DO NOT TRUST CONTENT FROM THE WASHINGTON POST: Was Lincoln Really Into Marx?

Did Abraham Lincoln share a common economic vision with Karl Marx?

That’s the thesis of a recent article in the Washington Post, which claims that the 16th president and the socialist philosopher “were friendly and influenced each other.” According to an essay by Gillian Brockell, “Lincoln was regularly reading Karl Marx” and appears to have adapted a Marxist conceptualization of the labor-capital relationship to the discussion of slavery in his first annual message to Congress.

While Brockell stops short of ascribing socialist beliefs to Lincoln himself, she uses this purported historical kinship with Marx to secure a place for socialism within the mainstream of American politics. Modern “democratic socialists” such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, it follows, are merely successors to Lincoln’s own accommodating assessment of Marxist thought.

The Post’s article instantly found an audience on the academic left, with Princeton historian and Twitter warrior Kevin M. Kruse broadcasting his stamp of approval for its message to his followers. The result is a textbook example of modern-day pundits and activists attempting to enlist the past as an electioneering tool for their favored political causes in the present.

Brockell badly misreads her sources and reaches faulty conclusions about the relationship between the two historical contemporaries. Contrary to her assertion, there is no evidence that Lincoln ever read or absorbed Marx’s economic theories. In fact, it’s unlikely that Lincoln even knew who Karl Marx was, as distinct from the thousands of well-wishers who sent him congratulatory notes after his reelection.

Sad.