From page 256 of A People’s History of the Civil War: Struggles For The Meaning of Freedom:
“In 1862, when Democrats won control of the Illinois legislature, officers in fifty-five of the state’s infantry regiments, four cavalry regiments, and four artillary batteries offered to forcefully oust the duly elected representatives and install a Republican regime. Governor Richard Yates, himself a Republican, declined the offer and simply declared the legislature out of session . . . For nearly two years, Yates governed as a virtual dictator in Illinois. So did Indiana’s Republican governor, Oliver P. Morton. After Democrats carried the legislature, Morton robbed that body of its quorum by instructing Republican legislators not to take their seats.”
