL COME EORTH. If Lincoln doesn't give way (which he will, however), there'll be a revolution.
As regards the lack of military talent, the choice of generals, hitherto dependent purely on diplomatic and party chicanery, has hardly been calculated to bring it to the fore. However, I should say that General Pope was a man of energy.
As for financial measures, they are clumsy as, indeed, they are bound to be in a country* where IN FACT taxation has hitherto been non-existent (so far as the country as a whole is concerned), but not nearly as silly as the measures taken by Pitt et cie?°(1) I should say that the present depreciation of money is attributable not to economic, but to purely political grounds, namely DISTRUST. It will therefore change, when policy changes.
T h e long and the short of it is, I think, that wars of this kind ought to be conducted along .revolutionary lines, and the YANKEES"[2] have so far been trying to conduct it along constitutional ones.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
234. Engels to Marx. 8 August
Imandt is here. Another very tiresome interruption at the moment. I believe my work will run to 30 sheets.[310]
234
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Manchester, 8 August 1862
Dear Moor,
In giving you an account of my expenditure, I never remotely intended to deter you from further 'squeezing', as you call it. On the contrary, we shall, I think, go on giving each other as much mutual aid as we can, it being quite immaterial so far as the cause is concerned which of us happens to be the 'squeezer' at the moment and which the 'squeezed', roles that are, after all, interchangeable. My only object in drawing up this statement was to demonstrate the impossibility of laying my hands on more than £10 just at the moment.
I assume that you promptly requisitioned the £15 in cash from Lassalle, or what exactly does 'by January'[3] mean? That he doesn't want to fork out till then? Now as regards bills, I for my part can perfectly well draw from £40 à £45 or some 260 to 300 talers on Lassalle, at 3, preferably 4 months' date, provided Borkheim will cash them. I shall also be able to send you another £10 in cash if I keep Borkheim waiting till September for the money I owe him for wine. That would make 10 from me, 45 for the bill, 15 Lassalle, total £70. But it would mean that I was completely cleaned out for some little while, not that that would really matter, provided it got you out of the mire and enabled little Jenny to go to the SEASIDE. Since Borkheim is constantly having to disburse money on the Continent — and he knows that, come what may, I have got to honour the bill if I don't want my position here to be ruined, there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't go and ask him whether he's willing to negotiate the thing for us. You can tell him that just now, when times are bad for COTTON, I am honour-bound to draw as little money as possible from the firm and hence would sooner adopt this method. You have far less cause to feel ill at ease with him about the affair than I have, so go and see him at once and arrange matters so that I can draw on Monsieur le Baron[2] forthwith.
Lupus arrived on Monday, in the grip of influenza and rheumatism, which confined him to bed for a day, the only one he spent in London. As soon as he felt a little better, he came straight up here. That was why he didn't come and see you. He is now better, but, being in monetibus'' likewise on his beam ends, came straight to me about the £10.
You've absolutely got to pull off another financial coup, otherwise I cannot see how on earth we're going to make up for the loss of the Tribune. Nor are the other New York papers in any kind of a position to take the place of the Tribune so far as you are concerned ' ; but, should a suitable occasion arise, it would do no harm to try, as something might come of it. With 30 sheets, the book[310] will raise at most some £70, but how do things stand with Brockhaus? Did you discuss the matter at all with Lassalle? And how much longer will it take?
I have again made contact with the Allgemeine Militär-Zeitung and shall see how it goes, though 1 article every 6 weeks is the maximum here. Mightn't you be able, through your mussurusd or otherwise, to arrange for me to contribute military articles to an English paper in London? But all this is marginal stuff and, unless we can discover the art of shitting gold, there would hardly seem to be any alternative to your extracting something from your relations by one means or another. Réfléchis-là-dessus.e
Shall write to you shortly about Lassalle's war plans and your theory of rent,f though I must say I'm by no means clear about the existence of 'absolute' rent — for, after all, you have to prove it first. I've got frightful piles and can't go on sitting down any longer.
Regards to the FAMILY.
Your
F. E. First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen Printed according to the original F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, J9J3 ' Published in English for the first time a Ferdinand Lassalle - b as regards money - c See this volume, p. 394.- d myrmidon (from the Yiddish m'schores) - '' Think about it. - ' See this volume, pp. 389-90, 393, 394-98.
235. Marx to Engels. 9 August
235
MARX TO ENGELS'[69]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 9 August 1862
Dear Engels,
Izzy doesn't want to pay the £15 before 1 January.'' So, I've been to see Borkheim. You are to draw 400 talers on Lassalle (I didn't, of course, in speaking of Lassalle to Borkheim, say anything AS TO THE £15 to be paid by Lassalle). At 3 months. Then, however, the thing will have to be renewed, as I told Borkheim that it wasn't payable until 1 January. (This being the date stipulated by Lassalle.)
So, the main thing is that you should send Borkheim the bill. As regards the theory of rent, I shall, of course, have to wait until I get your letter.b But what follows will simplify the 'debate', as Heinrich Bürgers would say:
I. All I have to prove theoretically is the possibility of absolute rent, without infringing the law of value. This is the point round which the theoretical controversy has revolved from the time of the physiocrats4r>1 until the present day. Ricardo denies that possibility; I maintain it. I likewise maintain that his denial rests on a theoretically false dogma deriving from A. Smith — the supposed identity of COST I-KICFS' and Y.M.VES OF COMMOMFIFS. Further, that where Ricardo illustrates the thing with examples, he invariably presup-poses conditions in which there is either no capitalist production or (factually or legally) no landed property. But the whole point is to examine the law precisely when such things do exist.
II. As regards the existence of absolute rent, this would be a question that would require statistical solution in any country. But the importance of a purely theoretical solution may be gauged from the fact that for 35 years statisticians and practical men generally have been maintaining the existence of absolute rent, while the (Ricardian) theoreticians have been seeking to explain it away by dint of very forced and theoretically feeble abstractions. Hitherto, I have invariably found that, in all such QUARRELS, the theoreticians have always been in the wrong.
•' Sec this volume, p. 401. - '• ibid., pp. 394-98; 402. - c ibid., pp. 396-97.
236. Engels to Marx. Before 12 August
III. I demonstrate that, even presupposing the existence of absolute rent, it by no means follows that the worst cultivated land or the worst mine pays rent UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES; rather, these will, in all likelihood, have to sell their products at market value, but at less than their individual value. In order to prove the opposite, Ricardo invariably supposes — which is theoretically false — that, UNDER ALL CONDITIONS OF THE MARKET, it is the commodity produced in the most unfavourable circumstances which determines the market value. You yourself had already put forward the correct argument against this in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. *
That is all I have to add as to rent. As regards Brockhaus, Lassalle has promised to do his utmostb
and I believe he will, having solemnly declared that he can neither publish his magnum opus on political economy, nor set to work on it — which in his case amounts to the same thing — until my book[310] has come out.
Salut. Your
K. M. Borkheim further adds: You are to draw the 400 talers on Lassalle at 3 months and renew it a fortnight before due date, till 1 January 1863. If you can't manage to pay in instalments, Borkheim will see to it that Lassalle gets the money on the first due date.
As for the Evening Post,' I should be glad if you could draft a letter for me, since I'm very bad at writing colloquial English.
jqj3 Published in English in full for the first time
236
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
[Manchester, before 12 August 1862]
Herewith the bill on Baron Artful.d You must advise him of it, date, day when due, etc., also that he will receive the money on
238. Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 13 August
due date and that there will be an extension till 1 Jan., when I shall remit him the difference of £15.
Your
F. E.a
237. Engels to Marx. 13 August[452]
I am unable to answer the preceding letter, since I don't know exactly what you told Borkheim and am therefore afraid of introducing inconsistencies into the affair. I could, of course, only assume Lassalle was back in Berlin. You should now go straight to Borkheim and see that the bill is returned and then sent by you to Lassalle for acceptance. Otherwise, of course, nothing at all can be done. How this misunderstanding could have arisen I fail to comprehend.
Your haemorrhoidarius,
F. E.
238
MARX T O FERDINAND LASSALLE
IN BERLIN
Dear Lassalle, L o n d ° n * [1 3] A u ^ [ 1 8 6 2 ]
In order to postpone the crisis, at least for a few weeks, Engels has drawn a bill on you through Borkheim for 400 talers at
239. Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 14 August
3 months from 12 August." He will remit you the covering amount before due date. Then the bill will be renewed until 1st January, when Engels will send you 300 talers and you, in accordance with your promise, will yourself pay 100.
All you have to do for the time being is to accept the bill drawn by Engels. ALTOGETHER, this amounts to £60 and hence doesn't help me. But, at any rate, the present crisis will be averted and some way out may be found in the mean time.
I am literally on tenterhooks and my work has been VERY MUCH TROUBLED and disrupted.
There is some prospect of my getting another Yankee paper.b
Where are you? What are you up to? What's your old manc up to? Salut from myself and FAMILY.
Your
K. M.
239
MARX TO FERDINAND LASSALLE
IN WILDBAD
London, 14 August 1862
Dear Lassalle,
Yesterday, I sent off a couple of lines to you in Berlin. Today I hear that you are at Wildbad. Hence I shall, in a few words, repeat the brief purport of the brief lines which may, perhaps, not reach you.
In order to stave off the catastrophe threatening my affairs, Engels drew a bill on you for £60 (400 talers) through Borkheim on 12 Aug. Due at 3 months date from 12 Aug. Borkheim is to discount this bill for me here. Engels will remit you the covering
240. Marx to Engels. 14 August
amount before due date. (Then he will renew the same bill u p to 1 January 1863, when he will send you a further remittance of £ 4 5 and you will pay £ 1 5 , as you offered to do.) The only essential thing now is to have your acceptance. Borkheim sent the bill straight off to Berlin, whence it will return probably before the end of this week or early in the next. Then it will at once be sent to you for acceptance. I should be very glad if you could telegraph S. L. Borkheim, 27 Crutched Friars, London, saying: 'I SHALL ACCEPT MR F. ENGELS' BILL OF £60.' Namely, so that Borkheim should not raise any further difficulties about the DISCOUNT. In my case, there is greater periculum in mora'[1] than I can say. Salut.
Your
K. M.
240
MARX T O ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 14 August 1862
Dear Frederick,
Just a few lines as I have a mass of business errands to run today.
The misunderstanding consists solely in there 'not having been one'.
Before writing to you, I had told Borkheim that I did not know whether Lassalle was in Berlin, and hence that there was n o certainty of an immediate acceptance. Borkheim had, nevertheless, promised to DISCOUNT the moment he had your signature. H e subsequently thought better of it.
H e decided, not to DISCOUNT in person, as he had originally intended, BUT TO HAVE THE BILL DISCOUNTED BY ONE OF HIS FRIENDS CONNECTED WITH BERLIN.
241. Marx to Wilhelm Schwarz. 19 August
T o that end, he naturally required Lassalle's acceptance. T h e latter, or so I learned from Bücher yesterday, is at present at Wildbad, where Lassalle SENIOR" is more or less on the point of kicking the bucket. I immediately wrote to Baron Izzy.b
Salut.
Your
K. M.
241
MARX T O WILHELM SCHWARZ
IN LONDON
London, 19 August 1862 9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill, N.W.
Sir,
Might I, as London correspondent of the Vienna Presse, request that I be sent a PRESS TICKET for the Exhibition? [3 4 4]
T h o u g h I was asked months ago by the Editor of the Presse to write a number of general reports on the Exhibition,0 other work has precluded my acceding to that request until now.
I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
Dr Karl Marx [4 5 3]
242. Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 20 August
242 MARX TO FERDINAND LASSALLE[239]
IN ZURICH
London, 20 August [1862] Dear Lassalle,
I imagine that, excursions into the High Alps and Italy notwithstanding, you will be spending a few days in Zurich, or at least receiving poste restante letters there. To make doubly sure, I have also informed Mr Rüstow that I have written to you 'poste restante Zurich'.
Despite the 'position' I am in, I would rescind the whole transaction if the bill on you were not already in the hands of 'Meyer Brothers', Berlin. Actually, this was not altogether in accordance with the agreement, since Borkheim had originally promised me he wouldn't let the bill out of his hands until you returned to Berlin. However, I couldn't see that any harm had been done since, in the case of this first bill, I had thought the use of your name was a mere formality and had no idea it had any connection with your 'public existence' or might serve to spark off some civil drama or other. For I believed that Engels' security for 'an amount' of 400 talers would meet the case, even if the 'worst came to the worst' and, as regards 'the due date', I knew Engels to be a model of 'punctuality and promptitude' in money matters, particularly where bills are concerned. Otherwise, I wouldn't have involved you in this BUSINESS.
It being no longer possible to rescind the thing without making myself and Engels look foolish in Borkheim's eyes, I shall send you Engels' bond the day after tomorrow." For it takes 3 days to get a reply from Manchester. As soon as you have the same, it would be good if you wrote to 'Meyer Brothers' (this being the name of the firm in Berlin which has Engels' draft), telling them you will accept on your return.
Let me say once again how much I regret having involved you in the matter — a rash act for which the overlooking of certain premises on your part and mine is to blame. Meanwhile, I remain,
Your
K. M. First published in: F. Lassalle. Nachgelas-Printed according to the original sene Briefe und Schriften, Bd. III, Stuttgart-Berlin, 1922
243. Marx to Engels. 20 August
243
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
London, 20 August [1862]
Dear Engels,
I've had a whole series of mishaps over the bill. First Borkheim, who means very well but also enjoys bragging and chooses just the wrong moment to prevaricate post festum? promised to discount the bill (out of his own pocket). He did so, knowing that Lassalle's acceptance wasn't to be had for some little while. Then, without a word to me, he sent it through Bruckner (Brothers) to Berlin so as to get it discounted by the said Brückners. Perhaps — he pretends to have forgotten how it all began — he took fright in the meantime.
Secondly: Baron Artful,(1) with whom I discussed the transaction on the eve of his departure' when he declared himself 'prepared to do anything', writes today from Wildbad[4]'[4] whither I had sent him an advice'[1]:
'If I am to accept, I shall have to have a bond from Engels himself in which he undertakes to put me in possession of the covering amount a week before due date. Not, of course, (!) that I doubt you wrote at his behest, but simply because, if I have to accept a bill which I cannot meet myself I must, if unforeseen circumstances are to be precluded and the worst comes to the worst, at least possess a personal written undertaking from the man who can and is to send me this remittance.'
I thereupon wrote the baron, who is now in Zurich (has left Wildbad) and 'may' be going on to Italy in a few days' time, a very ironical letter,d telling him that I would forthwith request you to send the bond to me. This I now do.
Yesterday Borkheim read me his letter to you.[4]''[5] I'd be very glad if you would write to him privately saying he should do everything possible to obtain the money for me, since I am (and this is true) in dire need, while Lassalle's return will be delayed by his adventures abroad.
(By the by, I wrote and told Izzyc that, on receipt of your bond, he should write to 'Meyer' Brothers in Berlin, who have the bill, 20 1862
saying he will accept it on his return — if, that is, he's not going to be long enough in any one place for the bill to be sent on for his acceptance.)
Say what you will, DEAR BOY, it really is embarrassing to have to BOFHKR you as I do with my misèresl If only I knew how to start some sort of BUSINESS! All theory, dear friend, is grey, and only BUSINESS green.'[1] Unfortunately, I have come to realise this too late.
With the £ 2 0 advanced by Borkheim, I first of all paid the rates, then the shoemaker who was proposing to sue me, etc. I used £ 5 to send my FAMILY to Ramsgate yesterday, since little Jenny could not remain here any longer. I cannot thank you enough for having made this possible. She's the most perfect and gifted child in the world. But here she had to suffer twice over. Firstly from physical causes. And then she was afflicted by our pecuniary TROUBLE. How glad I was today that my wife and children were away and were thus spared the sight of Izzy's letter!
Can't you come down for a few days? In my critique I have demolished so much of the old stuff that there are a number of points I should like to consult you about before I proceed."" Discussing these matters in writing is tedious both for you and for me.
One point about which you, as a practical man, must have the answer, is this. Let us assume that a firm's machinery at the outset=£12,000. It wears out ON AN AVERAGE in 12 years. If then £1,000 is added to the value of the goods every year, the cost of the machinery will have been paid off in 12 years. Thus far, A. Smith and all his successors. But, IN FACT, this is only an AVERAGE CALCULATION. Much the same applies to machinery having a life of 12 years as, say, to a horse with a life — or useful life — of 10 years. Although it would have to be replaced with a new horse after 10 years, it would in practice be wrong to say that l/]H of it died every year. Rather, in a letter to FACTORY INSPECTORS,[1]' Mr Nasmyth observes that machinery (at least some types of machinery) RUNS BETTER in the second year THAN IN THE FIRST. A T ALL EVENTS, in the course of those 12 years does not {/V2 of the machinery have to be replaced in natura' each year? Now, what becomes of this fund, which yearly replaces Via of the machinery? Is it not, in fact, an accumulation fund to extend reproduction aside from any
244. Engels to Marx. 21 August
CONVERSION OF REVENUE INTO CAPITAL? 4ab Does not the existence of this fund partly account for the very different rate at which capital accumulates in nations with advanced capitalist production and hence a great deal of capital fixe, and those where this is not the case?
Piles or no piles, you might at least let me have a brief answer to this.
As for the Rüstow-Lassalle plana your comments would be of value to me because of Bucher.b
Salut.
Your
K. M.
244
ENGELS TO MARX
IN L O N D O N
[Manchester, 21 August 1862]
Dear Moor,
The enclosed note for Lassalle.c Don't get so worked up about these asininities. Just see that the bill comes back, and send it to Lassalle for acceptance; or have this done direct from Berlin. You must realise that I can no more prevail on Borkheim than you can — probably less. I know he likes to show off.
In great haste.
Your
F. E.
246. Engels to Marx. Beginning of September
245. Engels to Ferdinand Lassalle. 21 August[237]
Dear Lassalle,
As requested by you, I hereby confirm (indeed this goes without saying) that, 8 days before due date, I shall send you in Berlin the covering amount in respect of the bill I drew on you for 400 talers maturing 13 November 1862, and, if you will let me know at which banker's this sum is to be paid in, I shall see that it is paid in there by 5 November.
With most cordial regards,
Your
F. Engels
246
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
[Manchester, beginning of September 1862]
Dear Moor,
I am up to my eyes in the cotton racket, which has assumed colossal proportions[385]—those with courage are making a lot of money; but Ermen & Engels, alas, have no courage — it is putting me to a hell of a lot of work. I shall write to you as soon as I possibly can. p [7] Your
F. E.
247. Engels to Marx. 9 September
247
ENGELS TO MARX[249]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 9 September 1862
Dear Moor,
You have no idea how I've had to buckle to during the past few days. Cotton, blast it, has risen fivefold on average, and you really wouldn't believe how much work is involved in keeping all the customers informed of these successive increases.
I trust the Lassalliad over that wretched bill has been cleared up and that you're in possession of the money. I've at last reached a point at which I can go to Germany for a fortnight, leaving on Friday[4]"; unfortunately, I won't be able to stop in London as the time at my disposal is very short and everything I've heard about that idiotic exhibition[344] has made me hate it so much that I'm downright glad I shan't be seeing it. But drop me another line to say how things went with the bill and how little Jenny is getting on — before I leave.
What with the cotton pother, the theory of rentb has really proved too abstract for me. I shall have to consider the thing when I eventually get a little more peace and quiet. Likewise the question of wear and tear[1]' where, however, I rather suspect you have gone off the rails. Depreciation time is not, of course, the same for all machines. But more about this when I get back.
Individual chaps up here have made a hell of a lot of money during this rise. None of it will stick to ourselves, partly because the good Gottfried' is indeed a breech-wetter and partly because spinners in general haven't made a sou during this period. It's all gone into the pockets of the commission houses.
The Bull Run affair No. II was a splendid little show by S ro\h\vAi i. Jackson who is by far the best chap America has. Had he been supported on his front by an attack on the part of the main Confederate army, and had everything gone right (or only partially so), then Monsieur Pope would doubtless have been done for.4,s But as it was, the affair came to nothing, save that the Confederates gained an important moral advantage — respect for their spirit of enterprise and for Jackson — and a few square miles
248. Marx to Engels. 10 September
of ground; on the other hand, however, they have speeded up the unification and concentration of the entire Federal army before Washington. The next STEAMER will most probably bring us news of fresh engagements, in which the Federals might well be victorious if their generals weren't so bloody stupid. But what can you expect of such rapscallions! Pope is the lousiest of the lot; all he can do is brag, countermand, lie, and keep quiet about his reverses. Indeed, that know-all of the General Staff, McClellan, now strikes one yet again as being positively intelligent. What is more, the order that all future major-generals are to sit the exam for the Prussian ensign's sword-knot.[459] It's too pitiful and, in contrast to the spineless goings-on in the North, the chaps in the South, who,' at least, know what they want, seem to me like heroes. Or do you still believe that the gentlemen of the North will suppress the
'REBELLION'? Adieu!
Your
F. E.
248
MARX TO ENGELS[249]
IN MANCHESTER
London, 10 September [1862]
Dear Engels,
My FAMILY has got back from Ramsgate; little Jenny is very much better.
Lassalle's letter, containing a letter for Meyer Brothers with whom the bill is lodged in Berlin, and also his acceptance, didn't arrive till yesterday. In the meantime, Borkheim had already gone away on holiday. Up till now he has paid £40 in driblets, the last 15 of the 40 thirteen days ago, when I was leaving?[60] For I wanted to pester my uncle." But he, too, was travelling on the Continent.
10 1862
From there (passant par COLOGNE., etc.) I went to Trier to see my mater — fruitlessly, however, as I at once suspected when Monsieur l'oncle was not to be got hold of. On the 17th of this month, I have to pay a bill [of exchange] for £ 6 (six POUNDS) to my butcher, and Borkheim won't have got back by then, his intention being to spend ABOUT 4 WEEKS bustling round Switzerland, etc.
As to the YANKEES,[312] I am firmly of the opinion, now as before, that the North will win in the end"; true, the Civil War may pass through all kinds of episodes, perhaps even ceasefires, and be long-drawn-out. T h e South would or could conclude peace only on condition that it gained possession of the BORDER SLAVE STATES.'' In that case, California would also fall to it, the North-West would follow suit and the entire Federation, with the exception, perhaps, of the NEW ENGLAND STATES,[44]" would again form one country, this time under the ACKNOWLEDGED SUPREMACY OF THE SLAVEHOLDERS. It would be the reconstruction of the UNITED STATES on the basis demanded by the South. But that is impossible and won't happen.
T h e North, for its part, can conclude peace only if the CONFEDERACY is restricted to the old slave states, and then only to those bounded by the Mississippi RIVER and the ATLANTIC. In which case the CONFEDERACY would soon come to a happy end. In the intervening period, ceasefires, etc., on the basis of a status quo could at most occasion pauses in the course of the war.
T h e way in which the North \s waging the war is none other than might be expected of a bourgeois republic, where humbug has reigned supreme for so long. T h e South, an oligarchy, is better suited to the purpose, especially an oligarchy where all productive labour devolves on the NIGGERS and where the 4 million 'WHITE TRASH'[418] are flibustiers^ by calling. For all that, I'm prepared to bet my life on it that these fellows will come off worst, 'STONEWALL Jackson' notwithstanding. It is, of course, possible that some sort of revolution will occur beforehand in the North itself.
Willich is a brigadier-general and Stephens,'1 or so Kapp told me in Cologne, is also said to be on his way to the wars now.
It strikes me that you allow yourself to be influenced by the military ASPECT of things A LITTLE TOO MUCH.
As to the economic stuff, I don't propose to burden you with it on your journev.''
Salut. ,, Your
K. M.
249. Marx to Wilhelm Wolff. 4 October
You might perhaps write and tell me where and when you will be passing through London on your journey. If at all feasible, I shall come and meet you.
It is possible (even though all manner of things still stand in the way) that I shall enter an English railway office at the beginning of next year.[3]
WHAT ABOUT Garibaldi? 4 h l
249
MARX T O W I L H E L M WOLFF
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 4 October 1862
Dear Lupus,
You will have received the Barmer Zeitung, misprints and all.[41]'[2]
The enclosed cutting from the Elberfelder Zeitung was sent me by Siebel, with a note to the effect that the article from the Banner was in fact reprinted by the Niederrheinische,h ditto by the Märkische Volks-Zeitung (the latter is published in Hagen). Is Engels back? [457]
Salut.
Your
K. M.
250. Engels to Marx. 16 October
250
ENGELS TO MARX[249]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 16 October 1862
Dear Moor,
Every single day throughout the whole of last week and this, I was all-set to write to you, but was prevented from doing so by the confounded COTTON business. Ces messieurs" had, of course, done as little work as possible while I was away,[457] so that my hands have been completely full.
Lupus asked me to tell you that he got the things all right.h The case is a most amusing one. Those poor, mendacious Prussians! They invariably make fools of themselves the moment they commit something to paper!
I presume you got the £10 note I sent you on the day of my departure? Again I got stuck in Barmen and Engelskirchen for too long, having spent a whole fortnight sauntering along the Moselle, the Rhine, and in Thuringia. I went straight to Trier via Brussels and Luxemburg, and then on foot to Kochern, etc., giving Cologne a complete miss.
Bismarck's appointment was hailed by the bourgeois with peals of laughter.4M The chaps were altogether amazingly confident and in a somewhat daredevil mood. They have at last hooked the worthy William with a financial question and know he's bound to give way to them in the long run; but they take a remarkably idyllic view of the course of events and imagine that, provided they just keep the fellow dangling for a while, he'll come to them of his own accord. They're in for a surprise. At all events, things are bound to come to a head some time in the spring. It's killing, by the by, to see what an inspiring effect a financial question of this kind has on the philistines. Schulze-Delitzsch and co. become positively witty, the only man to remain 'sherioush'r being Virchow; but nay, he is not alone — Heinrich Bürgers, too, conducts himself with fitting dignity in Weimar, where he sounds the trumpet on behalf of the Imperial Constitution of the year dot.[464] I .must say that Schulze-Delitzsch, the little provident society
251. Marx to Engels. 29 October
man who has never been, nor asked to be, more than a wretched philistine, seems to me positively respectable by comparison with scoundrels such as Bürgers and the great Miquel, who are saving the fatherland in Weimar through Prussian supremacy.[465]
I now understand about Kinkel, too. He's a complete caricature of a certain upholsterer in Coblenz who is, in his own way, a unique example of a Rhinelander, with all the prejudices and narrow-mindedness of a race that curses the Prussians, loathes the French, sympathises with Austria, is Catholic and democratic in one and the same breath, but excels at putting its best foot forward. I know because we marched over the Kochemer Berg together. If Kinkel were to see this lad, whom his physical appearance apes iri every particular, the shock would knock him over backwards.
What do you make of America? The financial CRASH, inevitable in view of these stupid paper money measures, would seem to be imminent.[422] Militarily speaking, the North may now perhaps begin to recover a bit.
What is little Jenny doing? Many regards to your wife and the girls.
Your
F. E.
251
MARX TO ENGELS[369]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 29 October 1862 Dear Engels,
It isn't right that, during your HOLYDAYS, you should never have time to spend so much as one day in London.
Since going to the seaside, little Jenny has been much better, but she's still not her proper self. For a year she's been losing weight instead of putting it on.
Lassalle, who is exceedingly incensed with me, tells me that, since he has not got a banker, the remittance should be sent to 29 1862
him personally at his Berlin address, 13 Bellevuestrasse. This month, he is being taken to court on account of one of his famous speeches.[46]"
Schily was here for a week, looking very wretched and ill, whereas his friend Imandt, who was also here before I left for Holland and Trier, [4]'* has grown frightfully obese. It's almost as though a second back had formed on top of his old one.
As regards America, I believe the Maryland campaign [4 6 7] to be decisive in as much as it has shown that even in this most Southern-minded part of the BORDER STATES[11] there is little support for the CONFEDERATES. But the whole struggle revolves round the BORDER STATES. Whoever has those, will dominate the UMCN. T h e fact that Lincoln promulgated the PROSPECTIVE emancipation decree at a time when the CONFEDERATES were advancing into Kentucky also shows that no further consideration is now being shown the LOYAL SLAVE HOLDERS in the BORDER sIAIES.468 The southward migration of slave holders with their BLACK CHATTEL from Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee has already assumed vast proportions and if, as is certain, the struggle goes on a bit longer, the South will have lost all support there. It was the South that began the struggle for the territories.[440] T h e war itself has been instrumental in destroying its power in the BORDER SLATES, which, in the absence of any market for the BREEDING OF SLAVES or the INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE, have been daily loosening their ties with the South anyhow. In my opinion, therefore, the sole concern of the South will now be defence. But its only chance of success lay in an offensive. If there is confirmation of the news that Hooker is to be given active command of the Potomac Army, McClellan to be 'withdrawn' to the 'theoretical' post of COMMANDER IN CHIEF and Halleck to assume supreme command in the West, the conduct of the war in Virginia might take on a more energetic character. Moreover, the most favourable time of year for the CONFEDERATES is now GONE.
From the point of view of morale, the failure of the Maryland campaign was of really tremendous importance.
As regards finance, the UNI FED STATES know from the time of the War of Independence, as we know from our observation of Austria, how far one may go with depreciated paper money.[469]
The fact remains that the Yankees have never exported so much grain to England as this year, that the present harvest is again far above AVEGARE and that the balance of trade has never been so favourable for them as during the past 2 years. As soon as the new
See this volume, p. 277.
system of taxation (vapid though it is, and truly Pitt-like[400]) is introduced, there will, at last, be a REII.UX of paper money, of which there has hitherto only been a steady issue. This will render unnecessary any increase in the issue of paper on the present scale, and further depreciation will thus be CHECKED. What has made even the depreciation prevailing up till now less dangerous than it would have been in similar circumstances in France, or even England, is the fact that the Yankees have never prohibited the existence of two prices, a GOLD PRICE and a PAPER PRICE. The inherent disadvantage of the thing takes the form of a national debt, for which there has never been the appropriate funding, and
[470] a PREMIUM FOR JOBBING AND SPECULATION. When the English boast that their depreciation never exceeded 11 Va p.c. (according to others it amounted to more than twice that figure DURING SOME TIME), they choose to forget that they not only continued to pay the old taxes, but every year they paid new ones in addition to the old, so that the REFLUX of bank notes was assured in advance, whereas the Yankees have in effect conducted the war for IV2 years without taxation (except for the greatly reduced import duties) simply by means of repeated issues of paper. Such procedure, which has now reached a turning-point, means that the depreciation is, in fact, still relatively modest.
The fury with which the Southerners are greeting Lincoln's acts is proof of the importance of these measures.[4]'[1] Lincoln's acts all have the appearance of inflexible, clause-ridden conditions communicated by a lawyer to his opposite number. This does not, however, impair their historical import and does, in actual fact, amuse me when, on the other hand, I consider the drapery in which your FRENCHMAN enwraps the merest trifle.
Like others, I am of course aware of the distasteful form assumed by the movement chez the Yankees; but, having regard to the nature of a 'bourgeois' democracy, I find this explicable. Nevertheless, events over there are such as to transform the world, and nothing in the whole of history is more nauseous than the attitude adopted towards them by the English.
Regards to Lupus. Salut.
Your
K. M. £10 safely received.
252. Marx to Engels. 4 November
253. Engels to Marx. 5 November
252
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 4 November 1862
Dear Engels,
I have just been to see Freiligrath. He will send the 400 talers to Lassalle. You are to send him £60, and he will then advise you of the rate of exchange, etc.
As to the renewal, there is no difficulty. You can draw for £45 or ANY SUM LESS THAN £60 and send me the bill so that Lassalle can endorse it. Once that is done, it is discountable over here. You can made it payable at 3 months. For the renewal, however, Lassalle's endorsement will be needed and hence cannot be obtained in respect of the present payment. Lassalle himself is awaiting this renewal, having had my letter.[42] Write and let me know at once what is to be done.
Your
K. M.
253
ENGELS TO MARX[369]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 5 November 1862
Dear Moor,
The £60 will go off to Freiligrath tomorrow. I can't say what is to be done about renewing the bill until I know whether the bill will be discountable for certain as soon as Lassalle accepts it, and who will attend to the discounting. On the one hand, it would serve no purpose to worry Lassalle unduly with bills that would not bring you in money immediately, and, on the other, it could hardly be much use to me if Borkheim (to whom the same CONSIDERATIONS apply) sent me the money merely in small DRIBLETS. Then there are the expenses.
Quant à l'Amérique," I, too, of course, believe that the Confederates in Maryland have suffered an unexpected and very significant blow to their morale.b I am also convinced that the definitive possession of the BORDER SEMES will decide the outcome of the war.' However, I am by no means certain that the affair will develop in as classical a form as you seem to imagine. In spite of all the hullabaloo raised by the Yankees, there is still no sign whatsoever that the people regard the business as being truly a question of their national existence. On the contrary, the successes of the Democrats at the polls prove that the party that is weary of war is growing.[472] If only there were some evidence, some indication, that the masses in the North were beginning to act as in France in 1792 and 1793, everything would be splendid. But the only revolution to be anticipated seems more likely to be a democratic counter-revolution and a hollow peace, which will also divide up the BORDER STATES. That this would not settle the affair by a long chalk — GRANTED. But it might do so temporarily. I must confess I feel no enthusiasm for a people who, faced with an issue as colossal as this, allow themselves to be beaten again and again by a force numbering V4 of their own population and who, after 18 months of war, have gained nothing save the discovery that all their generals are jackasses and the.ir functionaries, crooks and traitors. Things must assuredly take a different course, even in a bourgeois republic, if it is not to be landed completely in the soup. What you say about the iniquitous way the English view the affair corresponds entirely to my own opinion.
The DISTRESS up here is gradually becoming acute. Gumpert tells me that the more serious cases of illness in his hospital are all characteristic of typhoid and that cases of tuberculosis, whose origin can be traced back to the last 8 or 9 months, are rapidly increasing. I imagine that by next month the working people themselves will have had enough of sitting about with a look of passive misery on their faces.
Kind regards.
Your
F. E.
As for America - b See this volume, p. 4'20. - ' ibid., p. 277.
254. Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 7 November
A German businessman from Copenhagen, an ex-democrat of 48, called on Freiligrath and, in consequence of a discussion about Schleswig-Holstein, was referred by the latter to Blind." I told the man that Blind was an old chatterbox.
254
MARX TO FERDINAND LASSALLE[239]
IN BERLIN
London, 7 November 1862 9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill
Dear Lassalle,
Freiligrath is sending you £60 today, this being the covering amount for the bill. The renewal of the same, about which I advised you when the operation began, will be effected only in so far as Borkheim is in receipt of a bill on you from me at 2 months after date (dated 6th November, hence payable about 9 January 1863) for the sum of 100 talers, or £15.
From the few lines you wrote me from time to time, I can see that your rancour persists, as, no doubt, the form of the letters was intended to indicate.
The long and the short of it is that you are both in the right and in the wrong. You ask me to send you a copy of the letter you wrote from Baden.b For what purpose? So that you could ascertain whether your letter mightn't actually have provided a pretext for-the one I wrote to Zurich?c Granting you all your POWER OF ANALYSIS, can you, with your eyes, detect what was read by my eyes and, more particularly, can you deduce therefrom the conditions under which my eyes were reading? In order to prove to me that I had misread your words, you would have to equate first the readers and then the circumstances of the readers, an equation you would again tackle as Lassalle under Lassallean conditions and not as Marx under Marxian conditions. Hence nothing could come of it but fuel for fresh controversy. How little the POWER OF ANALYSIS helps in such transactions is evident to me from your letter. For you ascribe to me something I didn't mean. Whatever the circumstances, I myself must be the best judge of the latter. The wording of the letter may support your view, but, as to the meaning that lay behind the words, I myself am, de prime abord," better informed than you. You hadn't so much as an inkling of what had got my back up, namely the impression gained from reading your letter (wrongly, as I now discover on re-reading it in a more serene frame of mind) that you doubted whether I was acting with Engels' consent. I concede that I made no mention of this in my letter and that, leaving the personal relationship aside and simply having regard to our business relationship, it was an absurd supposition. STILL, IT APPEARED SO TO ME AT THE MOMENT I WROTE TO YOU. I further concede that this, my real grievance, was not expressed, perhaps not even hinted at, in my letter; rather, the ISSUE has been ON A FALSE POINT. Such is the sophistry of all passion.
So, anyhow, you are in the wrong because of the way you interpreted my letter; I am in the wrong because I wrote it and supplied the materia peccans.(1)
Is there to be an outright split between us because of this? I believe that the substance of our friendship is strong enough to withstand the SHOCK. I confess to you, sans phrase,b that I, as a man on a powder barrel, permitted myself to be swayed by circumstances in a manner unbecoming to an animal rationale. But, at all events, it would be ungenerous of you, as a jurist and prosecutor, to hold against me a status animic in which I would have liked nothing better than to blow my brains out.
So, I trust that, 'despite everything',d our old relationship will continue untroubled.
Since that time I have been on the Continent, in Holland, Trier, etc., in order to arrange my affairs.[460] J'ai abouti à rien.e
I had intended to send you the Röscher,(2) but discovered that the cost of sending it would be 10/-, the price, if not the actual value, of the Roscher. However, I hope to find an opportunity soon.
255. Marx to Engels. 9 November
My cousin in Amsterdam" writes to say that, at his suggestion, your book (1) will be discussed at length in the Amsterdam legal journal by their most learned jurist.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
I have been prevented from doing any work at all on my book[31]" for some 6 weeks and am now going ahead, but only with interruptions. However, it will assuredly be brought to a conclusion BY AND BY.
255
MARX TO BN GELS
IN MANCHESTER In haste
London, 9 November [1862]
Dear Engels,
Three of Eccarius' children have died in rapid succession from scarlatina. In addition, his utter poverty. Raise a small sum among your acquaintances and send it to him at 22 Denmark Street, OPPOSITE St. Giles Church.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
256. Marx to Engels. 14 November
257. Engels to Marx. 15 November
256
MARX TO ENGELS[239]
IN MANCHESTER
[London, 14 November 1862]
Dear Engels,
Since you have just sent money to Eccarius and, on top of that, paid out the large sum for Lassalle's bill,3 you will, of course, be very 'blanc'!' Nevertheless, I must ask you to send me a small sum by Monday,12 for I have to buy coal and 'victuals', which, SINCE the épicierd has been refusing me credit for the past 3 weeks, I must, nevertheless, buy from him cash down until the swine has been paid off, otherwise I shall be prosecuted.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
257
ENGELS TO MARX[249]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 15 November 1862
Dear Moor,
You're right, I am very broke and, like the Prussian government, intensely preoccupied with 'saving'. In the hope that, by leading a domesticated life in Hyde Road,[386] I shall be able to make good the deficiency, I enclose herewith a five-pound note, O/L 28076, Manchester, 28 Jan. '62. At the same time, I am sending you a hamper of wine per Chaplin and Home, containing about one dozen claret and 2 bottles of old 1846 hock for little Jenny, the rest being made up of 1857 hock. 24 bottles in all.
I am impatiently awaiting the STEAMER that will bring us news of the New York elections. If the Democrats win in New York State, I shan't know what to make of the Yankees any more.[473] That a people placed in a great historical dilemma,and one, in which its very existence is at stake to boot, should turn reactionary en masse and vote for abject surrender after 18 months' fighting, is really beyond my comprehension. Desirable though it may be, on the one hand, that the bourgeois republic should be utterly discredited in America too, so that in future it may never again be preached ON ITS OWN MERirs,but only as a means towards,and a form of transition to, social revolution, it is, nevertheless, annoying that a rotten oligarchy, with a population only half as large, should evince such strength as the great fat, helpless democracy. Should the Democrats win, by the way, it will give the worthy McClellan and the WESTPOINTERS [474] a fine advantage and the show will soon be over. The fellows are capable of concluding peace, should the South agree to rejoin the Union ON CONDITION that the President shall always be a SOUTHERNER and Congress always consist of an equal number of SOUTHERNERS and NORTHERNERS. They are even capable of immediately proclaiming Jefferson Davis President of the UNITED STATES and actually surrendering all the BORDER STATES, if peace is not to be had otherwise. Then it's goodbye to America.
Besides, the only apparent effect of Lincoln's emancipation 4b8 so far is that the North-West has voted Democrat for fear of being overrun by Negroes.
To descend from the sublime to the ridiculous, what do you think of worthy William?[3] At last the fellow is himself again; he has expiated his liberal sins and said 'mater peccavi'b to the crippled Elizabeth/ In return for this, the Lord has endowed him with strength wherewith to smite the scrofulous mob of liberals[475] and for that, says William, 'for that I need the military'. So rabid is the fellow that even Bismarck is no longer reactionary enough for him. That you're a fool, Schapper, we know and you yourself know, but that you are such a fool, etc., etc. Things are going swimmingly, and what could be better than that, 14 years after 1848, the liberal bourgeoisie should have been landed in the most extreme revolutionary dilemma, and all because of a miserable 6 million talers, or about £850,000 sterling? If only the old jackass
258. Marx to Engels. 17 November
doesn't let up again. True, he's fairly going it now, but these Prussians can't be relied on, not even for their stupidity. If things go on as they are, a set-to is absolutely inevitable and, when it really comes to the point, William will be amazed to see just how the 'military' join in,—the common soldiers, that is, who won't thank him for having to fight for a 3 rather than a 2 year spell of service.
My warm regards to your wife and the girls.
Your
F. E.
Apropos. Will you send me the 4 last Free Presses? I can never get them here unless I fetch thfem on the proper day which I invariably forget to do.
258
MARX TO ENGELS[249]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 17 November [1862]
Dear Engels,
Best thanks for the £5. It seems to me that you take too one-sided a view of the American fracas.[3] At the AMERICAN COFFEEHOUSE I have looked through a lot of Southern PAPERS and from them it is plain that the Confederacy is in a very tight corner. The English papers suppressed information on the battle of 'Corinth'.[476] The Southern papers depict it as the most exceptional stroke of ill-luck to have befallen them since the call to arms. The State of Georgia has declared the CONFEDERATE 'conscription bill' to be null and void. Virginia, in the person of Floyd THE THIEF, has contested the right of 'Jefferson Davis's creatures' (sic) to continue raising men in that State. Oldham, who represents Texas in the Richmond Congress, 17 1862
has formally protested against the transport to the East, i.e., Virginia, of the South-West's 'crack troops'. From all these DISPUTES two things undeniably emerge:
That the CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT has overreached itself in its frantic efforts to fill the ranks of the army;
that the STATES are asserting 'STATE RIGHTS' vis-à-vis the Confederacy[4]'[7] just as the latter made a PRETEXT of them vis-à-vis the Union.
I consider the victories scored by the Democrats in the North[478]
to be a reaction and one which was made all the easier for that conservative and BLACKLEG element by the poor manner in which the Federal Government waged the war and by its FINANCIAL BLUNDERS. For that matter, it's the sort of reaction that occurs in every revolutionary movement and that was so strong at the time of the National Convention, for instance, that the proposal to submit the King's* death to suffrage universel was considered counter-revolutionary, and so strong under the Directory that Mr Bonaparte I had to bombard Paris.[4]'[9]
On the other hand, elections prior to 4 Dec. 1864 will not affect the composition of Congress; hence, they will merely act as a spur to the Republican government, over whose head a sword is hanging. And, in any case, the Republican House of Representatives will make better use of its term of office, if only out of hatred for the opposing party.[480]
As TO McClellan, in his own army he's got Hooker and other Republicans, who would arrest him any day if ordered to do so by the government.
Add to that the French attempt at intervention[481] which will evoke a reaction against the reaction.
So things are not, I think, too bad. Rather, what might possibly do damage to my \iews is the sheeplike attitude of the working men in Lancashire. SUCH A THING HAS NEVER BEEN HEARD OF IN THE WORLD. The more so since those scoundrels of manufacturers themselves don't even pretend to be 'making sacrifices', but are content to leave to the rest of England the honour of keeping their army on its feet — i.e., let the rest of England bear the cost of maintaining their variable capital.
Of late, England has made more of an ass of itself than ANY OTHER COUNTRY, the working men by their servile Christian nature, the bourgeois and aristocrats by the enthusiasm they have shown for slavery IN ITS MOST DIRECT FORM. But the two manifestations are complementary.
259. Marx to Engels. 20 November
As TO OUR 'handsome William',a the chap is IN FACT delectable. Bismarck's government, by the by, is nothing more nor less than the Little German progressists' pious wish come true.[482] They used to rave about the 'man of progress', Louis Bonaparte. Now they see what having a 'Bonapartist' government in Prussia means. After all, Bismarck was in a sense appointed by Bonaparte (and Russia).
I shall look out the Presses for you. Salut (also to the ladies).
Your
K. M.
259
MARX T O ENGELS [2 4 9]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 20 November 1862
Dear Engels,
I acknowledge, with many thanks and in great haste, receipt of the first half of the ten-pound note.
If only the Mexicans (les derniers des hommes!)h were once more to beat the crapauds,[483] but even in Paris these particular swine — the allegedly radical bourgeois — are now talking of 'l'honneur du drapeau'.c
Unless Spence prevails over the NORTHERNERS, nothing will do any good, not even McClellan's BAD GENERALSHIP.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
260. Marx to Ferdinand Freiligrath. 15 December
260
MARX TO FERDINAND FREILIGRATH[484]
IN LONDON
[London,] 15 December 1862 Dear Freiligrath,
The £5 returned herewith 'by hand' with my best thanks. You will excuse its arriving 5 days late. The family in Trier was so taken aback by the sudden and unexpected death of my brother-in-law, R. Schmalhausen, that there was some delay over sending me the money.
I have been spending a few days in Liverpool and Manchester,[4] 5 t h o s e CENTRES Of COTTONOCRACY AND PRO-SLAVERY ENTHUSIASM. A M O N G
THE GREAT BULK OF THE MIDDLE-CLASSES AND THE ARISTOCRACY OF THOSE TOWNS YOU
MAY OBSERVE THE GREATEST ECLIPSUS OF THE HUMAN MIND EVER CHRONICLED IN THE
HISTORY OF MODERN TIMES.
I shall drop in at your OFFICE for a couple of minutes one of these days, since I also have some LITERARY BUSINESS to talk over with you.
One of these days, I shall reply to 'les paroles d'un croyant'.3496
Kindest regards from my family to yours.
Your
K. M.
Russian) first time
261. Marx to Engels. 24 December[239]
Since leaving you,[485] I have had A MOST EVENTFUL TIME OF IT. On Monday,[1]' there were the Manichaeans[487] who, however, did not all come by appointment. I shared out £15 among them. I
a words of a believer - b 22 December gave the worst one a bill for £12 at 6 weeks' sight (actually 7, since 1 dated it from the end of this year), trusting to a CHAPTER OF
ACCIDENTS.
On Wednesday" my wife left for Paris. She returned last night. Everything would have been AI.I RIGHT if, just before she got there, Abarbanel had not been paralysed by a stroke, which left him helpless and confined to bed, although mentally unaffected. All in all, the series of mishaps that befell her was tragi-comical. First, a great storm at sea' her boat got through, another in her immediate vicinity (she travelled via Boulogne) went down. Abarbanel lives outside Paris. My wife went to see him by rail. Something happened to the engine which meant 2 hours delay in the journey. Later, an omnibus in which she was 'ravelling overturned. And yesterday the wheels of the CAB she had taken in London became entangled with those of another. She got out and arrived here per pedes!' accompanied by 2 boys carrying her luggage. One thing, by the by, was achieved in Paris, where she sow Massol, etc.' As soon as my work[310] comes out, it will be published in French.
But now for the worst piece of ill-luck. Marianne (Lenchen's sister'[1]), whom Allen treated fo~ a heart complaint a year ago, began to feel unwell on the day my wife left. By Tuesday evening, 2 hours before my wife's return, she was dead. During those seven days I, together with Lenchen, was responsible for the nursing. Allen HAD MISGIVINGS FROM THE FIRST DAY. The funeral is at 2 o'clock on Saturday,'' when I shall have to pay the UNDERTAKER £7 10/- in cash. So, this must be got hold of. A fine Christmas show for the poor children.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
•' 17 December - b on foot - ' See this volume, p. 439. - d Helene Demuth's step-sister Anna Maria Creuz - e 27 December
262. Engels to Marx. 26 December
262
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Manchester, 26 December 1862
Dear Moor,
Lupus gave me your letter[42] yesterday and I send herewith O/I 85335, Manchester, 28 Jan. 1862 £5, Bank of England, M. 97. £5 note- of the Boston* Bank, payable at Masterman's in London. Unfortunately, old Hill hasn't got £10 in Bank of England notes, but the other one is also CASH.
The events that took place at your house and during your wife's trip are surprising indeed and, what is more significant, quite exceptionally unlucky. But, in any case, it's excellent news that you should have some prospect of publication in France. How is THIS TO BE MANAGED? And have you heard from Brockhaus?(1)
I fear the good Burnside will get a drubbing on the Rappahannock.b He must have a particular proclivity for it, since he seems incapable of deciding to risk more than 40,000 men at one go. I'm surprised, by the way, that the CONFEDERATES should fight there, instead of falling back slowly on Richmond and fighting there; this may yet happen.
Many regards,
Your
F. E.
263. Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 28 December
263
MARX TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN[488]
IN HANOVER
London, 28 December 1862 9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, H aver stock Hill
Dear Sir,
A while ago, Freiligrath showed me a letter he had received from you.[486] I would have written sooner had not a series of accidents that befell my family rendered me incapable of writing for SOME TIME. I was delighted to see from your letter how warm an interest is taken by you and your friends in my critique of political economy. The second part has now at last been finished, i.e. save for the fair copy and the final polishing before it goes to press.[310] There will be about 30 sheets of print. It is a sequel to Part I," but will appear on its own under the title Capital, with A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy as merely the subtitle. In fact, all it comprises is what was to make the third chapter of the first part, namely 'Capital in General'.[35] Hence it includes neither the competition between capitals nor the credit system. What Englishmen call 'THE PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY' is contained in this volume. It is the quintessence (together with the first part), and the development of the sequel (with the exception, perhaps, of the relationship between the various forms of state and the various economic structures of society) could easily be pursued by others on the basis thus provided.
The reasons for the long delay are as follows. In the first place, a great deal of my time in 1860 was taken up with the Vogt rumpus, since I had a lot of research to do on material which was in itself of little interest, besides engaging in lawsuits, etc. In 1861, I lost my chief source of income, the New-York Tribune, as a result of the American Civil War. My contributions to that paper have remained in abeyance up till the present. Thus, I have been, and still am, forced to undertake a large amount of hackwork to prevent myself and my family from actually being relegated to the streets. I had even decided to become a 'practical man' and had intended to enter a railway OFFICE at the beginning of next year. Luckily — or perhaps I should say unluckily?—I did not get the post because of my bad handwriting. So, you will see that I had little time left and few quiet moments for theoretical work. It seems probable that the same circumstances will delay my finishing the book for the printers for longer than I should have wished.
As regards publishers, on no account shall I give the second volume to Mr Duncker. He was sent the manuscript for Part I in December 1858, and it came out in July or August 1859. There is some, but not a very promising, prospect of Brockhaus publishing the thing. The conspiration de silence with which I am honoured by the German literary rabble as soon as the latter finds out that the thing can't be dismissed with insults is, quite apart from the tendency of my works, unfavourable from the point of view of sales. As soon as I have a fair copy of the manuscript (upon which I shall make a start in January 1863), I shall bring it to Germany myself, it being easier to deal with publishers on a personal basis.
There is every prospect that, as soon as the German edition appears, arrangements will be made in Paris for a French version. I have absolutely no time to put it into French myself, particularly since I am going either to write the sequel in German, i.e. to conclude the presentation of capital, competition and credit, or condense the first two books for English consumption into one work. I do not think we can count on its having any effect in Germany until it has been given the seal of approval abroad. In the first part, the method of presentation was certainly far from popular. This was due partly to the abstract nature of the subject, the limited space at my disposal, and the aim of the work. The present part is easier to understand because it deals with more concrete conditions. Scientific attempts to revolutionise a science can never be really popular. But, once the scientific foundations are laid, popularisation is easy. Again, should times become more turbulent, one might be able to select the colours and nuances demanded by a popular presentation of these particular subjects. On the other hand, I had certainly expected that, if only for the sake of appearances, German specialists would not have ignored my work so completely. Besides, I had the far from gratifying experience of seeing party friends in Germany, who had long interested themselves in this branch of knowledge and sent me gushing encomia on Part I in private, not lift a finger towards getting a critique or even a list of the contents into such journals
264. Engels to Marx. 30 December
as were accessible to them. If these be party tactics, then I must confess that they are an impenetrable mystery to me.
I should be most grateful if you could write to me occasionally about the situation at home. We are obviously heading for revolution — something I have never once doubted since 1850. The first act will include a by no means gratifying rehash of the stupidities of '48-'49. However, that's how world history runs its course, and one has to take it as one finds it.
With best wishes for the New Year,
Your
K. Marx
264
ENGELS TO MARX[249]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 30 December 1862 252 Hyde Road
Dear Moor,
On Friday I sent you a registered letter containing 10 pounds, £5 in a Bank of England note and £5 in a COUNTRY NOTE of the Boston Bank payable at Masterman & Co., BANKERS, London.(1)
Having heard nothing from you since, I feel a little uneasy.
Burnside's defeat is being abominably exaggerated.[489] Clearly it must affect the army's morale, but by no means so badly as if they had been beaten in the open field. The tactical arrangements appear to have been very poor. The flank attack by the left wing would obviously have had to be developed first before the frontal attack went in under Sumner. But this was completely misman-aged. Sumner was evidently in dire trouble before Franklin even had so much as a chance of becoming properly engaged. Again, Burnside seems to have been incapable of making up his mind about his reserves. The successes on the left wing should have persuaded him to send at least part of them there, since, after all, that was evidently where the affair would have to be decided; instead he employed them on his front, and too late even there, namely, 1. as reliefs rather than reinforcements for Sumner's beaten troops, and 2. so close to nightfall that it was dark before half of them were actually engaged. This is, of course, what I have gleaned from the indifferent material in the American papers and without any knowledge of the terrain. However, it seems to me that Burnside would probably have been able to dislodge the rabble merely by means of an outflanking movement, especially since he appears to have had 150,000 men against 100,000. But he was obviously inhibited by the belief that Washington could be protected only so long as the army lay squarely between it and the enemy. However, the stupidity of allowing the Confederates a month in which to consolidate their position and then engaging them in a frontal attack admits of no criticism other than a kick in the arse.
Mary and Lizzy(2) send their regards.
Your
F. E.
186 3
265
Endnotes
[381] 81 This refers to a meeting held by the Urquhartites on 27 January 1862 in connection with the impending Anglo-French intervention against the Union in the US Civil War. Marx did not attend.—339
[382] 82 Marx probably means the lecture, he was to give in the German Workers' Educational Society in London at Weber's request, expressed in a letter of 10 December 1861, on the views of the German vulgar economist Wirth and the stand advocated by the latter's newspaper, Der Arbeitgeber, which proclaimed the community of interests of labour and capital.—339
[383] This letter was written in reply to one from Becker of 13 February 1862 requesting Marx to organise a subscription in London for the publication of Becker's book Wie und Wann and offering to translate into French a section in Marx's Herr Vogt which had evoked particular interest in Switzerland. Part of the present letter was first published in English in: Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1955.—341
[388] In October 1861 Fremont was dismissed from his post of commander of the army in Missouri for issuing a proclamation granting freedom to the slaves of rebels. For details see Marx's article 'The Dismissal of Fremont' (present edition, Vol. 19).—345
[89] Two letters of 16 October 1859 from Hermann Orges, editor of the Allgemeine Zeitung, requesting Marx to send Vögele's statement concerning the provenance of the flysheet Zur Warnung. The statement was to be used as evidence against Vogt (see present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 123-24 and 317-18, and this volume, p. 66).—53, 63, 66
[339] Gulf States—the states lying along the Gulf of Mexico (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas). They formed the core of the Secessionist Confederacy.—306, 349
[393] Britain's ruling quarters carefully concealed their pro-Southern stand during the war, since public opinion supported the Northerners. On 13 May 1861 the government made public Her Majesty's Proclamation of Neutrality which, by treating the South as a belligerent, marked the first step towards recognition of the Confederacy. It gave the rebels diplomatic, financial and military aid. In the Trent incident (see Note 375) it openly sided with the South.— 349
[256] A supreme Decree on Amnesty (Allerhöchster Gnaden-Erlaß wegen politischer Verbrechen und Vergehen) was issued in Prussia on 12 January 1861 in connection with the Coronation of King William I. See also this volume, pp. 248-49.—
[6] An ironic reference to Gottfried Kinkel, who had named the weekly he was publishing in London Hermann after Arminius (Hermann), chieftain of the old German tribe of Gheruscans.—4
[296] In September 1860, British Army Captain MacDonald, travelling in Germany, was arrested in Bonn on charges of disobeying the local authorities. He was kept in detention for six days, brought before a court and fined. The British government took advantage of the incident to whip up an anti-Prussia propaganda campaign. It was not until May 1861 that the conflict was resolved.—284, 354
[399] Marx is relating the story of the publication of Beta's (Bettziech's) laudatory article on Kinkel headed 'Ein Nichtamnestirter'. It appeared in the journal Die Gartenlaube, No. 2, 1862, pp. 21-24, and No. 3, pp. 38-41. Marx got the details from a letter by K. W. Eichhoff dated 26 April 1862.—355
[401] In October 1860 Johann Philipp Becker came to Italy with a view to raising a Swiss-German volunteer detachment to help Garibaldi. Lassalle, who was going to visit Italy, asked Marx for a letter of recommendation to Garibaldi, Mazzini or one of their associates. Marx gave him a message for Becker, which Lassalle did not use because he heard negative rumours about Becker in Italy. These were being spread by pro-Bonapartist refugees in Italy with whom Becker had refused to collaborate.— 356
[402] Marx presumably means his article 'A Traitor in Circassia' (present edition, Vol. 15) exposing the secret police agent Bangya, with whom Türr was closely associated.— 356
[4 0 3] In June and July 1849 the Baden-Palatinate revolutionary army was fighting against the Prussian forces in Baden. Becker, who commanded a corps of the people's militia, covered the retreat of the insurgents' main forces. For details see Engels' The Campaign for the German Imperial Constitution and 'Johann Philipp Becker' (present edition, vols. 10 and 27).— 356
[404] This refers to attempts by Britain's ruling classes to stage mass demonstrations, involving the working class, to influence public opinion in favour of Britain's intervention in the U S Civil War on the side of the slave states. See Marx's articles 'English Public Opinion' a n d 'A London Workers' Meeting' (present edition, Vol. 19).—358
[406] toe x h e battles mentioned by Engels were fought during the Napoleonic wars (Preussisch Eylau, 1807; Wagram, 1809; Borodino, 1812; Lützen, 1813, and Bautzen, 1813) and the Austro-Italo-French war of 1859 (Magenta and Solferino).—359
[407] 107 The data and analysis of hostilities contained in this letter were used in Marx's article 'The English Press and the Fall of New Orleans' and 'The Situation in the American Theatre of War' by Marx and Engels (present edition, Vol. 19).—360
[409] l o y On 15 April 1862 Schily sent Marx a letter from Paris including the material on the differences existing among the Hungarian refugee leaders.— 362
[410] "° The Palais Royal in Paris was the residence of Prince Napoleon (Plon-Plon)—362
[366] 36S The reference is to the detention of the British mail steamer Trent by the* Unionist warship San Jacinto on 8 November 1861 and the arrest, aboard the Trent, of James Murray Mason and John Slidell, Confederate emissaries going to Europe on a diplomatic mission. On this see Marx's articles 'The Trent Case', 'The Anglo-American Conflict', 'The News and Its Effect in London' and other relevant items in Vol. 19 of the present edition.—329, 363, 462
[4 1 1] In December 1861 Britain, France and Spain launched an armed intervention in Mexico aimed at overthrowing the progressive Juarez government and turning Mexico into a colony. However, serious differences soon developed between the three powers as a result of which Britain and Spain withdrew their forces in April 1862. The French command refused to negotiate with the Mexican government and opened hostilities on 19 April. In the second half of the vear, more French forces were sent to Mexico. For the Bonapartist ruling circles' fraudulent Mexican loan, see Marx's article 'An International Affaire Mires' (present edition, Vol. 19).— 363, 462
[4 1 2] Backwoodsmen was the name given to early colonists in North America, people settling in remote uninhabited areas. In a figurative sense, backwoodsmen means narrow-minded provincials.— 364
[4 1 3] Marx presumably means Engels' letter of 5 May 1862 (see this volume, p. 361).—365
[414] Engels means the conciliatory policy of the Prussian National Assembly, which sought to accomplish the tasks of the 1848 revolution by purely parliamentary methods, without enlisting the support of the masses.—366
[415] In 1848, Rudolf Schramm was a deputy to the Prussian National Assembly from the constituency of Striegau (Strzegom). Marx and Engels described his parliamentary activity in the pamphlet The Great Men of the Exile (present edition, Vol. 11).—366
[416] New Orleans was surrendered by the Southerners on 29 April 1862, shortly after the fall of the forts protecting the approaches to the city from the Mississippi. The Northern troops entered New Orleans on 1 May. The capture of the city, an important political and military centre of the Confederacy, was a major success for the Unionist army. The analysis of the fighting given by Engels in this letter was used by Marx in the article 'The Situation in the American Theatre of War' (present edition, Vol. 19).—366
[417] This refers to the battles fought at Smolensk, 16 to 18 August, and Borodino, 7 September 1812 in the course of Russia's liberation war against aggression by Napoleonic France.—367
[419] On 14 January 1858 the Italian patriot Felice Orsini made an abortive attempt on the life of Napoleon III and was executed in March 1858.— 369
[420] The Merrimack, the rebels' first armoured vessel, destroyed several Unionist warships in March 1862. To prevent her falling into the hands of the Northerners, she was blown up by the Confederates on 11 May 1862, after they had evacuated the Norfolk naval base in Virginia.—369
[421] The Coercion Bills, passed by the British Parliament in 1833 and 1847, aimed at suppressing the revolutionary movement in Ireland. They introduced a state of emergency throughout Ireland and gave extraordinary powers to the British authorities.— 369
[423] xhe Morrill Tariff—the protectionist tariff sponsored by the Republican Justin Smith Morrill. Passed by the House of Representatives in May 1860, it became law on 2 March 1861, after being approved by the Senate. It raised customs duties considerably.—370
[424] In April 1862 the British and Spanish troops were withdrawn from Mexico following the Palmerston government's refusal to continue to collaborate with France in the armed intervention there (see also Note 411).—370
[426] Engels means the advance of the Northern troops under General Halleck on Corjnth, Mississippi, in April and May 1862. Its very slow progress gave rise to press allegations by pro-Secessionist correspondents (including James Spence) about Halleck's army finding itself in dire straits.—371
[4 2 7] Embrassez-vous et que cela finisse! (Embrace and have done with it!) is an allusion to an episode in the French Revolution: on 7 July 1792 Lamourette, a deputy to the Legislative Assembly, proposed ending all political strife by a fraternal kiss. Following his appeal, members of antagonistic groupings embraced each other. However, as was to be expected, this artificial attempt at a reconciliation proved a failure. The 'fraternal kiss' was forgotten the next day. Engels uses the dictum ironically, in reference to the debates in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, which was elected on 6 May 1862 (see Note 408) and first met o n 19 May.— 373
[4 2 8] T h e affair—the long conflict in Hesse-Cassel (1850-62) between Hesse-Cassel Elector Ludwig Ill's reactionary government and the Chamber of Deputies, which demanded the reintroduction of the moderate liberal Constitution of 1831. The liberal party was supported by Prussia, which feared a strengthening of Austria in the struggle for hegemony in Germany. However, Prussia's attempts to influence the Hesse-Cassel government with a view to having the Constitution reintroduced were foiled by Ludwig III. The Prussian General Willisen sent to Hesse-Cassel in May 1862 with a message from William I was given an insulting reception. The Constitution of 1831 was reintroduced at the end of June 1862, after Prussia had presented Ludwig III with an ultimatum and mobilised two army corps.—373
[429] T h e Schiller Institute was set u p in Manchester in November 1859 in connection with the centenary of Friedrich Schiller's birth. Its founders intended it as a cultural and social centre for Manchester's G e r m a n community. Initially, Engels took almost no part in the Institute's activities, but in January 1864 he became a member of its Directorate, and eventually its chairman.—374, 524
[354] Engels went on holiday to Germany on about 3 October 1861 and stayed with his family in Barmen till the end of the month.— 322, 375
[430] Engels presumably means his translation of the old Danish song Herr Jon, contained in the collection Et Hundrede udvalde Danske Viser, om allehaande moerkelige Krigs-Bedrivt og anden selsom Eventer, soin sig her udi Riget ved garnie Kaemper, navnkundige Konger, og ellers fornemme Personer begivet haver, af Arilds Dag..., published by P. Syv. Tid til demie naervaerende The text of Engels' translation follows: Herr Lave, der ritt zum Inselstrand Herr Lave rode to the island strand Zu frein u m des schönsten Mädchens T o sue for the loveliest maiden's Hand. hand. Ich reite mit, sagte Jon. I'll ride with you, said jon. Er freite die Braut u n d führt' sie H e took her home, his new-won nach Haus, bride, Ritter und Knappen kamen heraus. T h e knights and squires all came Hier reite ich, sagte Jon. outside. I'm coming too, said Jon. Sie setzten die Braut auf den braut-They sat the bride on the bridal lichen Thron , throne, Den Herren Hess brav einschenken The cups were filled by request of Herr Jon. H e r r Jon. Trinkt drauf los, sagte Jon. Now drink away, said Jon. Sie führten die Braut zum Brautbett They led the bride to the bridal herfür, chamber, Sie vergassen den Schnürleib zu Risen But to loosen her stays did not ihr. remember. Will's schon lösen, sagte Jon. I'll loosen them, said Jon. Herr Jon der schloss so rasch die Herr Jon locked upright speedily! Tür! Jetzt sagt Herrn Lave gut' Nacht von Now bid Herr Lave goodnight for mir. me. Ich liege hier, sagte Jon. I'll lie down here, said Jon. Kam die Botschaft zu Herrn Lave Then with the news to Herr Lave hinein: they hied: Herr Jon schläft bei der jungen Braut Herr Jon is sleeping beside your bride. dein. I am indeed, said Jon. Das tu ich, sagte Jon. Herr Lave pocht ans Kämmerlein: Outside, Herr Lave began to knock! Steht auf Herr Jon und lasst uns ein. Get up, Herr Jon, unfasten the lock. Bleibt draussen, sagte Jon. You stay out there, said Jon. Er stiess mit Schild und Speer an die He banged on the door with shield Tür: and spear. Steht auf Herr Jon und kommt Get up, Herr Jon, and come out here. No, you must wait, said Jon. herfür. Da könnt Ihr warten, sagte Jon. Und kann meine Braut nicht sein If my bride must be molested so, ungeschoren, Then to the King's ear it must go. Of course it must, said Jon. So trag ich das zu des Königs Ohren. Jawohl, sagte Jon. In the early morning, at break of day, Früh am Morgen, da war es Tag, Herr Lave set out for His Majesty. Herr Lave bringt zum König die I'm coming too, said Jon. Klag. Ich will mit, sagte Jon. I married myself a fair young bride. Ich hatte gefreit eine Jungfrau mir, All night Herr Jon has lain by her Jetzt hat Jon geschlafen bei ihr. Das tat ich, sagte Jon. side. I have indeed, said Jon. Und liebt Ihr beide die Jungfrau If you both love the maiden fair, sosehr, Then you must break a spear for her. So müsst Ihr brechen um sie einen I'll go with that, said Jon. Speer. Ist mir recht, sagte Jon. Als die Sonn' am Morgen tat auf-Later that clay, when the sun was gehen, bright, The knights came out to watch the Da kamen die Ritter den Kampf anzusehen. fight. Hier bin ich, sagte Jon. Well, here I am, said Jon. Den ersten Gang den ritten sie, The first pass of the joust rode they, Herrn Jon's Ross fiel nieder auf die Herr Jon's horse knelt as if to pray. Knie. God, help me now, said Jon. Hilf jetzt Gott, sagte Jon. Zum zweiten Gang anrannten die The horses charged in the second Pferd', pass, Herr Lave fiel nieder auf die Erd'. Herr Lave fell down upon the grass. Da liegt er, sagte Jon. Now there he lies, said Jon. Herr Jon nach seinem Hofe geht, Back to his castle Herr Jon did ride, Draussen sein Mädchen wartend His maid was waiting for him outside. steht. Now you are mine, said Jon. Du bist mein, sagte Jon. |etzt hat Herr Jon verwunden seinen Herr Jon has righted a grievous Harm, wrong, Jetzt schläft er in seines Mädchens He sleeps in his maid's arms all night Arm, long. Jetzt hab' ich sie, sagte Jon. I have her now, said Jon. (Translated by Alex Miller)—375.
[67] An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in The Letters of Karl Marx. Selected and Translated with Explanatory Notes and an Introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1979.—32,
[431] The Schwabenspiegel is a code of common law compiled in Swabia in the 13th century, a period of feudal fragmentation in Germany. Julian Schmidt, in his book, mistakenly describes it as a monument of Swabian poetry. Julian Schmidt erroneously listed among the 'seven wise men' of Greece (Solon, Bias, Pittacus, Gleobul, Chilon, Myson and Thaies, all of whom lived in the 7th-6th centuries B.C.) Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritùs and other later philosophers who derived all natural phenomena from a single source. Die sieben Schwaben (The Seven Swabians) is a German comic folk story.—377 An allusion to the fact that Julian Schmidt's book was a success with the
[432] German liberal bourgeoisie, in particular the supporters of Wilhelm Grabow, president of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies.—377 The Epicureans, Stoics and Sceptics were the principal Greek philosophical
[433] schools of the Hellenistic period.—377
[435] ' Part of this letter was first published in English in: Marx and Engels Selected Correspondence, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1955. It first appeared in English in full, minus the postscript, in The Letters of Karl Marx. Selected and Translated with Explanatory Notes and an Introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1979.— 380 Marx means the table of reproduction and circulation of social capital
[497] This refers to the speech Lassalle made in the Berlin criminal court on 16 January 1863. It was published as a pamphlet, under the title Die Wissenschaft und die Arbeiter. Eine Vertheidigungsrede vor dem Berliner Criminalgericht, Zürich, 1863.—451
[353] Tliis probably refers to the Report of the Thirtieth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Oxford in June and July 1860, London 1861. The British Association for the Advancement of Science was founded in 1831 and still exists. It meets annually and publishes reports on these meetings. The Association's 31st annual meeting was held in Manchester between 4 and 11 September 1861. Marx, who was staying with Engels in Manchester at the time, attended the sittings of the Economic Science and Statistics Section.—321, 383
[439] The ideas Engels expressed here were developed by Marx in the article 'A Criticism of American Affairs', published in Die Presse on 9 August 1862 (present edition, Vol. 19).— 386
[4 4 1] The letter was published in English for the first time in part in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Civil War in the United States, New York, 1937, and in full in: The Marx. Selected and Translated with Explanator) Letters of Karl Notes and an Introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1979.—388
[4 4 2] T h e Quadrilateral was the stronghold of Northern Italy, formed by the fortresses of Verona, Legnago, Mantua and Peschiera.— 389
[4 4 3] Blue Books—periodically published collections of documents of the British Parliament and Foreign Office. T h e y have been appearing since the seventeenth century.— 391
[4 4 4] In his Herr fulian Schmidt der Literarhistoriker Lassalle gives a critical analysis of Schmidt's Literatur in the form of remarks and Geschichte der deutschen commentaries to the text by the compositor and his wife.—391
[4 4 5] Engels means Wilhelm Wolff's return from Germany (see Note 437).—391
[4 4 7] First published in English in part in the Labour Monthly, London, 1923, Vol. 5, No. 4, and in full in: Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1955.—394
[4 4 9] New England—a highly industrialised region in the northeast of the USA (comprising the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut). It was the centre of the Abolitionist movement.—400, 416
[69] bH In 1858 and 1859, J. W. M. Reynolds was conducting libellous campaign against Ernest Jones, taking advantage of the latter's political blunders and vacillation (see Note 117). In 1859, Jones sued him for libel and won the case.— 33
[452] Engels penned this letter on the back of Borkheim's letter to him of 12 August 1862. Borkheim had written to say that Lassalle was away from Berlin and therefore no acceptance could be obtained for a bill issued by Engels.—405
[13] '•^ In his letter of 16 December 1859 (it has not been found) Marx probably asked Szemere to help him out of his financial difficulties. In his reply of 29 December Szemere informed Marx that his efforts had been to no avail.— 5
[453] On 27 August 1862 the board of the Great Exhibition in London issued Marx, as a correspondent of Die Presse, with a free pass to the Exhibition for its duration.—408
[5] The Association of German Men was an organisation of German refugees in London set up after the defeat of the 1848-49 revolution in Germany.—4, 309
[2 3 7] Excerpts from this letter were first published in English in a footnote in The Letters of Karl Marx. Selected and Translated with Explanatory Notes and an Introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1979.—216, 223, 413. 446, 493
[459] In August 1862 the War Department in Washington ordered that henceforth only officers of the regular army could be promoted to Brigadier General or Major General. Volunteer officers could only be raised to those ranks for distinction in action and provided they had displayed the appropriate military qualifications.—415
[60] h" Marx means his attempts to make the petty-bourgeois democrat Blind publicly admit that he, Blind, was the author of the anonymous flysheet Zur Warnung (see Note 4). This was essential because Vogt, in his pamphlet Mein Prozess gegen die Allgemeine Zeitung, had attributed the flysheet to Marx. Marx also wished to expose, in the person of Blind, the cowardice of the petty-bourgeois democrats reluctant to come out openly against Bonapartist agents (see this volume, pp. 30-32 and 37, and present edition Vol. 17, pp. 111-32).—23, 179
[44] In late 1859, the German socialist Eichhoff was brought to trial by the Prussian authorities for publishing in the London weekly Hermann a series of articles exposing the part played by Wilhelm Stieber, chief of the Prussian political police, in organising the trial of the Communist League members in Cologne in 1852. In December 1859, Hermann Juch, the editor of the weekly, asked Marx for information on the Cologne trial, which he needed for Eichhoff's defence (see Marx's letter to Engels of 13 December 1859, present edition,Vol. 40 and also pp. 80-81 of this volume). In May 1860 a Berlin court sentenced Eichhoff to 14 months imprisonment.—16, 22, 54, 74, 80, 140, 197
[41] The Landwehr was part of Prussia's armed forces and consisted of men who had done their term of active service and service in the reserve. Under Prussia's laws, it was only raised in the event of war or the threat of war. The Prussian government's order to call up the Landwehr in the Rhine Province, issued at the beginning of May 1849, precipitated a popular uprising in Rhenish Prussia. In Elberfeld, Iserlohn, Solingen and a number of other cities, the Landwehr joined the movement in support of the Imperial Constitution. After the defeat of the uprising, many of the insurgents were forced to emigrate. Landwehr members guiltv of breaches of army discipline were subject to the jurisdiction of courts-martial. This applied also to ex-members of the Landwehr returning to Prussia from exile.—15, 249, 290, 299
[464] 64 This refers to the Constitution adopted by the Frankfurt National Assembly on 28 March 1849 (it was rejected by the King of Prussia and other German monarchs). On 28 September 1862, about 200 deputies to the diets of various German states, meeting in Weimar, urged the convocation of an all-German Parliament with a view to establishing, in keeping with that Constitution, a united federal all-German state, its members enjoying autonomy in internal affairs.—418
[465] ,i5 On 21 March 1848, King Frederick William IV of Prussia declared that he was ready, for the salvation of Germany, to 'assume the leadership of the whole nation'. Hence the phrase 'Prussian leadership', which won currency as a euphemism for Prussia's striving to unite the country under its supremacy.—
[46] This refers to the war between the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) and France on the one hand, and Austria on the other (29 April to 8 July 1859).—18, 103,
[467] b7 On 4 September 1862 the Confederates launched an offensive in Maryland which ended in their defeat at Antietam Creek on 17 September. For details see Marx's articles 'Comments on the North American Events' and 'The Situation in North America' (present edition, Vol. 19).—420
[11] 1 ' Marx followed the movement for the emancipation of peasants in Russia using a variety of sources, among them the Prussian Allgemeine Zeitung. In the present case, he presumably drew on an article 'Rußland und Polen', reprinted in the Allgemeine Zeitung of 6 December 1859 (No. 340) from the Neue Hannoversche Zeitung, and the article by the Allgemeine Zeitung's St. Petersburg correspondent 'Zur russischen Leibeigenschaftsfrage und die Finanz-Verhältnisse des Staats', Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 3 (supplement) and No. 5 (supplement), 3 and 5 January, 1860.—4
[469] K> Marx means the chronic financial crisis in Austria that set in in 1848. It led to an enormous growth of the national debt, the massive emission of paper money and depreciation ol currency. On this see Marx's article 'Highly Important from Vienna' (present edition, Vol. 16). On the financial measures of the US government see Note 422.—420
[470] 70 To raise funds for military needs the Lincoln Administration paid bankers extending it loans in bullion an annual interest of 12 per cent instead of the usual 5. According to The Times, in October 1862, the interest even rose to 29 per cent.—421
[472] This refers to the State and Congressional elections held in October and November 1862, which brought substantial losses for the Republicans as compared with previous elections, and victory for the Democrats in a number of states. For details see Marx's article 'The Election Results in the Northern States' (present edition, Vol. 19).—423
[460] From 28 August to 7 September 1862 Marx was in Zalt-Bommel and Trier to settle his financial affairs.—415, 420, 425
[31] This refers to Vogt's pamphlet Mein Prozess gegen die Allgemeine Zeitung. On Tellering's 'concoction' see Note 22.—12
[4 7 3] In the elections of 4 November 1862 the New York State governorship went to the Democrat Horatio Seymour. Democrats also won the majority of Congress seats in New York.—428
[474] West Point, near New York, is the site of a military academy. Founded in 1802, it was the United States' only higher military educational establishment in the mid-19th century. Its graduates fought both in the Unionist and in the Confederate army. McClellan, too, studied at West Point. On this see Marx's article 'American Affairs' (present edition, Vol. 19).—428
[4 7 5] Engels evidently means the wave of dismissals, started on 23 October 1862, of Prussian officials who had supported the opposition in the Provincial Diet during the Constitutional conflict in Germany (see notes 408 and 463).—428
[476] 47(i At the battle of Corinth, Mississippi, fought on 3 and 4 October 1862, the Unionists, commanded by General Rosecrans, defeated the Confederates, led by generals Van Dorn, Price and Lovell.—429
[478] Marx means the returns of the autumn elections in the Northern States (see notes 472 and 473).—430
[480] A Presidential election was due in November 1864. The 38th Congress elected in the autumn of 1862 and first convened in December 1863 (see notes 472 and 473) was to meet for its 1864 autumn session in December, after the Presidential election.—430
[481] 1 On 30 October 1862 the French government sent a message to Britain and Russia calling for joint action by the three powers to impose a ceasefire in the USA, lift the blockade and open the Southern ports to European trade. On 8 November Russia, and later Britain, rejected Napoleon Ill's proposal to interfere in US home affairs.—430
[482] 2 Calling for the unification of Germany under the aegis of Prussia, the Party of Progress (see Note 371) was advocating a Little Germany (see Note 24).—431
[483] 3 This refers to French armed intervention in Mexico (see Note 411). By crapauds (French: toads; figuratively, nonentities) Marx means the Bonapartist generals.—431
[484] 4 An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in: Karl Marx, On America and the Civil War, New York, 1972. From 1858, Marx had had serious differences with Freiligrath over the Vogt affair (see Note 4), the attitude to Kinkel and other matters. In the spring of 1862, following Freiligrath's breach with Kinkel, who had joined the National Association (see Note 24), relations between Marx and Freiligrath began returning to normal.—432
[485] 15 Marx stayed with Engels in Manchester and then with Eichhoff in Liverpool approximately from 5 to 13 December 1862.—432, 442
[487] 17 The Manichaeans were adherents of a religion that originated in the Middle East in the 3rd century A.D. In colloquial German, Manichäer also means an implacable creditor (by analogy with the phrase mahnender Gläubiger—dunning creditor).—432
[488] !s This letter opened the Marx-Kugelmann correspondence, which continued until 1874. In 1902 Marx's letters to Kugelmann dealing with the basic problems of the international working-class movement and Marxist theory were published by Karl Kautsky in the journal Die Neue Zeit. The English translation of this letter first appeared in: Karl Marx, Letters to Dr. Kugelmann, Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the USSR, Moscow-Leningrad, 1934.—435
[486] 16 This refers to a letter by Ludwig Kugelmann to Freiligrath of 21 November 1862 with inquiry about the progress of Marx's economic studies. In forwarding the letter to Marx on 3 December, Freiligrath called it 'paroles d'un croyant' (an allusion to F. de Lamennais' book Paroles d'un Croyant, published in Paris in 1834). Marx's reply to it (see Note 488) marked the beginning of his correspondence and friendship with Kugelmann.—432, 435
[35] Marx means the initial plan of his economic work, which envisaged the following books: 1) Capital, 2) Landed Property, 3) Wage Labour, 4) The State, 5) Foreign Trade and 6) The World Market (see Marx's Preface to his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, present edition, Vol. 29). Book I was to comprise four sections: 1) Capital in General, 2) The Competition of Capitals, 3) Credit, 4) Joint-Stock Capital. The first instalment of Book I, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, published in 1859, contained the two introductory chapters of the section 'Capital in General' (a chapter on the commodity and a chapter on money). The second instalment was to be wholly devoted to capital in general.—12, 435
[489] 19 This refers to the abortive offensive of the Union army under Burnside on the Confederates' strongly fortified positions near Fredericksburg, on the southern bank of the Rappahannock (Virginia), in December 1862. The Union forces had reached Fredericksburg on 17 November but it was not until 13 December that they began to cross the river and advance. On the night of 14 December, after a series of unsuccessful attacks, Burnside's troops were forced to withdraw to the northern bank.—437, 439
[3] The German Workers' Educational Society in London was founded in February 1840 by Karl Schapper, Joseph Moll and other members of the League of the Just (an organisation of German craftsmen and workers, and also of emigrant workers of other nationalities). After the reorganisation of the League of the Just in the summer of 1847 and the founding of the Communist League, the latter's local communities played the leading role in the Society. During various periods of its activity, the Society had branches in working-class districts in London. In 1847 and 1849-50, Marx and Engels took an active part in the Society's work, but on 17 September 1850 Marx, Engels and a number of their followers withdrew because the Willich-Schapper sectarian and adventurist faction had succeeded in temporarily increasing its influence in the Society and caused a split in the Communist League (see present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 483 and 632). In the late 1850s, Marx and Engels resumed their work in the Society. It existed until 1918 when it was closed down by the British government.—3, 94, 103, 232, 342, 517, 533
[384] In September 1861 after a six-month interval, Marx resumed for a short time his contributions to the New-York Daih Tribune.— 341, 344
[42] This letter by Marx has not been found.—15, 17, 33, 34, 40, 71, 77, 104, 118,
[24] 14 The German National Association (Deutscher National-Verein) was the party of the German liberal bourgeoisie favouring the unification of Germany (without Austria) under the aegis of the King of Prussia. The Association was set up in Frankfurt am Main in September 1859. Its supporters were nicknamed Little Germans.—10, 160, 164, 192, 200, 319, 342, 383, 393, 511, 580
[385] Engels means the cotton crisis produced by the interruption in the supply of American cotton during the US Civil War (1861-65) as a result of the blockade of the southern ports by the Union's navy. The cotton shortage came on the eve of, and interlocked with, a production glut.—344, 347, 394, 413
[386] At the time, Engels was hiring lodgings for Mary and Lizzy Burns at 252 Hyde Road, Ardwick. He kept his own lodgings at 6 Thorncliffe Grove until 1864.—344, 427
[249] An extract from this letter was first published in English in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Civil War in the United States, New York, 1937 — 241,
[387] On 7 March Engels wrote the first part of the article requested by Marx, and on 18 March probably the second part (see p. 351). However, the Tribune did not publish this article. Engels made use of the first part for his article 'The War in America' (see present edition, Vol. 18) published in The Volunteer Journal, for Lancashire and Cheshire on 14 March 1862. Marx translated the text intended for the Tribune into German, added more recent data and sent the text to Die Presse, which published it on 26 and 27 March 1862 (see 'The American Civil War', present edition, Vol. 19).— 345, 346
[390] Engels means the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson on the Tennessee and the Cumberland by the Federals under Grant in February 1862. For details see the article 'The American Civil War' by Marx and Engels (present edition, Vol. 19). There are two inaccuracies in Engels' letter here. In the fighting referred to, the Southern troops were commanded, not by J. E. Johnston, who had won the battle of Bull Run, but by A. S. Johnston. Moreover, the latter had not been taken prisoner, as reported in The Times of 5 March 1862, which Engels read, but had withdrawn. The Times had given Johnston's name without his initials, and this misled Engels. The battle fought on the Bull Run river near Manassas, Virginia, on 21 July 1861 was the first major engagement of the US Civil War. The Federal army was defeated by the Secessionist forces.— 346
[310] This refers to Marx's work on the second instalment of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, which he started on completing his polemic writing, Herr Vogt (see Note 38). In the period 1861 to 1863 he produced a vast manuscript (200 sheets of print), the second rough draft of Capital—292, 315,
[344] This refers to the second Great Exhibition (world industrial fair) held in London from May to November 1862.—310, 353, 364, 365, 380, 384, 408, 414
[396] The battle mentioned by Marx took place on 6 and 7 April 1862. On the 6th, the Southern forces, commanded by Beauregard, defeated Grant's army at Pittsburg Landing (northeast of Corinth), but on the 7th, following the arrival of General Buell's forces, the Northerners counter-attacked and threw the Southerners back to Corinth. Engels probably wrote no article on the fighting at Corinth, but he gave an analysis of it in his letter to Marx of 5 May 1862 (see this volume, pp. 359-60).—353, 359
[398] while Marx was in Manchester, Engels gave him a bill for £50 to be drawn on Borkheim.—354, 380, 382
[400] A short extract from this letter was first published in English in: Karl Marx, On America and the Civil War. Edited and Translated by Saul K. Padover, New York, 1972. In abridged form, the letter appeared in: The Letters of Karl Marx. Selected and Translated with Explanatory Notes and an Introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersev, 1979.—355
[4 0 5] In March 1862 Marx finally ceased to contribute to the New-York Daily Tribune (see also Note 395).—359, 389
[408] 108 The spring of 1862 saw an aggravation of the Constitutional conflict between Crown and Diet in Prussia (see Note 290). The liberal majority (mostly members of the Party of Progress) in the Chamber of Deputies refused to endorse the budget as presented and demanded that it be concretised to prevent the use for military purposes of funds which came under other headings. In the face of this opposition, the King disbanded the Diet on 11 March. The 'New Era' Ministers resigned (see also Note 345). At the new elections, held on 28 April and 6 May, the Party of Progress again carried the day. The military reform bill was rejected once more.—361, 366
[418] White trash was the contemptuous name with which slaveowning planters dubbed the poor whites in the Southern states.—367, 416
[312] 3 , 2 Yankees was the nickname given by British soldiers to residents of New England in the eighteenth century. During and after the Civil War (1861-65) it was used to denote the Northerners.—293, 325, 368, 400, 416, 562
[422] In 1862 large amounts of paper money ('greenbacks') were issued in the USA to cover the costs of the Civil War. This gradually led to inflation.— 370, 419
[434] In the summer of 1862 Marx was engaged in studies on rent of land (see Notebooks X and XI of his Economic Manuscript of 1861-63).—377, 380, 394
[1] An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Correspondence. 1846-1895. A Selection with Commentary and Notes, Martin Lawrence Ltd., London [1934]. Marx began his letter on a form of the General Bank of Switzerland under the letter from Freiligrath, who was manager of the bank's London branch.— 3
[440] T h e Territories were divisions of the USA that had not yet been granted full state rights. Engels may be referring to the 'old Northwest', a Territory formed by the Congress in 1787. By the time of the Civil War, the states of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Minnesota (the last named partly outside its boundary) had been formed there.— 388, 420
[4] This refers to the refusal by Freiligrath, former member of the Communist League and an editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, to help Marx unmask the Bonapartist agent Carl Vogt. In a statement published in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung on 15 November 1859, he declared that he had nothing to do with the accusations levelled at Vogt. In so doing, he virtually dissociated himself from the attempts to establish the author of the anonymous anti-Vogt flysheet Zur Warnung, which had been launched by Karl Blind and was falsely attributed to Marx by Vogt. Marx deals with the matter in Herr Vogt (present edition, Vol. 17) and in his letters to Engels of 19 and 26 November 1859, and to Fieiligrath of 23 and 28 November 1859 (present edition, Vol. 40).—3, 9, 11
[2] The Cologne trial (4 October-12 November 1852) was organised and stage-managed by the Prussian government. The defendants were members of the Communist League arrested in the spring of 1851 on charges of 'treasonable plotting'. The forged documents and false evidence presented by the police authorities were not only designed to secure the conviction of the defendants but also to compromise their London comrades and the proletarian organisation as a whole. Seven of the defendants were sentenced to imprisonment in a fortress for terms ranging from three to six years. The dishonest tactics resorted to by the Prussian police state in fighting the international working-class movement were exposed by Engels in his article 'The Late Trial in Cologne' and, in greater detail, by Marx in his pamphlet Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne (see present edition, Vol. 11).— 3, 22,
[369] p a r t o r this letter was first published in English in: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Correspondence. 1846-1895. A Selection with Commentary and Notes, Martin Lawrence Ltd., London, 1934.—330, 399, 403, 419, 422, 448, 453, 460,
[9] On 26 November 1859, the Allgemeine Militär-Zeitung (No. 95-96) carried a review of Engels' anonymously published pamphlet Po and Rhine. It endorsed Engels' critique of the theory that Germany's security depended on German domination of Northern Italy.—4
[239] First published in English in full in The Letters of Karl Marx, selected and translated with explanatory notes and an introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1979.—220, 409, 424, 427,
[7] County-court—local judicial court for civil actions in England.—4, 327, 399
[457] Engels travelled in Germany from 12 to 29 September 1862. After a journey along the Mosel and Rhine and a trip to Thuringia. he stayed with his relatives in Barmen and Engelskirchen.—414, 417, 418