delivered at the presidential election. ple do not vote at any other time. Many peo Other elections, so far as they bear upon national affairs, are used for correction, warning, or reproof. Alexander Hamilton once remarked to a friend that the time will "assuredly come when every vital question of the state will be merged in the question, Who shall be the next President?'"'1 That time arrived when the President became the elect of the people, and the presidential office became the organ of the will of the nation. 1 History, by John C. Hamilton, Vol. III., pp. 335, 346. CHAPTER XVI THE CONVENTION SYSTEM AN immediate effect of the conversion of the presidency into a representative institution was the establishment of the convention system. It is a typical development of American politics, and its origin and growth as the result of the operation of democratic forces may be distinctly traced. The idea was an old one, but was long ineffectual, owing to popular jealousy of any mediation in the election of public officials. In Pennsylvania in 1792, as the time for the election of representatives and of presidential electors approached, it was proposed that a convention should be held "of conferees from all parts of the state to meet at Lancaster and fix on suitable candidates to be recommended to the choice of the citizens." The object was to secure "such an unanimity of suffrage among the electors as would return to the House of Representatives of the United States men whose attachment to the federal constitution, whose concern in the national prosperity, and whose knowledge of its best interests, should qualify them to administer that government."1 The Republican papers at once opened fire on this proposition. “A Mechanic” sarcastically commends the plan because it relieves the common people of any concern in politics, by providing them with a ticket ready made to their hands. “Sidney” tells the people: “A congregation of men to frame a ticket, sanctioned by you, is in fact a body of electors, clothed with your authority. Are you incapable of judging for yourselves, that you must hazard a transfer of your most important rights?" Hugh H. Brackenridge, the distinguished Republican leader of western Pennsylvania, dissected the proposal with arguments that are as keen to-day as when first penned. After presenting considerations, showing the improbability that the conferees would be so chosen as fairly to represent the people of their districts, he adds that even if they were, the system would not work fairly, "because the persons that go forward will have attachments and resentments, interests and partialities, hopes and fears, which those at home know nothing of, but which will be fully exercised when they come to form a ticket." "Leave it," he concluded, "to every man to frame his ticket, or be immediately instructed by others how to do it; but let it be his own act, and there is no deception or injustice." These comments fairly set forth popular sentiment, but practical experience was constantly 1 The American Museum, Philadelphia, for August, 1792. showing that to compass party ends means were necessary for the concentration of votes in the party interest, or else people of like minds on political issues might defeat their desire by disagreement in the selection of representatives. Hence caucuses and mass-meetings were held, and committees of correspondence became busy whenever an election was on hand, in order to set forth the claims of candidates and afford guidance to voters. In matters requiring a concert of action, extending over a state, it became the practice for the members of the legislature to caucus for the purpose of recommending candidates. Travel was slow and costly, the members were from all parts of the state and were already convened, so that the ease and convenience of the arrangement commended it. Men of political prominence, who were not members, could attend and participate in the proceedings if they cared to take the trouble to do so. A practical defect of the system, revealed at an early date, was that in a party caucus of members of the legislature, districts from which members of another party had been elected would not be represented. This could be remedied by the election from those districts of delegates to represent them in the caucus, thus giving it the character of a party convention. The New York legislative caucus, which nominated De Witt Clinton for governor in 1817, was completed in this way. These methods came into existence, not by theoretic design, but as practical expedients. In just the same way, the nomination of candidates for President devolved upon the Congressional Caucus. Anything like express authority for such action was disavowed. In 1808 the Republican Congressional Caucus, in announcing its candidates, declared "that in making the foregoing recommendation the members of this meeting have acted only in their individual characters as citizens; they have been induced to adopt this measure from the necessity of the case; from a deep conviction of the importance of union to the Republicans throughout all parts of the United States in the present crisis of both our external and internal affairs; and as being the most practicable mode of consulting and respecting the interests and wishes of all upon a subject so truly interesting to the whole people of the United States." Some such explanation was regularly appended to the announcements of the action of the Caucus so long as it undertook to make presidential nominations. While this method might serve an established party already in possession of legislative control, it would not do for a party whose legislative representation was too weak for it to presume to speak for the whole. Consequently, the Federalists had to make use of other means of pooling their votes. Generally, the old-fashioned method of correspond |