Karl Marx
THE SITUATION IN NORTH AMERICA?”

London, November 4

General Bragg, who commands the Southern army in Ken-
tucky—the other fighting forces of the South there are restricted to
guerilla bands—on invading this border state issued a proclama-
tion which throws considerable light on the latest combined moves
of the Confederacy.* Bragg’s proclamation, addressed to the states
of the Northwest, presupposes his success in Kentucky as a matter
of course, and obviously reckons on the eventuality of a victorious
advance into Ohio, the central state of the North. In the first
place, he declares the readiness of the Confederacy to guarantee
freedom of navigation on the Mississippi and the Ohio. This
guarantee only makes sense the moment the slaveholders are in
possession of the border states. At Richmond, therefore, it was
assumed that the simultaneous invasions of Lee in Maryland and
Bragg in Kentucky would secure possession of the border states at
one sweep. Bragg then goes on to vindicate the South, which is
only fighting for its independence, but, for the rest, wants peace.
The real, characteristic point of the proclamation, however, is the
offer of a separate peace with the Northwestern states, the
invitation to them to secede from the Union and join the
Confederacy, since the economic interests of the Northwest and
the South coincide just as much as those of the Northwest and the
Northeast are inimically opposed. The following can be seen: No
sooner did the South fancy itself safely in possession of the border
states, than it officially boasted of its ulterior motive of reconstruct-
ing the Union but without the states of New England.

4B. Bragg, “Address to the People of the Northwest...”, September 26,
1862.— Ed.

The Situation in North America 957

Like the invasion of Maryland, however, that of Kentucky came
to grief: just like the former in the battle of Antietam Creek, so it
happened to the latter in the battle of Perryville, near Louisville.?”!
The Confederates were on the offensive here, just as they were
there, having attacked the advance guard of Buell’s army. The
Federals owe their victory to General McCook, the commander of
the advance guard, who held his ground against the enemy’s
considerably superior forces long enough to give Buell time to
bring his main body into the field. There is not the slightest doubt
that the defeat at Perryville will entail the evacuation of Kentucky.
The most considerable guerilla band, formed of the most fanatical
partisans of the slave system in Kentucky and led by General
Morgan, was annihilated at Frankfort (between Louisville and
Lexington) at almost the same time.*” Finally, there comes the
decisive victory of Rosecrans at Corinth, which makes imperative
the hastiest retreat of the beaten invasion army commanded by
General Bragg.?”

Thus, the Confederate campaign for the reconquest of the lost
border slave states which was undertaken on a large scale, with
military skill and with the most favourable chances, has come
utterly to grief. Apart from the immediate military results, these
battles contribute in another way to the removal of the main
difficulty. The hold of the slave states proper on the border states
naturally rests on the slave element of the latter, the same element
that enforces diplomatic and constitutional considerations on the
Union government in its struggle against slavery. However, in the
border states, the principal theatre of the Civil War, this element is
in practice being destroyed by the Civil War itself. A large section
of the slaveholders, with their “black chattels”,* are constantly
migrating to the South, in order to bring their property to a place
of safety. With each defeat of the Confederates this migration is
renewed on a larger scale.

One of my friends, a German officer, who fought under the
star-spangled banner in Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky and Ten-
nessee in turn,” writes to me that this migration is wholly
reminiscent of the exodus from Ireland in 1847 and 1848.”
Furthermore, the energetic sections of the slaveholders, the young
people, on the one hand, and the political and military leaders, on
the other, separate themselves from the bulk of their class, since
they either form guerilla bands in their own states and, as guerilla

a Here and below Marx uses the English phrase. In the first instance he gives
the German translation in brackets.— Ed.
b Joseph Weydemeyer.— Ed.

bands, are annihilated, or they leave home and join the army or
the administration of the Confederacy. Hence the result: on the
one hand, a tremendous dwindling of the slave element in the
border states, where it had always to contend with the “encroach-
ments’*“ of its competitor, free labour; on the other hand, removal
of the energetic section of the slaveholders and its white following.
Only a sediment of “moderate” slaveholders is left, who will soon
grasp greedily at the pile of money offered them by Washington
for the redemption of their “black chattels”, whose value will in
any case be lost as soon as the Southern market is closed to their
sale. Thus, the war itself brings about a solution by, in fact,
radically changing the form of society in the border states.

For the South the most favourable season for waging war is
over; for the North it is beginning, since the inland rivers are now
navigable once more and the combination of land and sea warfare
already attempted with so much success is again possible. The
North has used the interval to good advantage. “Ironclads”, ten in
number, for the rivers of the West, are rapidly nearing
completion; to which must be added twice as many semi-armoured
vessels for shallow waters. In the East many new armoured vessels
have already left the yards, whilst others are still under the
hammer. All will be ready by January 1, 1863. Ericsson, the
inventor and builder of the Monitor,’ is directing the building of
nine new ships after the same model. Four of them are already
“afloat”

On the Potomac, in Tennessee and Virginia, as well as at
different points in the South— Norfolk, New Bern, Port Royal,
Pensacola. and New Orleans—the army daily receives fresh
reinforcements. The tirst levy of 300,000 men, which Lincoln
announced in July, has been fully provided and is in part already
at the theatre of war. The second levy of 300,000 men for nine
months is gradually being raised. In some states conscription has
been replaced by voluntary enlistment; in none does it encounter
serious difficulties. Ignorance and hatred have decried conscrip-
tion as an unheard-of occurrence in the history of the United
States. Nothing can be more mistaken. Large numbers of troops
were conscripted during the War of Independence ™ and the
second war.with England (1812-15),°’° indeed, even in sundry small
wars with the Indians, without this ever encountering opposition
worth mentioning.

“ Marx uses the English word and gives the German translation in brackets.—
Ed.

b See this volume, p. 2123.— Fd.

The Situation in North Amertca 259

It is a noteworthy fact that during the present year Europe
supplied the United States with an emigrant contingent of
approximately 100,000 souls and that half of these emigrants
consist of Irishmen and Britons. At the recent congress of the
English Association for the Advancement of Science* at Cain-
bridge, the economist Merivale was obliged to remind _ his
countrymen of a fact that The Times, The Saturday Review, The
Morning Post and The Morning Herald, not to mention the dit
minorum gentium,” have so completely forgotten, or want to make
England forget, namely, that the majority of the English surplus
population finds a new home in the United States.

yaper
kirst published in) Die Presse, No. 309, pap

November 10, 1862

4 Marx gives the English name.— Ed,
» Literally: “gods of humbler Dneage’, Le. in this context, less important
newspapers.— be

Karl Marx