When people think of the Civil War, they tend to polarize it as North versus South, or as a struggle between freedom and slavery. In reality, the Civil War was much more complex than two sides fighting for a single cause. The historian's study of social classes highlights the fact that internal conflicts affected the outcome of the civil war. I argue in this essay that elites' efforts to maintain their social class during the Civil War weakened support for the Confederacy among non-elites and thus affected their willingness to secede. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The South had strong class divisions entrenched in their society even before the Civil War began. As an agrarian society, the South's economy was centered on the production and maintenance of farmland and crops. The Southern plantation system most rewarded cash crops, such as tobacco or cotton. These plantations were owned by white men who were the elite class and held the greatest social status in the South. The South's elite class was small, consisting of less than 25% of the South's total population. Despite this, the Southern plantation system concentrated all the money, power, and privilege in the hands of these elite few, so that there was a great divide between the wealthy elite and the rest of Southern society. which constituted the lower classes. the lower classes were hierarchical in terms of social status. The Yeoman family or farming class consisted of white people who grew food for consumption and sale in local markets so that they could support their minimal needs. They were not highly valued in Southern society because most foods were grown in the North. Below them, in the lowest class of Southern society were the black slaves. The elite class owned slaves as property and relied on their labor to make maximum profit from their plantations. As elites focused on maintaining the slave system for personal gain, they neglected the basic needs of the poor majority and weakened their support in the fight for slavery. the Confederacy during the Civil War. When the Southern elite established their cash crops, they did not leave enough land for food production. With most food grown in the North, the Civil War led to food shortages and, consequently, inflation of food prices. Because lower-class men, like the Yeomen farmers, fought primarily for the Confederacy, they could not grow their own food. This led the Confederate government to forcibly take what little food was available from southern crops to feed its army. In response to food shortages, several food riots took place in major southern cities, often referred to as bread riots. Relations between the elite and non-elites became very strained because the non-elites believed that the elites had neglected their duty to provide for Southern dependents, such as women and children, during the war, and that this neglect of duty was due to their own selfishness in profiting from cash crops. Non-elite support for the confederacy was further weakened due to government and plantation owner exemptions from military service designed to preserve the status of, 1999.