The Inferior

Susan and I are still learning basics about the Civil War that remained hidden in high school. 

I recently read that Jefferson Davis and others openly divided white people into two races.

Of course they did. 

White Southerners were descendants of noble folk. When their fathers had defeated the British, they had "fought against a manly foe." But northern white soldiers were "the offscourings of the earth." Their ancestors came from the "bogs and fens" of Ireland and  England, from degenerate vagabonds and swamp people. 

 I think Davis saw a sound society as one where a lowly race did the physical labor; in the North that meant working-class white people. No Confederate would want to associate with such low-class "greasy merchants, filthy operatives. . . ." 

The New England states were composed of "small farmers who do their own drudgery," and so on.  Northern troops would be cowardly, of course, and stupid, not worthy foes. They were not going to put up much of a fight.