This story is from NBC News by Alex Seitz-Wald

The nation in crisis. A divisive president up for re-election. Millions of Americans who can’t make it to their local polling place. Partisan fights over proposals to vote by mail.

Sound familiar?

It was the 1860s, the Civil War was raging and Republicans, led by President Abraham Lincoln, wanted to let Union soldiers vote from the battlefield. The opposition Democrats balked. They warned of rampant fraud and “a scheme” by Republicans “to gain some great advantage to their party,” as one Wisconsin state senator put it before the legislature voted on party lines to become the first state to legalize absentee voting.

Read the full story here.