In 1860, the largest number of white southerners select one:
a. owned a small number of slaves.
b. were nonslaveholding yeoman farmers.
c. were planters owning more than 20 slaves.
d. owned no land at all.
The social structure of the South developed into a caste-like system. AND. At the bottom of the white social ladder were the impoverished white people who made up about 75 percent of the free population in the South.