Lincoln Charles Dana - Communist?

[Norman Dasinger Jr]

How imbedded were communists in the Lincoln Admin.?


Charles A. Dana
First Communist to Serve in the US Government ??

By Norman Dasinger, Jr



President Lincoln called him "the eyes and ears of the Union."

Born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire in 1819, he became a store clerk in Buffalo and began to study languages. He wanted to be a scholar of Germany and its associated languages and entered Harvard in 1839 but had to leave in 1841. He soon joined the Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education located in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. This utopian experiment in communal living was inspired by the ideals of transcendentalism and was based on balancing labor and leisure while working together for the benefit of the greater community. It counted Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathanial Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau as interested observers of this experimental assembly.

While Dana was there, the Brook Farm adopted a societal model based on the socialist concepts of Charles Fourier and Horace Greeley, the acclaimed newspaper editor, and the colony began publishing The Harbinger as an unofficial journal. Dana was the primary editor of this publication. The Brook Farm would close in 1847 as Emerson wrote, perhaps a reason why, "The members naturally were surprised to observe that one man ploughed all day and one looked out of a window all day …and both received at night the same wages." Dana's publication, The Harbinger, was saved and moved to New York and continued to be controlled by Dana. Soon, he decided to make a life change and he joined Greeley at the New York Tribune as their correspondent in Europe where he associated with another employee of the Tribune: Karl Marx

In 1849, Dana returned to New York to become proprietor and managing editor of the Tribune and in this capacity actively promoted the anti-slavery cause. He resigned as editor in 1862 and US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton immediately made him a special investigating agent of the War Department. As directed, he sent frequent reports to Stanton concerning certain field generals. He spent considerable time with General Grant and reported him to be "modest, honest, judicial … and gifted with a courage that never faltered." In March of 1864, Dana was made Assistant Secretary of War.

After the Civil War, he became an art connoisseur, a published author and strong supporter of the Grant and Cleveland presidential administrations. He was editor and part owner of the The Sun (New York) newspaper and remained in control of it until he died in 1897.

 

[Zack]

How imbedded were communists in the Lincoln Admin.?


Charles A. Dana
First Communist to Serve in the US Government ??

By Norman Dasinger, Jr



President Lincoln called him "the eyes and ears of the Union."

Born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire in 1819, he became a store clerk in Buffalo and began to study languages. He wanted to be a scholar of Germany and its associated languages and entered Harvard in 1839 but had to leave in 1841. He soon joined the Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education located in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. This utopian experiment in communal living was inspired by the ideals of transcendentalism and was based on balancing labor and leisure while working together for the benefit of the greater community. It counted Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathanial Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau as interested observers of this experimental assembly.

While Dana was there, the Brook Farm adopted a societal model based on the socialist concepts of Charles Fourier and Horace Greeley, the acclaimed newspaper editor, and the colony began publishing The Harbinger as an unofficial journal. Dana was the primary editor of this publication. The Brook Farm would close in 1847 as Emerson wrote, perhaps a reason why, "The members naturally were surprised to observe that one man ploughed all day and one looked out of a window all day …and both received at night the same wages." Dana's publication, The Harbinger, was saved and moved to New York and continued to be controlled by Dana. Soon, he decided to make a life change and he joined Greeley at the New York Tribune as their correspondent in Europe where he associated with another employee of the Tribune: Karl Marx

In 1849, Dana returned to New York to become proprietor and managing editor of the Tribune and in this capacity actively promoted the anti-slavery cause. He resigned as editor in 1862 and US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton immediately made him a special investigating agent of the War Department. As directed, he sent frequent reports to Stanton concerning certain field generals. He spent considerable time with General Grant and reported him to be "modest, honest, judicial … and gifted with a courage that never faltered." In March of 1864, Dana was made Assistant Secretary of War.

After the Civil War, he became an art connoisseur, a published author and strong supporter of the Grant and Cleveland presidential administrations. He was editor and part owner of the The Sun (New York) newspaper and remained in control of it until he died in 1897.

I'm not even sold that Charles Dana was a communist based on this write-up. So......not at all?

And even if they were.......so what?

It's very loaded wording of the question, implying some sort of sinister communist plot.

 

[Fairfield]

How imbedded were communists in the Lincoln Admin.?

Never thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathanial Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau as part of a political cell!

Tread carefully: accusing people of communism to further some agenda is not unknown. I refer you to the late Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R ME)'s Declaration of Conscience which includes the words:
"Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism:
The right to criticize;
The right to hold unpopular beliefs;
The right to protest;
The right of independent thought."

If this is the sort of philosophy embedded in Lincoln's administration, I don't think it's so bad.

 

[Bruce Vail]

How embedded were communists in the Lincoln administration? Seriously?

 

[Zack]

Also, without careful clarification terms like "communist" and "socialist" are utterly meaningless as they have evolved so much over time and have been misused so frequently that their real definitions are often forgotten.

And to do that treads dangerously close to modern politics.

Suffice to say, things were different back then.

 

[tony_gunter]

Communist as a political ideology wasn't even a thing in 1860. "Communist" was a term loosely used to refer to socialist. Socialism itself was a loosely defined set of ideals proposed by several mid-19th-century philosophers as a foil to monarchy / aristocracy. Marx would later solidify these ideals into a more radical set of theories that we call socialism today. Dana was a member of Brook Farm Institute, which was formed on the theories of Fourier which was quite different than Marxist socialism. Fourier basically advocated for fair wages, work-life balance, and equal rights for all.

So to answer your question: no.

 

[Fairfield]

This utopian experiment in communal living was inspired by the ideals of transcendentalism and was based on balancing labor and leisure while working together for the benefit of the greater community.

You may be a bit confused about both "communal living" and Transcendentalism. The former is little more than living together and sharing as life comes along. This kind of "communism" (note the small "c") was equally true of early Christian figures and the Army of Northern Virginia. Transcendentalism--mostly a product of liberal (again, note the small "l") New Englanders--held that people were innately good but living in a corrupt world. Religiously, they tended toward the growing Unitarian movement while politically they groused about the government (as we still do today), the Mexican War (Emerson and Thoreau certainly were not of one mind on this) and slavery. This doesn't sound Communistic (note the capital "C") or Marxian as @tony_gunter has pointed out

 

[Bruce Vail]

Some of the German Revolutionaries of 1848 who called themselves communists made their way to the United States and into the ranks of the Republican Party but, like Dana, their vision of communism bore little similarity to the communism of Lenin or Stalin.

We've had a number of posts here about August Willich, a German revolutionary who proudly identified himself as a communist but denied being a Marxist. He became a general in the Union Army and ran for political office post-war as a Republican. Willich probably counts as the first real communist to serve in the US governmnet as his enlistment in the Army apparently predated that of Dana.

 

[USS ALASKA]

The University of Southern Mississippi
The Aquila Digital Community
Master's Theses
Summer 8-2013

Inconspicuous but Indispensable: Charles Anderson Dana as Assistant Secretary of War
Aaron Edward Foster
University of Southern Mississippi

This Masters Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact [email protected].

ABSTRACT
Charles Anderson Dana's contributions to Union victory during the American Civil War extend far beyond his well-known relationship with General Ulysses S. Grant. Using both his journalistic talents and patriotism, he gained Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton's trust, which was essential for Dana to perform his duties effectively at the War Department in Washington City from 1864 to 1865. His obligations encompassed a broad spectrum of responsibilities from investigating dishonest contractors and federal officials attempting to defraud the government to authorizing the arbitrary arrests of civilians. He simultaneously performed lesser-known activities such as arranging soldiers' furloughs for the 1864 presidential election, functioning as a point of contact for prison facilities, overseeing massive troop movements, procuring supplies, military recruitment, and additional miscellaneous issues that constantly flooded the department during his tenure. Examining Dana's involvement with these obscure, yet vital matters not only reveals the extent of the War Department's authority but also accentuates Dana's key contributions to the Union war effort.

https://aquila.usm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1538&context=masters_theses

File too large to attach, please use above link.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[Rhea Cole]

The premise of this post is off target.

During the Prussian Revolution Karl Marx was the future U.S.General August Willich's second in command.

After the collapse of the Paris collective, Marx & Engels broke with Willich because he was too radical.

Arriving in Cincinnati with a letter of introduction from Marx, Willich became a leader of the expatriate German speaking community.

As the editor of a German language newspaper, Willich often published articles & letters from Marx.

When Beauregard fired on Fort Sumpter, Willich's twenty years s in the Prussian army led to a regimental command.

Oddly enough, Willich was not a communist. Neither was anyone else during the Cigil War. The Communist International ( Comintern) was not declared until 1919.

Link:

The Baddest Of All Cincinnati Badasses: General August Willich - Cincinnati Magazine

Rumor had it that he was the illegitimate son of the Prussian crown prince. Oh, and he challenged Karl Marx to a duel.

www.cincinnatimagazine.com

 

[Rhea Cole]

In the pre-McCarthy era of the 19th Century there was a long list of "utopian societies" in the U.S. That Dana would have dabbled in communal living is in no way remarkable. Just to give some context, here is a link to a list of 19th Century Utopian Societies.

Link:

List of American utopian communities - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Here in Tennessee there are Amish communities today. Growing up in the Midwest, the Amana Colonies, Hutterites, & other utopian societies were unremarkable.

 

[TallTallMan]

Get ready for the DiLorenzoians to show up...

 

[uaskme]

Engels/Marks wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1847. Several German Officers were aligned with this group. Failed Revolution in Germany sent many radicals over here.

The Communist Manifesto - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Here is a article about the converging forces.

Lincoln and Marx

The transatlantic convergence of two revolutionaries.

jacobin.com

 

[Rusk County Avengers]

To quote a good friend of mine:

"Communist, Socialists, all the different names for the same type of person. What they were called when they began 150 years ago: Marxists"

Were there Marxist sympathizers in the Lincoln Administration? I'd say yes, I would even call Lincoln an admirer. When it suited him.

But considering the then unheard of amounts of corruption and graft in the administration, I'd say they weren't very different from Communists later. Greedy…

But interesting post, I'm gonna have to delve into that.

 

[Rhea Cole]

To quote a good friend of mine:

"Communist, Socialists, all the different names for the same type of person. What they were called when they began 150 years ago: Marxists"

Were there Marxist sympathizers in the Lincoln Administration? I'd say yes, I would even call Lincoln an admirer. When it suited him.

But considering the then unheard of amounts of corruption and graft in the administration, I'd say they weren't very different from Communists later. Greedy…

But interesting post, I'm gonna have to delve into that.

I agree, delving into Karl Marx in the 1860's will be enlightening. Perhaps your source can connect Mother Anne, who founded the Shakers, with her vision in 1774 & the Norwegian religious Messiah who led his followers to Minnesota with Marxism. That would be an interesting read.

The Amish broke with the Mennonites in 1693. Both sects are still flourishing here in the U.S. today. Their Anababtist beliefs led to the modern Baptist Church… should we be alarmed at their Marxist leanings?

Just calling people names isn't the same as making a cogent statement.

 

[Rusk County Avengers]

I agree, delving into Karl Marx in the 1860's will be enlightening.

I did a long time ago. Read the Communist Manifesto and many other works by him and Engels.

To say I abhor his vision of the world and a profound lack of respect for Marx would be an understatement.

But that's a discussion for somewhere else.

I was referring to Charles Dana's involvement to put it one way.

 

[Rhea Cole]

I have found that when they discover what Marx wrote about the Civil War in 1861, it astounds my Lost Cause leaning friends.

Word for word the entirely discredited "war over tariffs" "not caused by slavery" assertion is right there on the first paragraphs.

It is the slave owners desire to "not share the fruits of his slaves labor" via protective tariffs that justifies their rebellion.

After reading what Marx wrote while living in London, it is inescapably clear that it was Southern secessionists who were Marxists.

Link:

Karl Marx - The American Civil War

libcom.org

It should not be a surprise to anyone familiar with the principles of Marx that he would align himself with agrarians vs capitalists. Counterintuitive as it may seem, it was Jefferson Davis, et al, who were following the 1848 "Communist Manifesto" play book.

Not entirely sure that comrade Davis saw it that way.

 

[Rhea Cole]

I did a long time ago. Read the Communist Manifesto and many other works by him and Engels.

To say I abhor his vision of the world and a profound lack of respect for Marx would be an understatement.

But that's a discussion for somewhere else.

I was referring to Charles Dana's involvement to put it one way.

In 1861 Marx declared that it was the Southern slaveholder's refusal to pay protective tariffs that the war was all about. According to Marx himself it was the secessionists who were following his communist anti capitalist dogma.

Full text in the following post.

 

[USS ALASKA]

Read the Communist Manifesto in High school in the late 70s (Much to the horror of my father) and was interested. Not in an "I'm joining!" interested but a "I want to know more" way. Bought Das Capital - Holy Moly, couldn't get through it. I could at least get through Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States (OK, OK it took me 3 tries). I heavily chastised myself "Dang it! I could have had the new Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush album - POOP!!!" Any organization that inflicts that mind-numbing nonsense on its members and potential recruits, yeap - NO! I'm out. (I did eventually acquire the above-mentioned album - still own it. BUT NOT THE BOOK ANYMORE!) I know, I'm just another intellectual philistine...

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[uaskme]

I have found that when they discover what Marx wrote about the Civil War in 1861, it astounds my Lost Cause leaning friends.

Word for word the entirely discredited "war over tariffs" "not caused by slavery" assertion is right there on the first paragraphs.

It is the slave owners desire to "not share the fruits of his slaves labor" via protective tariffs that justifies their rebellion.

After reading what Marx wrote while living in London, it is inescapably clear that it was Southern secessionists who were Marxists.

Link:

Karl Marx - The American Civil War

libcom.org

It should not be a surprise to anyone familiar with the principles of Marx that he would align himself with agrarians vs capitalists. Counterintuitive as it may seem, it was Jefferson Davis, et al, who were following the 1848 "Communist Manifesto" play book.

Not entirely sure that comrade Davis saw it that way.

Hilarious, South was Free Trade and Agrarian so they were Marxist.

Afraid my low info Northern aligned friends will never get it. Where do you get this ****!