The issue though, Alan, is who (or which class as you frame it) had control of the CSA congress to make the crucial policy decisions on the conduct of the war? Who was making the vital decisions on Lee's request, and Cleburnes, and Oates recommendations?

Even if the Congressman Hunters and the Charleston editorialists were a small small small minority, they held inordinate power in the CSA congress, they are the ones who ran things in Richmond, and it certainly appears they looked after their own personal or economic interests before the interests of a successful outcome of the war. It was they who chose to put slavery as a higher priority than independnece when Lee spelled out to them in no uncertain terms what was needed to be done to making winning independence still possible..