After Abraham Lincoln was re-elected in 1864 on the promise of banishing slavery, he was sent a long letter congratulating him on his achievements. The author of that letter? None other than Karl Marx. The letter began by stating “if resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your re-election is Death to Slavery.” Marx later described Lincoln in glowing terms as a “a man neither to be browbeaten by adversity nor intoxicated by success.”