The long lead Monday morning editorial at the Dispatch discussed a well-known catchphrase during the Civil War and discussed why it was fallacious – in the South. The paper later reported that Southern church leaders warned that slave owners needed to respect the marriage institution if they were going to preserve the peculiar institution.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch January 30, 1865:
Monday morning…January 30, 1865.
“rich man’s War — poor man’s fight.”
Poverty is certainly not without its disadvantages. It is the lot of the great mass of mankind. The rich, in all countries and in all ages, are a respectable minority. But among its many misfortunes, none is greater than the facility with which, in democratic countries, it can be duped by demagogues to its own utter ruin. At the head of this article we have placed a shallow but mischievous sophism, invented by enemies of the Confederate cause to paralyze the valiant hearts on which it relies for success.–If there are any soldiers of the Confederacy weak enough to be deluded by this [ transparant ] but malignant device, we invoke them to listen to a few words of warning.
Granting, for the sake of the argument, that the mass of Confederate armies is composed of poor men, is their condition any worse in this respect than that of all the armies of all the wars that from the beginning of the world have been fought to this day? …
But if ever there was a war to which the miserable sophism we have quoted has no application whatever, it is this universal uprising of the South against Yankee invasion. What brought to the field the great mass of the Southern armies — the men who, from Manassas to this hour, have illustrated the Confederate flag with prodigies of valor and endurance? They came voluntarily, poor and rich, to drive from their common soil a common enemy. Whilst the majority of them, like the majority of all armies, are not rich men, more rich men have entered the Confederate ranks than any army of which we have any knowledge. It is true enough, there are some rich men who have never shouldered a musket and never will. But they are mostly those who were poor at the beginning of the war, and have made fortunes since by extortion and speculation. If they could be taken by the nape of the neck and thrust into the front of the battle, it would give universal satisfaction. Many men who were rich before the war have become utterly impoverished, and would consider themselves fortunate now if they could be assured of soldier’s fare and soldier’s clothing.
And now, suppose the work of subjugation complete, and that institution of slavery, in which we are told none but slaveholders have any interest, abolished, how are the poor to be benefitted? What is the condition of the poor in England, in France, in the North? Is it not an incessant and painful struggle for the bare necessaries of life by the performance of labors which are here performed by slaves? Is it not a rigid exclusion from all social sympathies and considerations, so that the foreigner and Northern employer treats his employee with less indulgence and civility than the Southern master treats his slaves? …
We honestly believe that the welfare and happiness of Southern poor men are as much involved in the success of this struggle as any other class of the community — more so than the rich, who can leave the country and escape brutality and degradation of foreign lands. …
Religious duties of masters to slaves.
The Protestant and Catholic clergy of the Confederacy are calling attention to the duty of enforcing the sanctity of the marriage relation among slaves. The Baptist Convention of Georgia has adopted an emphatic resolution upon this subject. The Southern Churchman quotes various religious authorities, setting forth the sinfulness of any neglect by masters of this Christian duty; among them Bishop Verot, (Roman Catholic Bishop of Savannah,) who says: “Slavery, to become a permanent institution of the South, must be made to conform to the law of God; a Southern Confederacy will never thrive unless it rests upon morality and order; the Supreme Arbiter of Nations will not bless with stability and prosperity a state of things which would be a flagrant violation of His holy commandments.”
