took place in 1832. Mr. Van Buren was, perhaps, the central figure in all the schemes and arrangements. He was credited with a large share in the break-up of the cabinet, in which he was Secretary of State; he fanned the flame of discord in the relations between Jackson and Calhoun; he persuaded the President, against his expressed intention, to become a candidate for a second term; he was an adept in the art of distributing office so as to promote political and personal ends; he knew how to make use of his own rejection by the Senate to make himself "Vice-President now, and President afterwards."

Jackson was a President unlike any of his predecessors; but he was the man of his time. He could not help alienating those who regarded government as a serious business, to be conducted from high motives and with decorum; but at the same time he attracted more than he repelled. Like all men of strong will and fixed purpose, he attached some politicians to him by gratitude and some by fear; and the people at large had for him an admiration which neither his quality as a statesman nor his skill as a politician justified. It is impossible not to see that he lowered the dignity of his office, demoralized the public service, degraded politics to the level of a game in which the sharpest and the strongest, rather than the best and wisest, were to come off victors, and yet that in all this he pleased the men of his own generation more than he offended them; and, when the appeal was to be made to the voters of the country to pass judgment upon his doings, a compact, enthusiastic body of supporters was behind him, while the Opposition was disorganized and discordant. It was united only in opposition to him; but, had all its ele ments been joined in one party, his defeat could not have been accomplished.

The canvass began early. The first party in the field was

that of the Anti-Masons, an organization which had its birth in western New York, after the alleged abduction of William Morgan, in 1826, for having revealed the secrets of freemasonry. The party spread over a large part of the North, and had some successes in State elections. In September, 1830, a national convention of Anti-Masons was held in Philadelphia. Ten States, including four New England States, New York, Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsyl vania, Delaware, and Maryland, and the Territory of Michigan, were represented by 96 delegates. It was voted to hold a second national convention in Baltimore on the 26th of September, 1831, to be composed of delegates equal in number to the representatives in both Houses of Congress from each State, and to be chosen by the people opposed to secret societies, for the purpose of making nominations for the offices of President and Vice-President.

The convention was held at the time and place designated. Delegates to the number of 112 were present, from all the States represented in the convention of 1830, and from Maine, New Hampshire, and Indiana beside. William Wirt of Maryland was nominated for President, and Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania for Vice-President. Mr. Wirt had been Attorney-General during the whole of the terms of Presidents Monroe and Adams, and it was believed that he could unite all the opposition to Jackson. He was nominated for that purpose. Indeed, it had been intended by the Anti-Masons, before the convention, to nominate Judge John M'Lean of Ohio, formerly Postmaster-General, whom Jackson had transferred from that office to the Supreme Court, in order that a more subservient politician might work the post-office department for political purposes with greater effect; but as some of the "National Republicans," as the party of the Opposition had been called, gave notice that they could not support

Judge M'Lean, that gentleman withdrew his name. The Anti-Masonic convention did not adopt a platform, but issued a very long and diffuse address to the people of the country.

The next convention was that of the National Republicans. They met at Baltimore on Dec. 12, 1831. Seventeen States were represented by 157 delegates. All the Northern States of the East and West, except Illinois, sent delegates; but only Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Louisiana, of the Southern States, did so. Henry Clay of Kentucky was nominated by a unanimous vote for President, and John Sergeant of Pennsylvania by a similar vote for VicePresident. No resolutions were adopted, but the convention issued an address severely criticising the administration for its corruption, partisanship, and abuse of power; for the hostility it had manifested to internal improvement, for treachery on the tariff question, for the war on the bank, and for the humiliating surrender to Georgia in the matter of the Cherokee Indians. By recommendation of this convention a national assembly of young men met in Washington in May, 1832, which accepted the nominations made by the National Republicans and adopted the following series of resolutions, the first platform ever adopted by a national convention :

1. Resolved, That, in the opinion of this convention, although the fundamental principles adopted by our fathers, as a basis upon which to raise a superstructure of American independence, can never be annihilated, yet the time has come when nothing short of the united energies of all the friends of the American republic can be relied on to sustain and perpetuate that hallowed work.

2. Resolved, That an adequate protection to American industry is indispensable to the prosperity of the country; and that an abandonment of the policy at this period would be attended with consequences ruinous to the best interests of the nation.

3. Resolved, That a uniform system of internal improvements, sustained and supported by the general government, is calculated to secure, in the highest degree, harmony, the strength, and the permanency of the republic.

4. Resolved, That the Supreme Court of the United States is the only tribunal recognized by the Constitution for deciding in the last resort all questions arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and that upon the preservation of the authority and jurisdiction of that court inviolate depends the existence of the nation.

5. Resolved, That the Senate of the United States is pre-eminently a conservative branch of the federal government; that upon a fearless and independent exercise of its constitutional functions depends the existence of the nicely balanced powers of that government; and that all attempts to overawe its deliberations by the public press or by the national executive deserve the indignant reprobation of every American citizen.

6. Resolved, That the political course of the present executive has given us no pledge that he will defend and support these great principles of American policy and the Constitution; but, on the contrary, has convinced us that he will abandon them whenever the purposes of party require it.

7. Resolved, That the indiscriminate removal of public officers, for the mere difference of political opinion, is a gross abuse of power; and that the doctrine lately "boldly preached" in the Senate of the United States, that "to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy," is detrimental to the interests, corrupting to the morals, and dangerous to the liberties of this country.

8. Resolved, That we hold the disposition shown by the present national administration to accept the advice of the King of Holland, touching the northeastern boundary of the United States, and thus to transfer a portion of the territory and citizens of a State of this Union to a foreign power, to manifest a total destitution of patriotic American feeling, inasmuch as we consider the life, liberty, property, and citizenship of every inhabitant of every State as entitled to the national protection.

9. Resolved, That the arrangement between the United States and Great Britain relative to the colonial trade, made in pursuance of the instructions of the late Secretary of State, was procured in a manner derogatory to the national character, and is injurious to this country in its practical results.

10. Resolved, That it is the duty of every citizen of this republic, who regards the honor, the prosperity, and the preservation of our Union, to oppose by every honorable measure the re-election of Andrew Jackson, and to promote the election of Henry Clay of Kentucky, and John Sergeant of Pennsylvania, as President and Vice-President of the United States.

Thus was established the convention system of nominations, and the practice of adopting a platform of principles. The system was at once made use of by the Democrats, not for the nomination of a President, but in order to unite the party on a candidate for Vice-President, that is, on Mr. Van Buren. General Jackson had received the usual large number of State nominations, while similar compliments had likewise been bestowed upon Mr. Clay, Mr. Wirt, Judge M'Lean, and others. No opposition to Jackson was tolerated in the Democratic party, for the friends of Mr. Calhoun had ceased to profess allegiance to him or to the Democratic party, and South Carolina was going her own way all by herself; but acquiescence in the will of the President that Mr. Van Buren should be his associate on the ticket was not so general. In fact there was determined opposition to the arrangement. This was particularly the case in Pennsylvania, where, at a Jackson State Convention, held in March, 1832, Mr. Van Buren's name was not even mentioned, and a long contest between Mr. Dallas, Mr. Buchanan, and Mr. William Wilkins terminated in favor of the last-named gentleman. So strong was the determination not to accept Mr. Van Buren that the electors nominated were pledged to vote for Mr. Wilkins, and, if he should be induced to withdraw, or if, for any other reason he should not be a candidate, to vote for Mr. Dallas.

The call for a National Democratic Convention originated in New Hampshire, and the Convention met in Balti