The American Founding documents contend that people have a natural right to form and reform governments. The Declaration of Independence states, "Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Under that principle, elections are sacrosanct. Despite a raging Civil War, the United States held elections on November 4, 1863. As Commanding General of the U.S. Army, Ulysses S. Grant had to set the policy for military voting. On September 27, he wrote the following letter (abridged) to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. "The exercise of the right of suffrage by the officers and soldiers of armies is a novel thing. It has, I believe, generally been considered dangerous to constitutional liberty and subversive of military discipline. But our circumstances are novel and exceptional. A very large proportion of legal voters of the United States are now either under arms in the field, or in hospitals, or otherwise engaged in the mi...