Re: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation

2017-03-15 Thread Thomas via Marxism
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Got it; thanks!

T


-Original Message-
>From: Mark Lause via Marxism <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu>
>Sent: Mar 14, 2017 11:12 AM
>To: Thomas F Barton <thomasfbar...@earthlink.net>
>Subject: Re: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation
>

>
>It's from Comments on North American Events in October 1862.
>http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/marx/works/1862/10/12.htm
>
>
>On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 1:54 AM, Ralph Johansen via Marxism <
>marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>

>>
>> Citation to Collected Works is at bottom of message. Unfortunately, MECW
>> are not online, this version still under copyright by International
>> Publishers or Lawrence and Wishart afaik.
>>
>>
>> On 3/13/2017 10:24 PM, Thomas wrote:
>>
>>> Where can one find the article quoted?  MEC appear to be out of action.
>>>
>>> T
>>>
>>>
>>> -Original Message-
>>>
>>>> From: Ralph Johansen via Marxism <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu>
>>>> Sent: Mar 14, 2017 12:14 AM
>>>> To: Thomas F Barton <thomasfbar...@earthlink.net>
>>>> Subject: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation
>>>>
>>>> I just stumbled on this while looking for something else:
>>>>
>>>> Lincoln is a /sui generis/ figure in the annals of history. He has no
>>>> initiative, no idealistic impetus, no cothurnis, no historical
>>>> trappings. He gives his most important actions always the most
>>>> commonplace form. Other people claim to be "fighting for an idea," even
>>>> when it is for them a matter of square feet of land. Lincoln, even when
>>>> he is motivated by an idea, talks about "square feet." He sings the
>>>> bravura aria of his part hesitatively, reluctantly and unwillingly, as
>>>> though apologizing for being compelled by circumstances to "act the
>>>> lion." The most redoubtable decrees - which will always remain
>>>> remarkable historical documents - flung by him at the enemy will look
>>>> like, and are intended to look like, routine summonses sent by a lawyer
>>>> to the lawyer of the opposing party, legal chicaneries, involved,
>>>> hide-bound /actiones juris/. His latest proclamation, which is drafted
>>>> in the same style, the manifesto abolishing slavery, is the most
>>>> important document in American history since the establishment of the
>>>> Union, tantamount to the tearing up of the old American Constitution.
>>>>
>>>> 
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Re: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation

2017-03-14 Thread Mark Lause via Marxism
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I should add that Marx's views reflect the particular ire of the German
radicals over Lincoln's removal of John C. Fremont after the latter
attempted to use his military authority to end slavery in Missouri.  That
decision, Lincoln argued, could not be left to local commanders, and would
alienate Unionist slaveholders in the border states. This issue continued
to be fought out right through to the end of the war, because Lincoln did
not include slave territory in Federal hands to be part of the Emancipation
Proclamation . . . though neither the slaves nor the Unionists in such
places paid this technicality much attention.

A journalistic piece, the essay makes several errors of judgment based on
accounts in the foreign press, including the exaggerated version of
Confederate successes in the fall of 1862.  Most importantly, though, it
errs in denying that Lincoln was the product of a popular revolution, a
position directly refuted in the letter the IWA sent Lincoln in 1864 . . .
or the Marxist assessment of the conflict as a Second American
Revolution--warts and all . . . a 'bourgeois revolution," to be sure.

ML
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Re: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation

2017-03-14 Thread Mark Lause via Marxism
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It's from Comments on North American Events in October 1862.
http://www.marxistsfr.org/archive/marx/works/1862/10/12.htm


On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 1:54 AM, Ralph Johansen via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
> #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.
> #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern.
> *
>
> Citation to Collected Works is at bottom of message. Unfortunately, MECW
> are not online, this version still under copyright by International
> Publishers or Lawrence and Wishart afaik.
>
>
> On 3/13/2017 10:24 PM, Thomas wrote:
>
>> Where can one find the article quoted?  MEC appear to be out of action.
>>
>> T
>>
>>
>> -Original Message-
>>
>>> From: Ralph Johansen via Marxism 
>>> Sent: Mar 14, 2017 12:14 AM
>>> To: Thomas F Barton 
>>> Subject: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation
>>>
>>> I just stumbled on this while looking for something else:
>>>
>>> Lincoln is a /sui generis/ figure in the annals of history. He has no
>>> initiative, no idealistic impetus, no cothurnis, no historical
>>> trappings. He gives his most important actions always the most
>>> commonplace form. Other people claim to be "fighting for an idea," even
>>> when it is for them a matter of square feet of land. Lincoln, even when
>>> he is motivated by an idea, talks about "square feet." He sings the
>>> bravura aria of his part hesitatively, reluctantly and unwillingly, as
>>> though apologizing for being compelled by circumstances to "act the
>>> lion." The most redoubtable decrees - which will always remain
>>> remarkable historical documents - flung by him at the enemy will look
>>> like, and are intended to look like, routine summonses sent by a lawyer
>>> to the lawyer of the opposing party, legal chicaneries, involved,
>>> hide-bound /actiones juris/. His latest proclamation, which is drafted
>>> in the same style, the manifesto abolishing slavery, is the most
>>> important document in American history since the establishment of the
>>> Union, tantamount to the tearing up of the old American Constitution.
>>>
>>> Nothing is simpler than to show that Lincoln's principal political
>>> actions contain much that is aesthetically repulsive, logically
>>> inadequate, farcical in form and politically contradictory. as is done
>>> by the English Pindar of slaves, /The Times/, /The Saturday Review/
>>> and/tutti quanti/. But Lincoln's place in the history of the United
>>> States and of mankind will, nevertheless, be next to that of Washington!
>>> Nowadays, when the insignificant struts about melodramatically on this
>>> side of the Atlantic, is it of no significance at all that the
>>> significant is clothed in everyday dress in the new world?
>>>
>>> Lincoln is not the product of a popular revolution. This plebeian, who
>>> worked his way up from stone-breaker to Senator in Illinois, without
>>> intellectual brilliance, without a particularly outstanding character,
>>> without exceptional importance - an average person of good will, was
>>> placed at the top by the interplay of the forces of universal suffrage
>>> unaware of the great issues at stake. The new world has never achieved a
>>> greater triumph than by this demonstration that, given its political and
>>> social organization, ordinary people of good will can accomplish feats
>>> which only heroes could accomplish in the old world!
>>>
>>> Hegel once observed that comedy is in fact superior to tragedy and
>>> humourous reasoning superior to grandiloquent reasoning. Although
>>> Lincoln does not possess the grandiloquence of historical action, as an
>>> average man of the people he has its humour. When does he issue the
>>> proclamation declaring that from January 1, 1863, slavery in the
>>> Confederacy shall be abolished? At the very moment when the Confederacy
>>> as an independent state decided on "peace negotiations" at its Richmond
>>> Congress. At the very moment when the slave-owners of the border states
>>> believed that the invasion of Kentucky by the armies of the South had
>>> made the "peculiar institution" just as safe as was their domination
>>> over their compatriot, President Abraham Lincoln in Washington.
>>>
>>> - MECW 19:250
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
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Re: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation

2017-03-13 Thread Ralph Johansen via Marxism

  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
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Citation to Collected Works is at bottom of message. Unfortunately, MECW 
are not online, this version still under copyright by International 
Publishers or Lawrence and Wishart afaik.


On 3/13/2017 10:24 PM, Thomas wrote:

Where can one find the article quoted?  MEC appear to be out of action.

T


-Original Message-

From: Ralph Johansen via Marxism 
Sent: Mar 14, 2017 12:14 AM
To: Thomas F Barton 
Subject: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation

I just stumbled on this while looking for something else:

Lincoln is a /sui generis/ figure in the annals of history. He has no
initiative, no idealistic impetus, no cothurnis, no historical
trappings. He gives his most important actions always the most
commonplace form. Other people claim to be "fighting for an idea," even
when it is for them a matter of square feet of land. Lincoln, even when
he is motivated by an idea, talks about "square feet." He sings the
bravura aria of his part hesitatively, reluctantly and unwillingly, as
though apologizing for being compelled by circumstances to "act the
lion." The most redoubtable decrees - which will always remain
remarkable historical documents - flung by him at the enemy will look
like, and are intended to look like, routine summonses sent by a lawyer
to the lawyer of the opposing party, legal chicaneries, involved,
hide-bound /actiones juris/. His latest proclamation, which is drafted
in the same style, the manifesto abolishing slavery, is the most
important document in American history since the establishment of the
Union, tantamount to the tearing up of the old American Constitution.

Nothing is simpler than to show that Lincoln's principal political
actions contain much that is aesthetically repulsive, logically
inadequate, farcical in form and politically contradictory. as is done
by the English Pindar of slaves, /The Times/, /The Saturday Review/
and/tutti quanti/. But Lincoln's place in the history of the United
States and of mankind will, nevertheless, be next to that of Washington!
Nowadays, when the insignificant struts about melodramatically on this
side of the Atlantic, is it of no significance at all that the
significant is clothed in everyday dress in the new world?

Lincoln is not the product of a popular revolution. This plebeian, who
worked his way up from stone-breaker to Senator in Illinois, without
intellectual brilliance, without a particularly outstanding character,
without exceptional importance - an average person of good will, was
placed at the top by the interplay of the forces of universal suffrage
unaware of the great issues at stake. The new world has never achieved a
greater triumph than by this demonstration that, given its political and
social organization, ordinary people of good will can accomplish feats
which only heroes could accomplish in the old world!

Hegel once observed that comedy is in fact superior to tragedy and
humourous reasoning superior to grandiloquent reasoning. Although
Lincoln does not possess the grandiloquence of historical action, as an
average man of the people he has its humour. When does he issue the
proclamation declaring that from January 1, 1863, slavery in the
Confederacy shall be abolished? At the very moment when the Confederacy
as an independent state decided on "peace negotiations" at its Richmond
Congress. At the very moment when the slave-owners of the border states
believed that the invasion of Kentucky by the armies of the South had
made the "peculiar institution" just as safe as was their domination
over their compatriot, President Abraham Lincoln in Washington.

- MECW 19:250






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Re: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation

2017-03-13 Thread Thomas via Marxism
  POSTING RULES & NOTES  
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Where can one find the article quoted?  MEC appear to be out of action.

T


-Original Message-
>From: Ralph Johansen via Marxism 
>Sent: Mar 14, 2017 12:14 AM
>To: Thomas F Barton 
>Subject: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation
>

>I just stumbled on this while looking for something else:
>
>Lincoln is a /sui generis/ figure in the annals of history. He has no 
>initiative, no idealistic impetus, no cothurnis, no historical 
>trappings. He gives his most important actions always the most 
>commonplace form. Other people claim to be "fighting for an idea," even 
>when it is for them a matter of square feet of land. Lincoln, even when 
>he is motivated by an idea, talks about "square feet." He sings the 
>bravura aria of his part hesitatively, reluctantly and unwillingly, as 
>though apologizing for being compelled by circumstances to "act the 
>lion." The most redoubtable decrees - which will always remain 
>remarkable historical documents - flung by him at the enemy will look 
>like, and are intended to look like, routine summonses sent by a lawyer 
>to the lawyer of the opposing party, legal chicaneries, involved, 
>hide-bound /actiones juris/. His latest proclamation, which is drafted 
>in the same style, the manifesto abolishing slavery, is the most 
>important document in American history since the establishment of the 
>Union, tantamount to the tearing up of the old American Constitution.
>
>Nothing is simpler than to show that Lincoln's principal political 
>actions contain much that is aesthetically repulsive, logically 
>inadequate, farcical in form and politically contradictory. as is done 
>by the English Pindar of slaves, /The Times/, /The Saturday Review/ 
>and/tutti quanti/. But Lincoln's place in the history of the United 
>States and of mankind will, nevertheless, be next to that of Washington! 
>Nowadays, when the insignificant struts about melodramatically on this 
>side of the Atlantic, is it of no significance at all that the 
>significant is clothed in everyday dress in the new world?
>
>Lincoln is not the product of a popular revolution. This plebeian, who 
>worked his way up from stone-breaker to Senator in Illinois, without 
>intellectual brilliance, without a particularly outstanding character, 
>without exceptional importance - an average person of good will, was 
>placed at the top by the interplay of the forces of universal suffrage 
>unaware of the great issues at stake. The new world has never achieved a 
>greater triumph than by this demonstration that, given its political and 
>social organization, ordinary people of good will can accomplish feats 
>which only heroes could accomplish in the old world!
>
>Hegel once observed that comedy is in fact superior to tragedy and 
>humourous reasoning superior to grandiloquent reasoning. Although 
>Lincoln does not possess the grandiloquence of historical action, as an 
>average man of the people he has its humour. When does he issue the 
>proclamation declaring that from January 1, 1863, slavery in the 
>Confederacy shall be abolished? At the very moment when the Confederacy 
>as an independent state decided on "peace negotiations" at its Richmond 
>Congress. At the very moment when the slave-owners of the border states 
>believed that the invasion of Kentucky by the armies of the South had 
>made the "peculiar institution" just as safe as was their domination 
>over their compatriot, President Abraham Lincoln in Washington.
>
>- MECW 19:250
>
>
>
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