was to appoint the electors. On the whole it was a great vic tory for the Democrats.

As before, twenty-four States took part in this election, but the number of electors was enlarged by the new apportionment which had been made after the result of the census of 1830 was ascertained. Delaware joined the States which permitted the people to choose the electors. South Carolina alone followed the old system of appointment by the legislature; and she retained it until and including the election of 1860. Maine, New York, and Tennessee also abandoned at this time the district system of election. Maryland only

adhered to it. With the exception of South Carolina and Maryland, therefore, the method of choosing electors had now become uniform throughout the country, without the interposition of an amendment to the Constitution.

The count of electoral votes was conducted in strict accordance with precedent, without dispute or incident. The result of the popular and the electoral votes is exhibited on preceding pages.

XIV

THE CONVENTION SYSTEM

SINCE 1836 the system of nominating candidates for President and Vice-President by general party conventions has been universal. During the intervening sixty years no candidate, in whose favor an electoral ticket has been presented to the voters of any State, has been otherwise placed in nomination. It therefore becomes timely, at this point, to consider how the national convention came to supersede the earlier modes of nomination, and how it developed into the important adjunct of the government which it has become. Even so late as the time when the revolt against the congressional caucus began, a national convention, supposing it to have been possible to constitute such a body for such a purpose, would have been quite unsuitable. But just as the growth of our modern civilization has rendered necessary the invention and the immediate utilization of the improved instruments of rapid transportation, and of instantaneous communication between people at a distance from each other, so the evolution of political parties as compact and disciplined organizations enforced the adoption of the convention system. Neither could those parties exist in their present efficiency without a central authority; nor can we conceive of a body better adapted to the purpose than is the national convention. It is capable of improvement in details, but the general structure is a case of perfect adaptation to the end sought. Moreover, the proposition may be maintained that this extra-constitutional and extra-legal institution supplements the electoral system in such a way as to realize and make effectual the plans and purposes of the framers of the Constitution.

Let us note anew the successive steps in the process by which the necessity for this system arose. When the Constitution was adopted, the divergent interests of the people of the thirteen States were almost as many and as important as their common interests. The first division into parties

was really upon the question whether the common welfare or the individual welfare of the States should be deemed paramount, that is, whether the Constitution, establishing a more perfect Union, should be adopted. When that had been decided, the public men of the country fell apart over the discussion whether the Constitution should bind the States together closely or loosely. The conditions under which parties existed were widely different from those which prevail now; and these conditions affected every election in which national issues were involved. Party lines did not cut across families and neighborhoods to such an extent as they do now. Nor would it be true to say that they followed state lines. Yet party association was to a degree a matter more of state or of community public opinion than of individual opinion. A few leaders determined the political course to be pursued, the ground to be taken on public questions, and the candidates for office to be supported. The majority accepted the programme set forth by the leaders; and since the minority, recognizing the fact that it was outnumbered, rarely made a stubborn contest, and consequently did not force the dominant party to exhibit its full strength, the number of votes polled was usually small. One example will suffice to illustrate this fact. So late as 1824, when the most fiercely contested election of President known up to that time took place, eighteen States appointed electors by popular vote. In eight of those States the candidate locally successful had more than three times as many votes as the other three candidates combined. The population of the eighteen States was about 7,800,000, and their total vote was in round numbers 355,000,- less than one twentieth of the population. New York and New Jersey, having in 1896 about as many inhabitants as the eighteen States in 1824, gave a total of 1,783,000 votes. New Jersey alone, in 1896, cast more votes than were polled in the whole country in the great contest of 1824.

The framers of the Constitution expected that the electors of President and Vice-President would exercise an individual judgment in making a choice. But when the government was first formed, the only people who possessed a sufficient acquaintance with the public men of the land, save those of their own State or part of the country, were the officers at the seat of government and the members of Congress. Both of these classes were excluded from service as electors. Consequently, if the

electors were left to themselves, it was inevitable that they would, in their lack of acquaintance with others, vote for candidates from their own or near-by States, and so fail to make a choice; and the election would always be thrown into the House of Representatives. The selection of Washington was obvious and easy. When he retired it seemed so natural that the electors should choose Mr. Adams for the succession that members of his own party, exerting themselves against him, failed to effect his defeat. Thus the administration party was united in spite of itself. The opposition took the course of a nomination by caucus of its party members in both Houses of Congress, who were not merely the best but the only competent directors of the policy to be pursued, the only force that could prevent the strength of the party from being scattered and wasted, and the only means of enlightening the provin cialism of the electors. Consequently the congressional caucus was in these times something more than a pardonable device for concentrating public opinion; it was an instrument without which the party success of a great majority of the people would have been impossible.

Nevertheless the congressional caucus outlived its usefulness. It ceased to be a necessity when national concerns at last outweighed local interests, and when the people became acquainted with the character and ability of public men in all parts of the country. Always-in spite of its usefulnesscontrary to the spirit of the Constitution, which enjoined a strict separation and the full independence of the three departments of government, it became a menace to popular liberty when it was used as a means of muffling the people, depriving them of a voice in the selection of those who should fill the first places in the state, and usurping that power in behalf of men chosen for a different purpose altogether, and wholly irresponsible with reference to the choice of a President. The revolt came immediately upon a disregard of the will of the people, and upon the selection of second-rate men as candidates, to be accepted at the peril of a party defeat.

Nomination by state legislatures was the temporary makeshift of those who rebelled against the caucus. Save that it was not obnoxious to the spirit of the Constitution, it was inferior to the caucus in every respect. Those who made the nominations had, like the members of Congress, no commission to undertake the duty; and they had not the qualification for