Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/163

 energetic measures served to protect very generally the border counties.

The number of militia companies organized under the acts of the last General Assembly, during the year 1864, was nine hundred and seventeen. The returns for that year showed the enrollment of the militia of the State to be 86,000. Of the militia, there had been organized twenty-nine regiments and two battalions.

While the war was absorbing every energy of the National Administration, and testing to the utmost limit the patience, endurance and patriotism of the loyal people of the country, in this fourth year of the conflict, the time for a Presidential election was approaching. That election was to determine the most important issue ever submitted to a vote of the American people. It was to decide whether the Republic was to endure as one great nation, or be divided into hostile factions, adopting different forms of government, liable to form alliances with foreign nations for selfish purposes, leading to endless danger of civil wars and internal disorders.

The reëlection of President Lincoln would be notice to the Southern Confederacy, to its friends in the North and to foreign nations, that every power of our National Government would be put forth for the suppression of the Rebellion until national authority was restored in every State and Territory in the Union.

When the Rebellion began, through the influence of such leading Democrats as Douglas, Stanton, Holt, Dix, Butler, Dickinson and Andrew Johnson, there was a general uprising of the loyal people of the country in support of the President in his efforts and measures to enforce the laws and restore the authority of the Government. Partisan strife and conflicts were for a time ignored, and a wave of patriotic fever swept over the Northern States. But as the war progressed, wide differences of opinion arose over the policy to be pursued in dealing with the Rebellion and slavery. The disloyal people of the