California, Republican, 19,732.

In Kansas, Indiana and Oregon there was no general election in 1863.

The border States of Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland remained Republican, mainly because they had adopted test oath qualifications for their voters which excluded a large part of the Democratic vote.

The Emancipation proclamation was issued September 23, 1862 and conscription was ordered March 3, 1863.

These votes in the elections of 1862 resulted as follows: Maine voted in September, 1862. The normal Republican majority had been from ten to nineteen thousand for years. Its majority fell to a little over 6,025, and it lost one Republican representative in Congress.

In October, 1862, Ohio changed its 13 Republican representatives to 5, and the Democrats prevailed in 14 of the Congressional districts. There was at the same time a Democratic popular majority of 5,577.

In 1862, in Indiana the Republicans retained only 3 of the 11 Congressmen, and the Senate and House were Democratic and sent a Democrat to the Senate, and the Democrats had a majority in the popular vote of 9,543.

Pennsylvania went Democratic in 1862 by a majority of 3,577, and the Democrats elected half the delegation in Congress and had a majority of ten in the state House. This was a change from a majority of 76,383 for Lincoln in 1860.

In 1862, in New York, General James S. Wadsworth, a former Democrat of very great personal popularity, who was then in the Army with the rank of Brigadier General, was nominated by the Republicans. Horatio

Seymour, an ultra partizan Democrat, was nominated by the Democrats, and was elected by a majority of 10,752. General Wadsworth's vote fell 61,221 from the 50,136 majority received by Lincoln in 1860.

The election of Seymour defeated the soldiers' voting bill in New York in 1863, by the Governor's veto.

Illinois, the President's own State, was carried by the Democracy in 1862 by a majority of 16,546, and only 3 out of the 14 representatives in Congress were returned by the Republicans. The Legislature was Democratic and returned a Democrat to the Senate.

In New Jersey a Democratic Governor was elected in 1862 by nearly 15,000 majority, and 4 of her 5 representatives in Congress were Democratic.

Michigan, which Lincoln had carried in 1860 by 22,213, reduced its majority to 6,614 in 1862, while Wisconsin, which had given Lincoln a majority of 20,040 in 1860, gave a Democratic majority of 2,000, and divided the Congressional delegation equally with the Republicans in 1862.

The great States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin went against the Administration. Only the votes of New England and of Michigan, Iowa and California aided by those of the border States maintained the majority for the Union in the National House. It was almost a vote of a want of confidence in the Lincoln Administration.

The result was to embolden the Democracy, cause them to draw their lines closer, and to oppose the administration more vigorously. Hence the contests about the soldiers' voting bills. Such bills had been passed in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Vermont and Ohio in 1862, and in 1863. They were passed in Kansas, Maine, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maryland, Michigan, and New York in 1864.

Now, the margin in some of these States on the popular vote in the election of 1862 and 1863 was so small that the vote of the soldiers in the field might well be expected to control the election. As a matter of fact, it did not have any special effect except in Maryland, but that was because the rising tide of Unionism was so strong as to overcome the Democratic opposition by majorities so large as to make the soldiers' vote a negligible quantity. Northern victories began with Vicksburg which surrendered on July 4, 1863, with Gettysburg which was fought on the first, second and third of July, 1863, and continued with the battle of Mobile Bay in August, 1864, the capture of Atlanta, on September 1, and the battle of Winchester which was fought on September 20, 1864. The political tide ran with the tide of battle, and as if to make a Republican victory sure, the Democrats nominated the rebel Vallandigham as Governor of Ohio, and McClellan for President upon a platform which declared the war a failure.

In October 1864 Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio went Union by very large majorities, Vallandigham being beaten in Ohio by a majority of more than one hundred thousand votes. In November Lincoln carried all the States except New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky, while the Republican party had a two-third majority in the House, and yet in the popular vote Lincoln had only 2,223,035 while McClellan had 1,811,754, Lincoln's majority being only ten and two tenths per cent of the entire vote.

This rendered all the soldiers' votes except in Maryland of little consequence in the elections.

We will now take up the legislation of the different States in the order of time.

W

CHAPTER IV

VOTING ACTS IN THE SOUTH

HEN the Southern States seceded, they adopted new Constitutions which were generally substantially the old Constitutions, with a provision for the election of Electors and Representatives changed from the United States to the Confederate States Electors and Representatives. They also nearly all dealt with the question of permitting soldiers to vote in the field. This they did in some cases by statutes, and in other cases, where the Constitution fixed the places of voting, by ordinances which were passed by the Secession Conventions, and were treated as amendments to the Constitution, or at least as having equal authority with the provisions of the Constitution. This was the case in Virginia where the Secession Convention of 1861 passed an ordinance to authorize voting in the field; and in South Carolina, where an act was first passed in 1861, and then a substitute ordinance was passed by the Convention in 1862; and in North Carolina where an ordinance was passed by the Secession Convention of 1861, authorizing soldiers to vote for delegates to that Convention. Also in Tennessee, where the act of the Legislature calling the Secession Convention contained a provision authorizing soldiers in the field to vote for delegates to that Convention.

Of the eleven Southern States which made up the Confederacy, seven passed soldiers' voting laws in 1861 as follows:

North Carolina, May 8; Tennessee, May 9; Virginia, July 1; Alabama, October 30; Georgia, December 14; South Carolina, December 21; and Florida, January 25, 1861.

It is interesting to note that these acts were passed at the time the States seceded, so as to enable their soldiers to vote in the field upon the secession, or very soon after the States seceded. The dates of the secession of these States were as follows:

North Carolina, May 20, 1861; Tennessee, June 8, 1861; Virginia, May 23, 1861; Alabama, January 11, 1861; Georgia, January 19, 1861; South Carolina, December 20, 1860; Florida, January 10, 1861.

The other four States seceded at the following dates:

Mississippi, January 9, 1861; Louisiana, January 9, 1861; Texas, February 23, 1861; Arkansas May 6, 1861. They do not appear to have passed any laws with regard to soldiers' voting in the field. There was a good reason why Louisiana should not do so. New Orleans was taken April 29, 1862, by the Federal Army, and thereafter remained in its possession, so that there was really no State government capable of making laws of any kind, during the war. Texas and Arkansas were large States with a sparse population, and apparently no interest was taken in the subject. Why Mississippi did not pass a law, I do not know.

In some of these States the Constitution fixed places of voting, and in others no place was fixed. But in cases where the Constitution fixed the place of voting, action seems to have been taken in the form of ordinances issued by the Conventions which were called to act upon the question of secession, and in many cases remained in session for a longer or