provided legislatures in which the vested interests of land and slaves dominated in the upper houses, while the popular will of the numerical majority prevailed in the lower houses. There was little opportunity for demagogues to establish themselves in this political milieu – the democratic component among the people was too weak to sustain a plebeian politician. The conservative statesmen – the slaveholding gentry – retained control over the political apparatus. Freehling described the state's political system of the era thus: John C. Calhoun on the "concurrent majority" from his Disquisition (1850): Publication The Disquisition was published in 1851, shortly after his death, as was its companion book, Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States. Many Southerners believed Calhoun's warnings, contained in the Disquisition and in his many other writings and speeches, and read every political news story from the North as further evidence of the planned destruction of the Southern way of life. The climax came a decade after Calhoun's death with the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln in 1860, which led to the secession of South Carolina, followed by six other Southern states. They formed the Confederate States of America. References Sources 1849 documents 1851 documents John C. Calhoun American political books Books published posthumously 1851 in American politics Treatises