Ideas or principles alone, however eloquently and insistently
proclaimed, will not make a party. There must be organization. Thus
we have two distinct practical phases of American party politics: one
regards the party as an agency of the electorate, a necessary organ of
democracy; the other, the party as an organization, an army determined
to achieve certain conquests. Every party has, therefore, two aspects,
each attracting a different kind of person: one kind allured by the
principles espoused; the other, by the opportunities of place and
personal gain in the organization. The one kind typifies the body of
voters; the other the dominant minority of the party.
When one speaks, then, of a party in America, he embraces in that term:
first, the tenets or platform for which the party assumes to stand
(i.e., principles that may have been wrought out of experience, may have
been created by public opinion, or were perhaps merely made out of hand
by manipulators); secondly, the voters who profess attachment to these
principles; and thirdly, the political expert, the politician with his
organization or machine. Between the expert and the great following are
many gradations of party activity, from the occasional volunteer to the
chieftain who devotes all his time to "politics."
It was discovered very early in American experience that without
organization issues would disintegrate and principles remain but
scintillating axioms. Thus necessity enlisted executive talent and
produced the politician, who, having once achieved an organization,
remained at his post to keep it intact between elections and used it for
purposes not always prompted by the public welfare.
In colonial days, when the struggle began between Crown and Colonist,
the colonial patriots formed clubs to designate their candidates for
public office. In Massachusetts these clubs were known as "caucuses," a
word whose derivation is unknown, but which has now become fixed in our
political vocabulary. These early caucuses in Boston have been described
as follows: "Mr. Samuel Adams' father and twenty others, one or two from
the north end of the town, where all the ship business is carried on,
used to meet, make a caucus, and lay their plans for introducing certain
persons into places of trust and power. When they had settled it, they
separated, and used each their particular influence within his own
circle. He and his friends would furnish themselves with ballots,
including the names of the parties fixed upon, which they distributed
on the day of election. By acting in concert together with a careful and
extensive distribution of ballots they generally carried the elections
to their own mind."
As the revolutionary propaganda increased in momentum, caucuses assumed
a more open character. They were a sort of informal town meeting, where
neighbors met and agreed on candidates and the means of electing them.
After the adoption of the Constitution, the same methods were continued,
though modified to suit the needs of the new party alignments. In this
informal manner, local and even congressional candidates were named.
Washington was the unanimous choice of the nation. In the third
presidential election, John Adams was the tacitly accepted candidate
of the Federalists and Jefferson of the Democratic-Republicans, and no
formal nominations seem to have been made. But from 1800 to 1824 the
presidential candidates were designated by members of Congress in
caucus. It was by this means that the Virginia Dynasty fastened itself
upon the country. The congressional caucus, which was one of the most
arrogant and compact political machines that our politics has produced,
discredited itself by nominating William H. Crawford (1824), a machine
politician, whom the public never believed to be of presidential
caliber. In the bitter fight that placed John Quincy Adams in the White
House and made Jackson the eternal enemy of Clay, the congressional
caucus met its doom. For several years, presidential candidates were
nominated by various informal methods. In 1828 a number of state
legislatures formally nominated Jackson. In several States the party
members of the legislatures in caucus nominated presidential candidates.
DeWitt Clinton was so designated by the New York legislature in 1812
and Henry Clay by the Kentucky legislature in 1822. Great mass meetings,
often garnished with barbecues, were held in many parts of the
country in 1824 for indorsing the informal nominations of the various
candidates.
But none of these methods served the purpose. The President was a
national officer, backed by a national party, and chosen by a national
electorate. A national system of nominating the presidential candidates
was demanded. On September 26, 1831, 113 delegates of the Anti-Masonic
party, representing thirteen States, met in a national convention in
Baltimore. This was the first national nominating convention held in
America.
In February, 1831, the Whig members of the Maryland legislature issued
a call for a national Whig convention. This was held in Baltimore the
following December. Eighteen States were represented by delegates, each
according to the number of presidential electoral votes it cast. Clay
was named for President. The first national Democratic convention met in
Baltimore on May 21, 1832, and nominated Jackson.
Since that time, presidential candidates have been named in national
conventions. There have been surprisingly few changes in procedure since
the first convention. It opened with a temporary organization, examined
the credentials of delegates, and appointed a committee on permanent
organization, which reported a roster of permanent officers. It
appointed a committee on platform--then called an address to the people;
it listened to eulogistic nominating speeches, balloted for candidates,
and selected a committee to notify the nominees of their designation.
This is practically the order of procedure today. The national
convention is at once the supreme court and the supreme legislature of
the national party. It makes its own rules, designates its committees,
formulates their procedure and defines their power, writes the platform,
and appoints the national executive committee.
Two rules that have played a significant part in these conventions
deserve special mention. The first Democratic convention, in order to
insure the nomination of Van Buren for Vice-President--the nomination of
Jackson for President was uncontested--adopted the rule that "two-thirds
of the whole number of the votes in the convention shall be necessary
to constitute a choice." This "two-thirds" rule, so undemocratic in its
nature, remains the practice of the Democratic party today. The
Whigs and Republicans always adhered to the majority rule. The early
Democratic conventions also adopted the practice of allowing the
majority of the delegates from any State to cast the vote of the entire
delegation from that State, a rule which is still adhered to by the
Democrats. But the Republicans have since 1876 adhered to the policy of
allowing each individual delegate to cast his vote as he chooses.
The convention was by no means novel when accepted as a national organ
for a national party. As early as 1789 an informal convention was held
in the Philadelphia State House for nominating Federalist candidates for
the legislature. The practice spread to many Pennsylvania counties and
to other States, and soon this informality of self-appointed delegates
gave way to delegates appointed according to accepted rules. When the
legislative caucus as a means for nominating state officers fell into
disrepute, state nominating conventions took its place. In 1812 one of
the earliest movements for a state convention was started by Tammany
Hall, because it feared that the legislative caucus would nominate
DeWitt Clinton, its bitterest foe. The caucus, however, did not
name Clinton, and the convention was not assembled. The first state
nominating convention was held in Utica, New York, in 1824 by that
faction of the Democratic party calling itself the People's party.
The custom soon spread to every State, so that by 1835 it was firmly
established. County and city conventions also took the place of the
caucus for naming local candidates.
But nominations are only the beginning of the contest, and obviously
caucuses and conventions cannot conduct campaigns. So from the beginning
these nominating bodies appointed campaign committees. With the increase
in population came the increased complexity of the committee system. By
1830 many of the States had perfected a series of state, district, and
county committees.
There remained the necessity of knitting these committees into a
national unity. The national convention which nominated Clay in 1831
appointed a "Central State Corresponding Committee" in each State where
none existed, and it recommended "to the several States to organize
subordinate corresponding committees in each county and town." This
was the beginning of what soon was to evolve into a complete national
hierarchy of committees. In 1848 the Democratic convention appointed a
permanent national committee, composed of one member from each State.
This committee was given the power to call the next national convention,
and from the start became the national executive body of the party.
It is a common notion that the politician and his machine are of
comparatively recent origin. But the American politician arose
contemporaneously with the party, and with such singular fecundity of
ways and means that it is doubtful if his modern successors could teach
him anything. McMaster declares: "A very little study of long-forgotten
politics will suffice to show that in filibustering and gerrymandering,
in stealing governorships and legislatures, in using force at the polls,
in colonizing and in distributing patronage to whom patronage is due, in
all the frauds and tricks that go to make up the worst form of practical
politics, the men who founded our state and national governments were
always our equals, and often our masters." And this at a time when
only propertied persons could vote in any of the States and when only
professed Christians could either vote or hold office in two of them!
While Washington was President, Tammany Hall, the first municipal
machine, began its career; and presently George Clinton, Governor of
New York, and his nephew, DeWitt Clinton, were busy organizing the first
state machine. The Clintons achieved their purpose through the agency
of a Council of Appointment, prescribed by the first Constitution of
the State, consisting of the Governor and four senators chosen by the
legislature. This council had the appointment of nearly all the civil
officers of the State from Secretary of State to justices of the peace
and auctioneers, making a total of 8287 military and 6663 civil offices.
As the emoluments of some of these offices were relatively high, the
disposal of such patronage was a plum-tree for the politician. The
Clintons had been Anti-Federalists and had opposed the adoption of the
Constitution. In 1801 DeWitt Clinton became a member of the Council of
Appointment and soon dictated its action. The head of every Federalist
office-holder fell. Sheriffs, county clerks, surrogates, recorders,
justices by the dozen, auctioneers by the score, were proscribed for the
benefit of the Clintons. De Witt was sent to the United States Senate in
1802, and at the age of thirty-three he found himself on the highroad
to political eminence. But he resigned almost at once to become Mayor of
New York City, a position he occupied for about ten years, years filled
with the most venomous fights between Burrites and Bucktails. Clinton
organized a compact machine in the city. A biased contemporary
description of this machine has come down to us. "You [Clinton] are
encircled by a mercenary band, who, while they offer adulation to your
system of error, are ready at the first favorable moment to forsake and
desert you. A portion of them are needy young men, who without
maturely investigating the consequence, have sacrificed principle to
self-aggrandizement. Others are mere parasites, that well know the
tenure on which they hold their offices, and will ever pay implicit
obedience to those who administer to their wants. Many of your followers
are among the most profligate of the community. They are the bane of
social and domestic happiness, senile and dependent panderers."
In 1812 Clinton became a candidate for President and polled 89 electoral
votes against Madison's 128. Subsequently he became Governor of New
York on the Erie Canal issue; but his political cunning seems to have
forsaken him; and his perennial quarrels with every other faction in his
State made him the object of a constant fire of vituperation. He had,
however, taught all his enemies the value of spoils, and he adhered to
the end to the political action he early advised a friend to adopt:
"In a political warfare, the defensive side will eventually lose. The
meekness of Quakerism will do in religion but not in politics. I repeat
it, everything will answer to energy and decision."
Martin Van Buren was an early disciple of Clinton. Though he broke with
his political chief in 1813, he had remained long enough in the Clinton
school to learn every trick; and he possessed such native talent for
intrigue, so smooth a manner, and such a wonderful memory for names,
that he soon found himself at the head of a much more perfect and
far-reaching machine than Clinton had ever dreamed of. The Empire
State has never produced the equal of Van Buren as a manipulator of
legislatures. No modern politician would wish to face publicity if
he resorted to the petty tricks that Van Buren used in legislative
politics. And when, in 1821, he was elected to the Senate of the United
States, he became one of the organizers of the first national machine.
The state machine of Van Buren was long known as the "Albany Regency."
It included several very able politicians: William L. Marcy, who became
United States Senator in 1831; Silas Wright, elected Senator in 1833;
John A. Dix, who became Senator in 1845; Benjamin F. Butler, who was
United States Attorney-General under President Van Buren, besides a
score or more of prominent state officials. It had an influential organ
in the Albany Argus, lieutenants in every county, and captains in every
town. Its confidential agents kept the leaders constantly informed of
the political situation in every locality; and its discipline made
the wish of Van Buren and his colleagues a command. Federal and local
patronage and a sagacious distribution of state contracts sustained this
combination. When the practice of nominating by conventions began, the
Regency at once discerned the strategic value of controlling delegates,
and, until the break in the Democratic party in 1848, it literally
reigned in the State.
With the disintegration of the Federalist party came the loss of
concentrated power by the colonial families of New England and New York.
The old aristocracy of the South was more fortunate in the maintenance
of its power. Jefferson's party was not only well disciplined; it gave
its confidence to a people still accustomed to class rule and in turn
was supported by them. In a strict sense the Virginia Dynasty was not
a machine like Van Buren's Albany Regency. It was the effect of the
concentrated influence of men of great ability rather than a definite
organization. The congressional caucus was the instrument through which
their influence was made practical. In 1816, however, a considerable
movement was started to end the Virginia monopoly. It spread to the
Jeffersonians of the North. William H. Crawford, of Georgia, and Daniel
Tompkins, of New York, came forward as competitors with Monroe for the
caucus nomination. The knowledge of this intrigue fostered the rising
revolt against the caucus. Twenty-two Republicans, many of whom were
known to be opposed to the caucus system, absented themselves. Monroe
was nominated by the narrow margin of eleven votes over Crawford. By the
time Monroe had served his second term the discrediting of the caucus
was made complete by the nomination of Crawford by a thinly attended
gathering of his adherents, who presumed to act for the party. The
Virginia Dynasty had no further favorites to foster, and a new political
force swept into power behind the dominating personality of Andrew
Jackson.
The new Democracy, however, did not remove the aristocratic power of
the slaveholder; and from Jackson's day to Buchanan's this became an
increasing force in the party councils. The slavery question illustrates
how a compact group of capable and determined men, dominated by an
economic motive, can exercise for years in the political arena a
preponderating influence, even though they represent an actual minority
of the nation. This untoward condition was made possible by the
political sagacity and persistence of the party managers and by the
unwillingness of a large portion of the people to bring the real issue
to a head.
Before the Civil War, then, party organization had become a fixed and
necessary incident in American politics. The war changed the face of our
national affairs. The changes wrought multiplied the opportunities of
the professional politician, and in these opportunities, as well as
in the transfused energies and ideals of the people, we must seek the
causes for those perversions of party and party machinery which have
characterized our modern epoch.