Owing to the large crops in the South the demand for slaves exceeded the supply, and the market price of negroes in the decade between 1850 and 1860 was very high. Three results followed the increased demand and the high prices--the Domestic Slave Trade between the States was largely increased; attempts to smuggle in slaves contrary to the Slave Trade Laws were numerous and often successful, and the South began, in Buchanan's administration, to consider the re-establishment of the African slave trade. During the last years of Buchanan's administration politics were dominated by virtually three parties: the Republicans with their opposition to slavery extension--the leaders being Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward; the Northern Democrats, led by Senator Douglas, with his idea of Popular Sovereignty; and the Southern Democrats, with their purpose of slavery extension and protection under the decision of the Supreme Court and the Acts of Congress, their leader being Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi. The schism in the Democratic Party was seen more clearly late in February, 1859, when Senators Douglas and Davis, representing the opposite principles advocated by the Democratic Party, engaged in a bitter debate, which forecasted clearly a division in the Democratic Party in 1860, and the probable election of a Republican President, but who would he be, and what would be the course of the South on his election? CHAPTER XI. LINCOLN. "Since the November of 1860 his horizon has been black with storms. By day and by night, he trod a way of danger and darkness. On his shoulders rested a government dearer to him than his own life ... Even he who now sleeps has, by this event, been clothed with new influence. Dead, he speaks to men who now willingly hear what before they refused to listen to ... Four years ago, O Illinois, we took from your midst an untried man and from among the people. We return him to you a mighty conqueror. Not thine any more, but the nation's; not ours, but the world's." _Henry Ward Beecher_, _April_ 16, 1865.