Over the years, in many articles, I have documented the support Karl Marx and his friend, Engels, had for Lincoln’s “glorious Union” during the War of Northern Aggression. By now it should be no secret to anyone except those who depend on government school textbooks for their historical information. Leftist European revolutionaries strongly supported the Northern cause. Even court historian James McPherson has to admit that much, though he does it with pride, which shows you where McPherson is really coming from.
It was mentioned in the book Karl Marx by Franz Mehring that the English branch of the Communist International, when Lincoln was re-elected in 1864, sent him a message of greetings and congratulations.
Marx was the one that drew this message up, addressing it to the “son of the working class” that had been given the job of “leading his country in a noble struggle to emancipate an enchained race.” That had to have been the biggest pile of 19th century horse manure on record, because both Lincoln and Marx knew better. Neither of them gave a tinker’s damn for the “enchained race” except as an excuse to beat down the South.
According to Mehring, Marx put maximum effort into the message to Lincoln, something unusual considering how lazy Marx was. Lincoln did not fail to notice this. Much to the surprise of a London newspaper… “he (Lincoln) answered the address in a warm and friendly tone.” It’s what I have previously stated—a mutual admiration society consisting of Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, needless to say, was far from being the country bumpkin, hayseed lawyer that our “history” books have portrayed him as.
And Marx and Engels were far from being alone. Other European radicals and socialists also strongly supported the Union cause. The well-known Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin, with whom Marx had some notable differences, was also a partisan of the Union cause. According to the book Russian Radicals Look to America by David Hecht, Bakunin was a keen observer of social conditions in the United States.
According to Hecht: “As has already been recorded, Bakunin was a firm opponent of American slavery and unwaveringly supported the North during the Civil War. This attitude was shared by Herzen (also by Belinski, Chernyshevski, and Lavros) and was to be expected… in view of his specifically Russian experience of opposition to serfdom.” So not only Bakunin, but all these other revolutionaries of various stripes supported the Northern cause. I have to wonder at this point how many of these erstwhile socialists in Europe realized that four slave states still remained in the Union and the Union showed no interest whatsoever in emancipating the slaves in those four Union slave states. But I guess we are not supposed to ask that question. After all, none of our “historians” bother to.
While in America, Bakunin wrote to Herzen and Ogarev that, “In the struggle between the Northern and Southern United States… the North… has all my sympathies. So, Bakunin visited the United States. You have to wonder where these supposedly penniless leftist agitators got the money to travel around the world. Passage to America wasn’t cheap. So, where did Bakunin come up with the bread to come here?
Like Marx, Bakunin berated the North for their slow start in the War. After the shooting part of the war was over, Bakunin was strongly in favor of the racial “Reconstruction” policies of Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner and Edwin Stanton and that crowd. He must have talked to the “right” people while he was here. Bakunin wanted the North to impose revolutionary measures on the South. He got his wish.
Bakunin said that for “popular self-government (really communism) to become a true reality, that ‘another revolution… far more profound…’ would be a necessity.” Stop and analyze what Bakunin said for a moment. He recognized that the War of Northern Aggression was a revolution. By his use of the term “another revolution” he referred to a revolution beyond the war, which could only be the emergence of “Reconstruction” and the civil rights movement that was demonstrated by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Think about that for a while.
So, from Marx and Engels to Bakunin and Herzen, the communist/socialist sentiment in Europe was overwhelmingly in favor of a Northern victory, contrary to the desires of ordinary working folks in Europe who favored the South, as we noted in a previous article. The communists saw something in the Union cause they loved (apostasy and anti-Christianity) and they saw something in the Southern cause they hated (orthodox, Reformed Christianity)! While this may seem over-simplified to some, it is the root from which the theology of socialism grows.
Considering the wide influence held in the North by abolitionists, Unitarians, and European communists, I think we may have to strongly reassess what our “Civil War” was really all about. The communist/socialist influence in the North has only grown stronger as research has continued. “Those people” sought a revolution against a basically Christian South, and to put it in the proper light, they dredged up slavery as their noble pretext for anti-Christian revolution. Had the slavery issue not been handy some other reason would have been used to justify their revolutionary intent.
Hopefully with some of the recent articles on this page you will have grasped the fact that our “Civil War” was little more than a pretext for socialist revolution in America. That war was our French Revolution, and as France has not, to this day, recovered from her revolution, so have we never fully recovered from ours, the real one—the “Civil War.” We live with the results of that war still today. No one born after 1865 has ever lived under the system bequeathed to us by the Founders. Since the supposed end of the War of Northern Aggression we have all been living in Post-America.
-By Al Benson Jr.
O I’m a good old rebel, now that’s just what I am. For this “fair land of freedom” I do not care at all. I’m glad I fit against it, I only wish we’d won, And I don’t want no pardon for anything I done.
