Matthew Brown: Poor fighting for rich

The “Silent Sam” monument in Chapel Hill has been cleaned up to remove the graffiti, and we can read the inscription better. It is not a monument to slavery, but something more perniciously enduring: the submission of the common citizen to the will of the ruling class.

The inscription reads: “To the sons of the university who entered the war of 1861-1865 ... and whose lives taught the lesson ... that duty is the sublimest word in the English language.”

The Civil War was a “rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight,” as was the Iraq war and most wars.

This story was originally published July 13, 2015 at 6:08 PM with the headline "Matthew Brown: Poor fighting for rich."