During the tumultuous year of the late 1650s proposals for how the government should be structured and how powers should be balanced were widely debated, in private, in public debates in Parliament, and through the publication of pamphlets. Vane used all of these methods to promote his ideas. In 1660 he published "A Needful Corrective or Balance in Popular Government". This open letter was essentially a response to James Harrington's "The Commonwealth of Oceana", a 1656 treatise describing Harrington's view of a utopian government, which included limitations on property ownership and a legislature with an elected upper chamber. Harrington's thesis was that power arose from property ownership, and concentrated land ownership led to oligarchic and monarchic forms of government. Vane disagreed with this, arguing instead that power came from godliness, and presented a somewhat apocalyptic argument in support of his idea. Vane supporter Henry Stubbe stated openly in October 1659 that permanent Senators would be required. These proposals caused a terminal split in Vane's alliance with Heselrige, whose followers mostly deserted Vane.