The

taken possession of the government from which
a mob had driven Gov. Andross, "received advice
of the convention called by the prince of Orange,
and, in imitation of it, they recommended (May
2, 1689) to the several towns of the colony to meet
and depute persons," who assembled, and assumed
the right to decide what constituted the govern-
ment of the colony, as the convention parliament
of 1688, assembled without a writ, had decided
upon the constituent powers of the English gov-
ernment. The whig lawyers who managed the
revolution in the thirteen colonies, itself essen-
tially a political struggle, were mindful of the
organic character which precedent attached to a
convention, and termed the meeting of commis-
sioners from the colonies a congress. Meanwhile,
the radical changes in progress through the col-
onies were conducted by conventions, the work
being at length completed by a federal constitu-
tional convention, while the political government
of the day was carried on by meetings in the large
cities, supplemented by the collective action taken
by the members of colonial assemblies.
latter, as well as the former, bridged over the
period between their sessions and their assembly
through the appointment of committees of cor-
respondence, a body which is the lineal pred-
ecessor of the "state central committee" of the
present day, and which remained for over fifty
years after the revolution the stated political au-
thority in deciding upon the executive conduct
of campaigns. These public meetings and com-
mittees of correspondence, in the post-revolution-
ary period, conducted normal political action;
the convention was employed when extraordinary
steps were proposed. Shay's rebellion was pre-
ceded by one which met at Springfield, and em-
braced delegates from the counties about; the
alarm created by the Hartford convention was in
part due to the selection of this term in summon-
ing it, and, without much regard to whether the
body was made up of delegates, any mass meeting
of more than usual importance was termed a con-
vention; e. g., the New York meeting nominating
George Clinton in 1811, the mass meeting led by
Daniel Webster in New Hampshire in 1812, or
even the early "conventions" in Maryland and
Pennsylvania which nominated Jackson and Har-
rison. The initiative in local and state party
government, which rested at the opening of the
revolutionary war with city meetings, societies
and their committees of correspondence, was
transferred in the period succeeding this strug-
gle to state and federal legislatures, by whom it
continued to be exercised until 1830 in all parts
of the country, and in some southern states until
1860. The change in New York state, a closely di-
vided political body, whose politics early reached,
and has since maintained, a high degree of or-
ganization, which makes its development typi-
cal, was distinct and definite in this direction.
George Clinton had been the chief executive of
the state through the war of independence, by

in a word, to mobilize the great mass of inert | Massachusetts colonists when the old council had voters with constantly increasing success. Beginning in 1820 with a polled vote in New York state (where the records are most complete), with one voter in five (12,453 in 1789, out of 57,606 voters in 1790), the proportion steadily rose to 31.12 per cent. in 1826, increased rapidly during the next six years, in which the foundations of party government were laid, to an average of 60 per cent., or very nearly the average now obtain ing in Great Britain, rising in the ten years ending in 1865 to 77, reaching in the presidential year 1876 to 88 per cent., and in 1880 to 90 per cent. How largely keen political interest and high intelligence are needed to increase this per cent. is made best apparent by the fact that the highest percentage of voting voters in those states has been for years in the counties whose percentage of American-born population is largest. This growth in the percentage of voters exercising the right of voters, no less than the widening of suffrage, has increased the complexity of party management during the last century upon a scale rather one of kind than of degree. At the organization of the federal government the number of voters in each political division was still small enough to permit the management of parties by the simple and rudimentary methods long in use among English-speaking peoples. These were, self-nomination for the candidate, the caucus or meeting to express the desire of the voter, and in addition, as a dormant political power in the state, there existed the convention, which the traditions rather than the usage of the English constitution made the form in which the general body politic took original and initiatory action. Except in the southern states, which retain many archaic forms in their political life, self-nomination has disappeared in this country, the public meeting has become the caucus or primary, and is treated elsewhere (see CAUCUS); while the convention, developing along two distinct and independent lines, has become in its constitutional form the body to which is committed the composition of organic law, while in its political form it has come to be the body which in county, district, state and national affairs acts under a loosely defined body of usage and party regulation for the party as an organic whole, in theory drawing its power from the primaries, in practice acting independently, regulating their action and determining their constitution. These two widely divergent forms of the convention originated in the same stem; but while one attained full development and power in the constitutionmaking period of the revolution, the other only reached its development in the party-making period, which began in 1820, and ended in 1840, with the party organization now (1883) in existence in full operation, although the development of its details is still in progress. The convention, as a primal political force in the body politic, appeared early in American history. "They had no doubt," says Hutchinson of the action of the VOL. III.-8

127

son.

unopposed election. The first serious step toward
the organization of an opposition was by a meet-
ing of Clinton's opponents Feb. 11, 1789, which
nominated Robert Yates, and appointed a com-
mittee of correspondence to promote his election,
while a letter soliciting his candidacy was ad-
dressed to him from Albany. Three years later
the nomination of John Jay was made by a called
meeting of his special supporters, and confirmed
by a larger body held later; Clinton, representing
the more popular organization, received his nom-
ination from a general meeting "composed, as
was alleged, of gentlemen from various parts of
the state," followed by meetings in each county.
Here was the early germ of the convention, as
now known; but it withered from the practical
difficulty and the vast expense of travel, which
made it impossible to bring political delegates
together, except as they were already assembled
in state legislatures. It is highly significant that
each step in the higher organization of our parties
has been at a time when internal transportation
was developed. The state convention reached its
development in New York state in the decade
which saw the Erie canal opened; the national
convention first became complete in the period of
railroad expansion from 1850 to 1860, and the
management of a national campaign from a single
party centre only became possible from 1870 to
1880, when the telegraph system of the United
States was first extended over our territory.
These are the real conditions which have made
possible the development, and determined the
character, of party government. Tocqueville
early pointed out the extraordinary freedom of
political association enjoyed in this country, but
this would have continued dependent on cliques
and caucuses at state capitals and at the seat of
federal power, if it had not been supplemented
by a freedom and facility in travel and communi-
cation inconceivable when he wrote. By 1795
an unprecedented advance in population had ex-
tended the base of political action in New York
state beyond the scope of any meeting, large or
select, on Manhattan island, and John Jay was
nominated by a quasi legislative caucus held at
Albany, which was, for a quarter of a century
after, the centre of political action. To the close
of the century, the action of the Albany caucus
was still shared by citizens of the state capital;
but the tendency was to recognize only legislators
as its members, and in 1804 Aaron Burr and
Morgan Lewis were nominated by fully organized
legislative caucuses. Even then the Burrite ticket
was completed by a public meeting at Albany,
which nominated Oliver Phelps as lieutenant gov-vention could be assembled," steps in this direction
ernor; but for Burrites and " Quids" the Albany
caucus of legislators was the controlling body,
its "address" the party platform, and its " com-
mittee of correspondence" the governing body of
the campaign. A "regular" party organization
now first appeared in New York politics, which
has never since been without a political organiza-
tion claiming “regularity" by virtue of its un-

| broken political succession from the body which
in 1805 nominated D. D. Tompkins. For twenty
years afterward the business of carrying on party
government was conducted at Albany, and the
struggle against the "Albany regency
" was in
fact the struggle of the counties and their political
action against power which out of the necessity
of the post road had gravitated to Albany. The
same development of party government was in
progress at all the state capitals, at least as far
south as Virginia and as far north as Massachu-
setts. In New Hampshire the "Rockingham con-
vention," Aug. 5, 1812, a mass meeting of 1,500
voters, adopted a platform, nominated a full
ticket, state, electoral and congressional, and
joined in a vigorous address to President Madi-
In Vermont "conventions of free men"
and the legislative caucus acted indiscriminately,
sometimes reaching the same nominations. The
public meeting preserved its place as the origin of
political action much later at the south, and the
extent of the states west and south of Virginia
left a political initiative to the county, which has
long survived, although the legislatures were in
all these states centres of political action. Inev-
itably, however, the condition of society on the
frontier rendered impossible methodical political
action. Nominations in Kentucky, in 1799, for a
constitutional convention and state legislature,
were "agreed upon" in many counties by "com-
mittees of two from each religious society and
from each militia company"; a combination of
religious and secular affairs in political organiza-
tion which had its analogue in Philadelphia at a
recent period in the cant political question, “Are
you a presbyterian or democrat?" whose answer
opened more than one election fight. — In Virginia
a periodical Richmond caucus early in the cen-
tury decided on state nominations, and appointed
a committee of correspondence, which acted with
like committees in the counties. The action of
this legislative caucus was so strictly a matter of
state party government that in a presidential year,
as in 1812, it did not go beyond the nomination
of electors, and passed no resolutions expressing
a preference as to a candidate for president, or
enunciating a national platform, the "only test
laid down" in the selection of electors being "Will
he vote for Mr. Madison?" In Pennsylvania
nominations were made at this time in the same
way, and party management vested in members
of the legislature. In Massachusetts, even as late
as 1826, the Jackson "corresponding committee,"
appointed by a meeting in Boston, deferred meet-
ing "until the legislature met, and a state con-

still hinging on the legislature. To party management the members of the legislature naturally added the declaration of party policy and party principles. The sphere which has been occupied during the half century closing in 1880-90 by the party platforms and the letters of candidates, was earlier filled by addresses from state legislatures on federal and state topics, taking a range and

had dealt this blow, alarmed at the growth of a al campaign of our history in 1840. A convennew political engine in the convention, called for tion held in Carlisle, Pa., in February, 1821, made a revival of the congressional caucus as an escape up of county delegates, which nominated Heister from the dangers of separate state nominations in opposition to Gov. Findlay, was one of the for the presidency. The committee of corre- first state conventions on the modern plan, if not spondence of the congressional caucus has sur- the earliest. Six years earlier, Feb. 27, 1815, vived in unbroken succession as the ". congreswhen a "meeting of citizens from every part of sional campaign committee" of to-day, appointed the state" was "holden at Boston," it confined biennially in the joint caucuses of the senators itself to an address to the independent electors of and representatives of each political party. The Massachusetts, and only "confirmed "the nominainfluence of this body varies greatly with the tion of Caleb Strong and William Phillips, already strength of the national committee and the ability reached by a legislative caucus. In general terms, of its secretary and members. In a presidential it may be said that, up to the slack-water politics year the congressional campaign committee can of Monroe's second election, the general meeting do little but distribute documents, the party in in the centres of population, while it had been power in either wing of the capitol using its widened by the presence of voters from other facilities, folding rooms, employés and what not, parts of the state, assumed no strict representative for this purpose. In the intercalary congressional capacity, and left the initiative in politics to the election the powers of this committee are con- legislative caucus; but in the decade beginning siderable. It makes, or has made, the assessment with 1820 two changes took place: state convenon officers, organizes the congressional campaign tions, embracing representatives from most of the where the party is weak, sometimes assumes to counties of the state, began to make state and decide between conflicting claimants for a regular national nominations, and conventions for a special nomination, and furnishes doubtful districts with purpose, embracing quasi delegates from many their speakers and supplies; but in the practical states, began to formulate opinion on questions of work of politics all this proves of less advantage national politics, and out of these separate threads to party success than in furthering conflicting was spun the national convention. So slowly did intrigues within the party for the places in its this take place that, reckoning from the earliest gift, in particular those which depend upon the state convention of a representative character, it action of the party caucus in the house when was fifteen years before all the counties of a large deciding upon its candidates for speaker and state were represented in a convention, and fortyother officers in the organization of the lower eight years before all the states were representchamber of the federal legislature. — The state ed by national conventions. These early bodies legislative caucus remained in full sway upon were, as was natural, most loosely organized. the disappearance of its Washington rival; but The Hartford convention, in spite of its official it was near its end. Presidential nominations character, received from New Hampshire deleby state legislatures as a formal official act were gates elected by county meetings, and carelessness becoming more frequent, and paved the way for of form or credential was still more characteristic a broader representation than a party legislative of the bodies which met at a later period to repcaucus, in which the voters of the party living resent some particular form of national opinion. in districts where it was in a minority had no Early as these bodies assumed a representative representation. The "convention" of the day character, their systematic organization came more was steadily widening its base and increasing slowly, and important political gatherings which its influence, and what was of nearly equal im- exerted a serious influence upon current party portance, ceased to be regarded as a dangerous or policy were in fact nothing but voluntary asrevolutionary political tool. It is a familiar fact semblages of men chosen by no formal constituthat the legislature of Pennsylvania early lost the ency. This was the case even with the protechigh relative importance attached to state legisla- tion convention which met at Harrisburg, upon tures and service in them in the post-revolutionary the call of the Pennsylvania legislature, July 30, period, and it was in this state that the nominating 1827, delegates to which were elected by counties convention first appeared in full action. A fruit- in Pennsylvania. The address of the free trade less proposal for a national convention to make an convention which met in Philadelphia Sept. 30, anti-slavery nomination against Monroe was made 1831, was accepted by Mr. Justice Story, in his in Philadelphia in 1820; in the previous four Commentaries, as an authoritative exposition years the nomination of state officers through a of the political views of the party denying conconvention consisting of delegates chosen by pub-gress the right to levy protective duties; but the lic meetings had become familiar. In the decade opening in 1820 this became the practice in Pennsylvania, beginning five years before the like innovation in New York state, ten years before it was rooted in Massachusetts, and fifteen years before the legislative caucus had disappeared in Virginia, while in some western and southwestern states it survived the first highly organized nation

convention itself met pursuant to a call issued at the suggestion of the "New York Evening Post"; the delegates, who voted singly and with equal powers, represented states, cities, counties, mass meetings and themselves; Mississippi being represented" by a single delegate, Mr. Pinckney, a member of congress, and the proceedings throughout point to a loose structure only possible

66

while the functions and methods of a political | named from each county, and these were instructconvention were still unformed. The like was true of the protectionist convention which met in the same year in New York, of the convention of the friends of American industry held in Harrisburg in 1824, and of most interstate conventions of the day. In the first of the long series of conventions dealing with the needs of the Mississippi valley, which met at Memphis, Nov. 12, 1845, upon a call issued by the Tennessee state legislature, | with John C. Calhoun as its presiding officer, plank as an afterthought; but it made no nomidelegates from eleven states, one territory, Texas, an independent power, St. Louis, and a number of counties, all met and voted on a common basis. In fact, the many interstate conventions which met for a quarter of a century after the Hartford convention, bore the same relation to the strictly organized national conventions of the post-rebellion period, that early parliaments sustain to the completely organized body now at St. Stephens.In most states the convention had reached a complete organization long before its representative capacity was recognized. In 1820 the "republican" legislative caucus at Albany, whose address put Tompkins and Mooers in nomination in accordance with the "settled and approved ways" of the party, was met by a bolting caucus, whose address dealt freely in the current charges of fraud against Gov. Tompkins. In the ensuing four years the constitution of 1821 added largely to the voters of the state, and the popular convention sprang into being under the control of the young leaders in the central counties " by the lakes," who were beginning, first as anti-masons, and later as whigs, their struggle against the control of politics from Albany. In ten years, the new and facile instrument of political action had driven the legislative caucus out of existence. The first conspicuous, but by no means the earliest, convention of the new order was an anti-masonic body, which met in 1826, with Thurlow Weed as its influential manager. It still took longer to go from New York to Buffalo than in 1883 to go from New York to San Francisco; and, in the loose practice of the day, any man with interest enough to take a week's journey to a political convention was accepted as a representative, with little scrutiny of his credentials, if any were required. Progress, however, toward a different procedure, was rapid. Originating in a local call in local newspapers to the "young men's republican clubs" through the state, the “ republican young men's convention," which met at Utica Aug. 12, 1828, and chose W. H. Seward as its presiding officer, was a full-fledged political convention, whose neat and rapid working shows how early the hand of Thurlow Weed learned its cunning. Its record presents delegates elected and ranged by counties, a temporary and permanent organization, committees on credentials, organization and resolutions, appointed on the instant by the chairman by congressional districts, and its close presents a complete working machine. Central corresponding committees of three were

ed to complete the county organization by a committee of five in each town, while the general conduct of affairs was intrusted to a "state central corresponding committee" of twelve "to be taken from the town of Utica and vicinity," a necessary concession to the practical difficulty of | bringing together a committee including members scattered over a wider area. This convention adopted a modern platform, tacking on a tariff

nations; approving those already made of Smith Thompson and Francis Granger on the state, and Adams and Rush on the federal ticket. Resolutions were passed, but they did not as yet constitute a comprehensive platform, and action upon nominations was reached through the adoption of a resolution-a practice which still survives in many states in the apparently useless form of adding to the platform an additional resolution giving the names of the candidates who have been put in nomination by the viva voce choice of the convention between several candidates. The new form of party rule was already in full operation in Pennsylvania, where by 1823 the nomination of J. Andrew Shulye was reached in a convention (March 4, 1823) only after five ballots; but so loose was party organization that the state committee appointed by the convention was at this period in the habit of meeting only to call another convention, interconvention political control vesting, as it had for so many years in “committees of correspondence" appointed by general meetings in the larger cities. In Massachusetts, at the same period (Jan. 23, 1823), the first step was taken toward a convention by adding to the "mass meeting of republican members of both branches," delegates from "republican towns not represented in the legislature." Five years later the Jackson republicans in the state had fully organized on the convention plan, and both parties in 1832. In Virginia, where, as in New York, the opposition seized on the convention in 1828, the ruling legislative caucus extended its numbers in the same method by adding representatives of counties where the party being in a minority had no representatives in the legislature. Without entering into unnecessary detail, like changes took place elsewhere, and by 1840 the legislative caucus was everywhere confined to legislative issues. "Conventions appointed by the people," said 'Niles' Register," in 1827, of the coming change, "appointed by the people for a specific purpose, are not liable to the objections which apply to legislative caucuses.' The result has not justified the hope. The national convention grew by the same slow degrees. The disappearance of the congressional caucus was not felt in the eight apathetic years of Monroe's administration. The nominations of state legislative caucuses, by dividing the electoral vote, led to the serious and dangerous struggle of 1824, in which national politics sank to its lowest personal plane. A remedy was plainly necessary. A congressional