Marx Engaged in Rigorous Analysis — but He Was Driven by Moral Outrage
Karl Marx was an analytically rigorous theoretician. But his 1853 article “The Duchess of Sutherland and Slavery” is a good reminder that he was also motivated by white-hot outrage about injustice.
Karl Marx monument in Friedrichshain neighborhood of Berlin, Germany. (Bildagentur-online / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
In 1853, Karl Marx wrote an article for the New York Daily-Tribune called “The Duchess of Sutherland and Slavery.” In it, he starts by discussing an “address of the Stafford House Assembly of Ladies to their sisters in America” condemning slavery.
The Daily-Tribune was an anti-slavery newspaper and Marx himself was a passionate supporter of the cause of abolition. But he was revolted by the moral posturing of the Stafford House Assembly of Ladies, which he saw as typical of the “philanthropy of the British Aristocracy” — which tended to focus on alleviating injustices “as far distant from home as possible, and rather on that than on this side of the ocean.”
Marx proceeds to give his readers a gruesome glimpse into the origins of the family fortune of the Assembly’s president, the Duchess of Sutherland. And in doing that, he shows us a side of his character that might be lost on some readers of his other work.
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