Beginning with the South, where Jackson's lieutenants were expecting their greatest gains, South Carolina was rent in twain by a conflict of social and economic forces which was soon to overshadow national issues. According to the constitutional bargain of 1809, the low country and the black belt, that is, the region of the historic river plantations and the newer cotton country, were always to have a majority in both houses of the legislature, which chose the governor, the judges, and other important officials. The reason of this was that the great majority of the slaves were held in this section, and without complete control of the Government the masters felt that their interests would be sacrificed to the democracy of the up-country. The hill and mountain region, on the other hand, had a large majority of the white population. But by the arrangement of 1809 the people of this section must content themselves with remaining in the minority in the state legislature, and suppress whatever of opposition they felt toward the institution of slavery, the cause of their effacement. It was, however, this up-country which had been the mainstay of the Jeffersonian party. Calhoun was a son of this region, and he had grown up in the midst of the bitterest opposition to the eastern aristocracy. But gradually, under the influence of cotton-growing, he and some of his fellows yielded to the old order of the Pinckneys and the Butlers, and the older order yielded a little to the democratic group in the State. This produced the united South Carolina which gave to the country Calhoun, Lowndes, and Hayne, nationalists of the most ardent type in 1816; and for a few years it seemed that these astute leaders would play the role of the old Virginia dynasty. But when Calhoun, with the aid of high protectionist Pennsylvania, was bending all his energies, in 1824, to winning the Presidency, there broke out an insurgency in the former Federalist section of his State which boded ill for the future. The burden of its complaint was the national tariff, which bore heavily on the cotton and rice planters. Between 1824 and 1828 the lower Carolinians developed a vindictive hostility toward the leaders of nationalism in the State and especially toward Calhoun, who was considered responsible for the oppressions of the tariff. Robert Barnwell Rhett and William Smith, two perfect representatives of aristocratic South Carolina, led the fight. Senator Hayne was among the first to yield; George McDuffie, an up-country leader, next surrendered; finally most Southern members of the National House of Representatives took up the cry against the tariff and extreme nationalism. Nothing was more certain in 1826 than that Calhoun and his nationalist party would be driven to the wall.