Bagehot remarks that slavery "creates a set of persons born to work that others may not work, and not to think in order that others may think. Therefore, slave-owning nations, having time to think, are likely to be more shrewd in policy, and more crafty in strategy[318]." This is amply illustrated in the case of southern leaders. The sons of the slaveholders received the best education the land could afford; the plantation life gave a training in administration and leadership and with leisure and natural political talent they looked to public life for advancement. Those who showed ability in local or State governments were advanced to the House or Senate so that by a process of natural selection the slave-power at the South was able to develop leaders, who not only moulded the public sentiment of the South itself but shaped the policies of the nation for the better part of half a century[319]. Thus, by a slow process of evolution, was built up in the "black belt" of the South an industrial empire, based upon slavery, nominally democratic, but in reality an oligarchy composed of a group of talented men, united in their traditions, social standards and political ideals by virtue of their common loyalty to the "peculiar institution" of their section. It was democratic within its own limits, chivalrous, cultured although it cherished ideals essentially at variance with democratic institutions and bound in time to give birth to a social consciousness that was incompatible with that entertained by the rest of the nation. When the slave-power was defeated at the polls in the election of 1860, secession was the logical result.