Anti-Socialist Laws
Engels's first inclination was to seek publication in Germany despite passage of the first of the Anti-Socialist Laws by the government of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. On April 26, 1884 Engels wrote a letter to his close political associate Karl Kautsky in which he noted that he sought to "play a trick on Bismarck" by writing something "that he would be positively unable to ban". He felt this goal unrealizable owing to Morgan's discussions of the nature of monogamy and the relationship between private ownership of property and class struggle, however, these making it "absolutely "impossible" to couch in such a way as to comply with the Anti-Socialist Law".