Letter to J. M. Weber, March 3, 1860

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MARX TO J. M. WEBER

IN BERLIN

Manchester, 3 March 1860
6 Thorncliffe Grove, Oxford Road

Sir,

I have received your letter of 22 February and would first tender you my best thanks for your acceptance of my brief.

I fully endorse the manner in which you propose to handle the case. Should the count I mention be dismissed on formal grounds, its ventilation is, nevertheless, of the utmost importance, at any rate so far as the public is concerned.

By way of a commentary on the enclosures sent herewith and as a final exposé of the facts at my disposal, I am taking the liberty of making a few additional observations, but should, perhaps, first point out that, since I have not got a copy of my letter to you of 13 February, the numbering corresponds to that of the counts set out in my last letter of 24 February.

ad IV. ad vocem Cherval. You will have seen from your copy of the Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne that Mr Karl Schapper was one of the two leaders of the section of the 'Communist League' inimical to me in 1850 whom I accused of wrongly construing the purpose of the then still extant secret society which ought, I felt sure, to disseminate opinions but steer clear of any kind of conspiratorial activity, and that I therefore publicly accused Messrs Schapper and Co., not only through the medium of counsel at the Cologne court, but also in the above-named pamphlet, afterwards published in Switzerland and America, of having provided Stieber and his agents with pretexts for their police machinations, thereby bringing about the prosecution of my friends in Cologne.

While the admission of his errors before a magistrate could not but be a blow to Mr Schapper's self-esteem, I knew him to be a man of honour (he was proof-reader to the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1848/49), and I therefore wrote to him from here, asking him to swear an affidavit to this effect before a London magistrate. He at once proved equal to my expectations. (See Enclosure a) Translation: Enclosure f. 1.)

Like myself, Mr Schapper has for many years eschewed all political agitation.

Schapper's affidavit also clears up the obscurities that may have remained in respect of my relations with the wretched Cherval, regarding which, by the by, the National-Zeitung could not have been in doubt had they done no more than skim through the reports, published in all the leading Prussian papers, of the public proceedings at the communist trial in Cologne (October and November 1852). It was their bounden duty to do so before making such calumnious allegations against me. It was all the more their bounden duty in as much as they themselves repeatedly referred to the said trial in their leading articles. Schapper's affidavit proves that Cherval was never connected with me, but only with my then opponents. As regards Cherval, I have this to add:

From an old letter, which I wrote to Friedrich Engels in Manchester (28 October 1852) and which he has kept, I would cite the following passage:

'That Cherval was a police spy is borne out by the following:

'Firstly, his miraculous escape from prison in Paris immediately after sentence;

'Secondly, his unmolested stay in London, although a common criminal;

'Thirdly, Mr de Rémusat (I have authorised Schneider II to name him if necessary) tells me that Cherval offered him his services as agent to the Princes of Orleans. Thereupon, he wrote to Paris and was sent the following documents (of which a copy was shown me) from which it emerges that Cherval was first a Prussian police spy and is now a Bonapartist one.'

The contents of the passage cited above will be corroborated by the lawyer, Mr Schneider II from Cologne, should you consider it necessary to summon him to Berlin as a witness. The Monsieur de Rémusat mentioned in the excerpt from the letter to Engels was, if I am not mistaken, a minister under Louis Philippe, or at any rate one of the most outstanding deputies of Louis Philippe's day, and one of the most eminent writers of the so-called doctrinaire party of that time.

ad II (ad vocem funds for the journal Volk) I am sending you, Enclosure b (translation Enclosure f, 2), my own affidavit concerning the source of the money placed at the Volks disposal by me.

Since I have to stay in Manchester for some time, as my legal adviser in the libel action against the London Daily Telegraph lives up here, I had to swear the affidavit before a Manchester JUSTICE OF THE PEACE. In accordance with English law, therefore, it bears no stamp.

ad I, I have nothing further to add. ad III, I would remark: As regards my 'connection' with the 'secret police', I could have my brother-in-law, the erstwhile Prussian Minister, von Westphalen, called as a witness. However, my wife, his sister, wishes to avoid this family scandal if it is at all possible to do so. That is something I must leave entirely to your discretion.

Enclosure b) (translation: Enclosure f, 3) contains an affidavit by G. Müller, chairman of the public German 'Workers' Educational Society' in London. It is the only working men's association (save for the secret society, the 'Communist League' already mentioned, which was disbanded at my behest in November 1852) to which I belonged in London since my arrival there (September or August 1849) until my resignation from the same (mid-September 1850) which was publicly announced in various German papers (including the then still extant Londoner Deutsche Zeitung). It is, in fact, the only German working men's association with which I have had anything whatever to do during my time of residence in London. Now, at its anniversary banquet (6 February 1860, the very day the National- Zeitung's articles were reproduced in the London newspaper, the Daily Telegraph) that same association voted a unanimous resolution backing me and censuring Vogt, although I had kept aloof from it for ten years.

Its president had this resolution drawn up in legal form in London, as you will see from the enclosure.

ad V. I enclose herewith (under Enclosure d) the article the Daily Telegraph paraphrased from the National-Zeitung; likewise the reply from the Daily Telegraph's (Berlin) correspondent in response to my complaint (under Enclosure e), of which I provided a translation in my letter of 24 February.

I now consider it to be quite unnecessary for the name of my friend Ferdinand Freiligrath to be mentioned at all during the course of the lawsuit, with the sole exception of the letter to F. Engels dated 19 November 1852, enclosed in my letter to you of 24 February. I consider that letter essential if the facts are to be established in court.

In addition to the supplementary information which you will find below, this letter contains the following enclosures:

Enclosure a) Schapper's affidavit; b) my own affidavit; c) G. Müller's affidavit; d) Daily Telegraph of 6 February, p. 5, column 1, article headed 'THE JOURNALISTIC AUXILIARIES OF AUSTRIA'; e) Daily Telegraph of 13 February, p. 2, column 6, headed GERMANY. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT), FRANKFORT ON THE MAINE, FEBR. 8; f) translation of the three affidavits; g) The Knight of the Noble Consciousness, published in New York, December 1853. h) Letter from Flocon, member of the Provisional Government, Paris, 1 March 1848; i) letter from Lelewel, Brussels, 10 February 1860; k) 1. letter from L. Jottrand, Brussels, 19 May 1849 and 2. letter from the same, Brussels, 25 February 1848; l) 1 copy of Zwei politische Prozesse. Verhandelt vor den Februar-Assisen in Köln, Cologne 1849; m) letter from Ernest Jones, London, 11 February 1860; n) letter from the Sheffield Foreign Affairs Committee, 6 May 1856, Sheffield; o) letters from David Urquhart, Glasgow, December 9, 1854; p) translations of enclosures m), n), and o).

The only document that I still have to send you is a letter from the editor of the New-York Tribune—which I expect to receive any day now — concerning my relations, from mid-1851 until the present, with this, the leading American English newspaper.

I remain, Sir, your very obedient Servant,

Dr Karl Marx

Supplementary Information

Needless to say, the only points in Vogt's lampoon which I shall touch on in the action against the National-Zeitung are those actually incorporated by that newspaper in its leader, whether simply as they stood, or in the shape of comments; also, in regard to the National-Zeitung, only such points as are punishable by law. All else must be kept in reserve against such time as, the proceedings being concluded, I can reply to Vogt in writing.

Hence the only purpose of this supplementary information is the following:

1. To provide some additional observations on those passages in the National-Zeitung which, though quite irrelevant to the actual case for the prosecution, might possibly be of use in replying to defence counsel.

2. Being myself the son of a lawyer (the late Justizrat Heinrich Marx of Trier, for many years bâtonnier of the barreau there, noted for his integrity of character no less than for legal ability), I know how important it is for a conscientious lawyer to be quite clear about his client's character. In addition, you will perceive that certain points given in ad 2 might be used to advantage during the proceedings.

ad 1) The passage from the National-Zeitung, quoted under III in my letter of 24 February (No. 37 of the National-Zeitung, column 2, line 65 from the top et seq.), goes on:

'To fill in the picture Vogt publishes among other documents a long letter by Techow, a former lieutenant, dated August 26, 1850, in which', etc.

Now for a start there is nothing, not a single line, in that letter—though anyone who had read only the Nat.-Zeit and not Vogt's lampoon might easily be tempted to think there was— about what the Nat.-Zeit, aping Vogt and in concert with him, had just before maintained, i.e. 'the compromising of people at home in Germany in order to extort money from them by threats of denunciation', or 'connections with the secret police in France and Germany', and so forth.

What Techow really says, amounts to no more than this: that he went drinking with myself, Engels and Schramm (now dead, then— 1850—manager of the Revue brought out by Engels and me in Hamburg), and took in deadly earnest the pranks we played upon him while he sought to impress us as an exceedingly serious and self-important emissary from a secret society in Switzerland.

This applies to the theoretical part of his letter, notably the account of his conversation with us (it never took place in that form) which evinces the strangest misapprehensions and the most comical misrepresentations. No one, I assume, would expect me, a man who, for over fifteen years, has been publishing his views in German, French and English, to concern myself seriously with an account of my theory written by an ex-lieutenant who has spent no more than a few hours of his whole life in my company and at a wine tavern at that. Mr Techow's deviousness and mauvaise foi are clearly discernible from the fact that he had earlier written to me and Engels from Switzerland, attacking Willich (see Enclosure g: The Knight of the Noble Consciousness, pp. 3-4), while later, in his letter, which was never published, he did not hesitate to disseminate Willich's delusions (at that time Willich was actuated by the most absurd delusions about the importance of his own person and the snares laid for him by imaginary rivals) and his slanderous allegations against myself, although the tiniest glimmer of common sense would have told him that a few days spent in London consorting exclusively with those who were then our enemies did not entitle him to pronounce a verdict one way or the other.

So far, I have discussed only what one might describe as the theoretical part of Techow's letter (reproduced in Vogt—whether tampered with or not I can't, of course, say — on pp. 142 et seq.).

I now come to the most incriminating part of the letter, in which he speaks of the duel between my friend Conrad Schramm, now dead, and Willich. Had the National-Zeitung reprinted the letter, I would have enclosed one from Schramm, written long after the duel, in which he reproached me with letting myself be influenced by Willich because I had advised him [Schramm], albeit vainly, not to fight.

Here I need do no more than refer you to Enclosure g, pp. 5-9.

(When this appeared in New York in December 1853 they, Willich and C. Schramm, were both in America.)

As regards the pamphlet (Enclosure g), I consider it necessary to tell you something about how it came into being.

In December 1852, just a few weeks after the end of the communist trial in Cologne, I sent the ms. of my Revelations concerning that trial to Basle—to Schabelitz, the publisher. Having delayed publication for months, S. made such blunders over dispatching it that the entire consignment destined for Germany was confiscated at the Baden border. In the event, I sent the ms. to the United States of North America where it appeared in Boston in March 1853, first in serial form in the Neu-England- Zeitung, and then as a pamphlet in its own right.

The appearance of the Revelations in America coincided with that of Mr Willich himself who, together with Kinkel, had gone there to drum up a revolutionary loan since, according to the view published by Kinkel in the German American papers at the time, 'revolutions are as easily made as railroads', always provided 'the necessary cash' is in hand. It was this kind of balderdash against which I took a decided stand. After the appearance of the Revelations in America, Willich allowed at least four months to elapse before publishing a rejoinder in the New York Criminal-Zeitung.

It contained the self-same calumnies and balderdash as Techow's letter (indeed, in his letter sent to Switzerland in 1850, Techow was merely repeating what Willich had whispered in his ear when he was in London, and what Willich was to publish in New York in 1853). It was all the more essential that I should answer, in that my articles in the New-York Tribune had earned me a publicly recognised position in the English-American Press. Meanwhile, I had decided that I should deal with the matter pertinently if in a jocular vein, as indeed I did in The Knight of the Noble Consciousness. Needless to say, Techow could have replied, as could Willich. However, they deemed it wiser to remain silent and not to break that silence in the seven years since that time.

What insidious inanity, therefore, on the part of the National- Zeitung (intent only on avenging itself for the criticism I bestowed on it in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1848/49), to foist on the public as authentic truth tittle-tattle that had long since been publicly refuted.

When Vogt's book arrived in London, by the by, I sent it with an accompanying letter to Mr Techow in Australia and shall no doubt be able to place his reply before the public in four months' time.

Incidentally, the following account of how the letter came to be published is typical of Vogt.

For in a letter from Paris dated 6 February 1860 Schily, a lawyer, writes:

'This letter' (i. e. Techow's) 'passed through different hands before reaching mine, where it remained until, following my expulsion from Switzerland (summer of 1851), it came into the possession of Vogt via Ranickel (a working man who had connections with Willich). For I had been unable to put my papers in order, having been picked up quite unexpectedly, without prior notification or an expulsion order, in the streets of Geneva, where I had been sent into forced residence, and forcibly conveyed via sundry lock-ups to Basle, whence I was sent on my way. My papers were put in order for me by friends and in this Ranickel had a hand, which is how he came into possession of that document. I later wrote to Ranickel from London, asking for the document, but did not get it. As a man specially trusted by Willich (he once shared his lodgings at Besançon), he may well have had other intentions or instructions.... Ranickel is now said to have a highly successful établissement as a book-binder, and to number among his clientèle the gouvernement of Geneva (the head of which is Fazy, Vogt's patron). Not content with idolising Willich, Ranickel acted as Vogt's informer.'

Such is the honest manner in which Mr Vogt acquired Techow's letter.

I would ask you not to mention Schily's name, should this point be raised, since Vogt, qua Bonapartist agent, is powerful enough to have Schily banished from France.

I need say nothing further on this score save that, no sooner had Willich published (in 1853) the balderdash now reproduced in Techow's letter, than there instantly—before, indeed, I could possibly have been notified in England—appeared in the self-same New-Yorker Criminal-Zeitung, a devastating riposte written by Joseph Weydemeyer (former Prussian Lieutenant of artillery, subsequently co-editor of the Frankfurt Neue Deutsche Zeitung, presently DEPUTY-SURVEYOR in the State of Iowa) who was in Frankfurt am Main and a member of the 'Communist League' throughout the time of the rift in London and the Communist trial in Cologne. The said statement was also signed by Dr A. Jacobi, now a general practitioner in New York, who was himself among the accused at Cologne, but was acquitted.

As regards the following passage, No. 37 of the National-Zeitung, column II, line 31 from top et seq.:

'They' (i.e. myself and co.) 'continued the work of the Rheinische Zeitung among the refugees. In 1849 this paper had counselled against any participation in the movement and had also constantly attacked all the members of Parliament, etc'

allow me to make the following observations: It is perfectly correct that, unlike the National-Zeitung, the Neue Rh. Zeit, never sought to make a milch cow of the revolution; rather that paper was kept on its feet only at considerable financial sacrifice and at great personal risk to myself, until such time as suppressed by the Prussian government. The absurd allegation, particularly so when coming from the National-Zeitung, that 'in 1849 the Neue Rh. Zeit, had counselled against any participation in the movement', is best refuted in the columns of the paper itself. As to the manner in which I conducted myself during the revolution, I would refer you to Enclosure l) (Zwei politische Prozesse etc.).

Similarly, it is true that the Neue Rhein. Zeit, always dealt with Mr Vogt and the other windbags of the Frankfurt National Assembly ironically and in accordance with their deserts. Come to that, as he himself admits in his pamphlet, by 1846 Vogt was already a naturalised Swiss citizen, i.e. a national of a foreign state, and hence should have had absolutely no say in Germany. That the Neue Rhein. Zeit, 'attacked all' the members of Parliament is incorrect. It was on the most amicable terms with many members on the extreme Left. The extent to which even Vogt and Co. sought to curry favour with the newspaper almost up to the time of its demise is plainly evident if only from the fact that, when they founded the March Association they sent out a circular throughout the length and breadth of Germany in which the public was strongly recommended to subscribe to good and the best newspapers, the good being accorded one asterisk and the best two. The Neue Rhein. Zeit, was honoured with 'two asterisks'. No sooner had this scrap of paper come into my hands than I wrote a short leader in the Neue Rhein. Zeit. (I believe it was an issue in March 1849) protesting against this unsolicited patronage on the part of people whom I esteemed neither for their personal character nor for their political intelligence.

ad 2) In 1842 (at the age of twenty-four) I was editor-in-chief of the old Rheinische Zeitung which, subject first to single, and then to double censorship, ended up by being compulsorily closed down by the Prussian government (spring, 1843). One of the men with whom I was working at the time was Mr Camphausen, Prime Minister of Prussia after the March revolution. The old Rhein. Zeit. can be said beyond all doubt to have disrupted the power of the censorship in Prussia. (I would observe in confidence—not, of course, for public consumption—that after the 'Rhein. Zeit.' had been closed down, overtures were made to me by the Prussian government through the medium of Geheimer Revisionsrat [Privy Auditor Councillor] Esser, a friend of my father's. Esser, I should explain, was taking the waters with me at Kreuznach, where I married my present wife. After this communication, I left Prussia for Paris.)

In Paris I published the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher in company with Friedrich Engels, Georg Herwegh, Heinrich Heine, and Arnold Ruge. (I later broke with Herwegh and Ruge.) At the end of 1844 I was expelled from Paris (by Guizot) at the instigation of the Prussian Embassy there and left for Belgium.

The standing I enjoyed amongst French radicals during my stay in Paris can best be gauged from Enclosure h), a letter from Flocon of 1 March 1848, recalling me to France in the name of the Provisional Government, and annulling Guizot's expulsion order. (In confidence: While in Paris in the summer of 1844, after the bankruptcy of the publisher (Julius Fröbel) of the Deutsch-Französ. Jahrbücher, I received from Dr Claessen, on behalf of Camphausen and other Rhein. Zeit, shareholders, a letter—enclosing 1,000 talers—describing my services in such glowing colours that, for this very reason, I shall not enclose it.)

I lived in Brussels from the beginning of 1845 to the beginning of March 1848, when I was again expelled and returned to France on the strength of Flocon's letter. In Brussels, besides unpaid contributions to sundry radical newspapers in Paris and Brussels, I wrote the Critique of Critical Criticism in collaboration with Fr. Engels (a book about philosophy, published by Rütten, Frankfurt am Main, 1845), Misere de la Philosophie (book on economics, published by Vogler in Brussels and by Frank in Paris in 1847), Discours sur le libre échange (Brussels 1848), a work in two volumes on latter-day German philosophy and socialism (not published; see my preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, F. Duncker, Berlin 1859), and numerous pamphlets. During the whole of my stay in Brussels I gave unpaid lectures on 'political economy' at the Brussels German Workers' Educational Society.

These were about to appear in book form when publication was interrupted by the February Revolution. Typical of my standing among the radicals (of very varying complexions) in Brussels is the fact that, in the public société internationale, I was committee member for the Germans, Lelewel (an old man of eighty, veteran of the Polish Revolution of 1830/31 and learned historian) for the Poles, Imbert (later gouverneur of the Tuileries in Paris) for the French, and Jottrand, a Brussels lawyer, former member of the Constituent Assembly and leader of the Belgian radicals, for the Belgians, who was also chairman. From the two letters written to me by Jottrand, now an old man (Enclosures k, 1, and k, 2), as also from Lelewel's letter (Enclosure i), you will see what my relationship with these gentlemen was during my stay in Brussels. Jottrand's letter (Enclosure k, 2) was written after a dispute I had had with him at a public meeting on 22 February 1848, following which I had notified him of my resignation from the société internationale. He wrote me the second letter, when I founded the Neue Rhein. Zeitung in Cologne.

My second period of residence in Paris lasted from March until the end of May 1848. (In confidence: Flocon offered to help myself and Engels finance the founding of the N. Rh. Z. We refused because, as Germans, we did not wish to take subsidies from a French government, even if friendly.)

From May 1848 until the end of May 1849 I was editor of the Neue Rh. Zeit, in Cologne. From Enclosure l) you will see that I was elected one of the three chairmen of the Rhenish-Westphalian democrats. (In confidence: When I arrived in Cologne, I was invited by a friend of Camphausen's to go to him in Berlin. I disregarded the insinuation.)

In Paris from June 1849 till August 1849. Expelled under Bonaparte's presidency.

From the end of 1849 until now, 1860, in London. Publications: Revue der Neuen Rh. Zeitung in Hamburg, 1850, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (in New York, 1852), Diplomatic Revelations of the 18th Century (London, 1856), Critique of Political Economy, 1st instalment, Duncker, Berlin, 1859, etc. Contributor to the New-York Tribune from 1851 up till the present. For as long as I remained a member of the German Workers' Society (end of 1849 to September 1850) I gave unpaid lectures.

From Enclosure o (it is confidential) you will see how I came to make David Urquhart's acquaintance. From that time onwards I have contributed to his Free Press. I agree with him in matters of foreign policy (opposition to Russia and Bonapartism), but not of internal policy, in which I support the Chartist Party (which opposes him). For 6 years now I have contributed gratis to the latter's publications (in particular the People's Paper). (See Enclosure m.)

My anti-Palmerston articles written for the New-York Tribune in 1853, have been repeatedly reprinted in pamphlet form in England and Scotland, to the tune of 15-20,000 copies.

You will see from Enclosure n, which was sent me in 1856 at the behest of the Sheffield club by the secretary of one of the Urquhartite clubs, which are concerned solely with diplomacy, how I stand with the Urquhartites, despite our differences over internal policy.

The letter in Enclosure m stems from Ernest Jones, BARRISTER-AT-LAW in London, acknowledged leader of the Chartist Party, also recognised poet.

Translations of Enclosures o, n, and m will be found in Enclo- sure p.

A typical example of the kind of tittle-tattle about me disseminated by certain German quarters in London will be found in the letter from my friend Steffen (formerly Prussian lieutenant and teacher at the Divisional School, at present in Boston) quoted on p. 14 of Enclosure g, 'The Knight of the Noble Consciousness'.

Despite ten years of unremitting attacks on myself, I have never burdened the German public with a single word of my life story. Vis-à-vis my lawyer, in a case such as the present one, I considered it indispensable.

As regards the Italian war, I should add that my views on the subject are absolutely in accord with those expressed by my friend Fr. Engels in the well known pamphlet Po and Rhine, published by Fr. Duncker in Berlin in 1859. The manuscript of the said work was sent to me by Engels before it was dispatched to Berlin.

We are in favour of a free and independent Italy and in 1848 said as much in the Neue Rh. Zeit., in terms more forthright than any other German paper, and the same goes for Hungary and Poland. But we do not wish Bonaparte (in collusion with Russia) to make Italian freedom or the question of any other nationality a pretext for ruining Germany.