The "International" was founded upon the basis of the so-called "Inaugural Address" and the "Statutes," both of which were evolved by Karl Marx and accepted as he presented them. In them great diplomatic skill is revealed. The "Inaugural Address" is a masterpiece of diplomatic finesse. It is indefinite throughout its whole structure, rendered purposely so by Karl Marx. He aimed, by it, to cover various parties of the time, the Proudhonists, the working-men's associations of France, the trade unions in England, the followers of Mazzini in Italy, the supporters of the Lassalle agitation in Germany; and it actually accomplished this in a masterly way. It commended itself to each and every one of them. It pictures in effective way the misery into which the working people are plunged by capitalism; it finds words of recognition for the results of the English trade unions. It praises the characteristics and services of the "free-coöperative movement"--Proudhon, Duchez; but it has also a friendly word for the organisations which receive aid from the state--Lassalle, Blanc. Out of it all is drawn only this conclusion, with which all sympathise--that the proletariat of all lands should be conscious of an international solidarity. In some general and sentimental phrases, which surely were traced by Marx with reluctance, national differences find their adjustment, and their representatives find a uniting bond. The "Statutes" were prefaced by some considerations which contained _in nuce_ the principles of Marxism--with various concessions, as, for example, the appeal to _vérité_, _justice et morale_. But even here is all pressure avoided. A man could, on any point of uncertainty, always think that something else was meant, and could at least feel himself free concerning it. Very little reference was made to the objects of the International Working-Men's Association. Its activity during the first years consisted essentially in the support of strikes, for which reason it enjoyed at the beginning the lively sympathy of many outside of the circles of working men.