But all is now changed.  The twentieth Presidential election finds us not only at war, but engaged in a civil war of such magnitude that even the most martial nations of Europe are surprised at the numbers who take part in it, and at its cost.  The election is to be carried, and perhaps decided, amid the din of arms, with a million of voters in the land and sea forces of the two parties.  This is so new to us, that it would seem more like a dream than a reality, but that losses of life and high prices render the matter most painfully real.  How to act under such circumstances might well puzzle us, were it not that the path of duty is pointed out by the spirit of patriotism.  The election will have much effect on the operations of war, and those operations in their turn will have no light effect on the election.  Our political action should be such as to strengthen the arm of Government; and the military action of Government should be such as to strengthen those who shall be engaged in affording it political support.  Failure in the field would not lead to defeat at the polls, but it might so lessen the loyal majority that the public sentiment of the country would be but feebly represented by the country’s political action.  What happened in 1862 might happen again in 1864, and with much more disastrous effect on the fortunes of the Republic.  In 1862 there was much discontent, because of the belief that Government had not done all it could have done to bring about the overthrow of the Rebels.  Irritated by the reverses which had befallen our arms in Virginia, and knowing that nothing had been withheld that was necessary to the effective waging of the war, thousands of men refrained from voting, half-inclined as they were to see if the Democrats could not do that which others had failed to do.  We are not discussing the justice of the opinion which then prevailed, but simply state a fact; and the consequence of the discontent that existed was that the Democrats came very near obtaining control of the popular branch of Congress.  They made heavy gains in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other States; but that this result was not the effect of hostility to the national cause was made clearly apparent a year later, when the supporters of that cause won a series of brilliant political victories in the very States which had either pronounced for the Democrats in ’62, or had given but small Republican majorities.  The loyal majority in Ohio in 1863 was something that approached to the fabulous, because then the violent members of the Opposition, encouraged by what had taken place a year earlier, had the audacity to place Mr. Vallandigham in nomination for the office of Governor.  Had that individual been elevated to the post for which he was nominated, Ohio must have been arrayed in open opposition to the Federal Government, almost as decisively so as South Carolina or Virginia.  Had he been defeated by a small majority, his party would have taken arms against the State Government,