CONVENTION, a word of very various meanings, but al ways conveying the sense of its Latin original (conventio, from convenire, to come together). Thus it may mean a meeting or assembly; an agreement between parties; a general agreement on which is based some custom, institution, rule of behaviour or taste, or canon of art; hence extended to the abuse of such an agreement, whereby the rules based upon it become "conven tional" i.e. lifeless and artificial. The word is of some interest historically and politically. It is used of an assembly of the rep resentatives of a nation, state or party, and is particularly contrasted with the formal meetings of a legislature. It is thus applied to those parliaments in English history which, owing to the abeyance of the crown, have assembled without the formal summons of the sovereign ; e.g. the convention parliament which in 166o restored Charles II. to the throne. More recently it has had the meaning of an assembly summoned to frame a constitu tion, as distinct from a merely legislative assembly. Such, at least in its original intention, was the National Convention which ruled France from Sept. 1792 to Oct. 1795. The statutory assem bly of delegates which framed the Constitution of the United States of America in 1787 was called the Constitutional Conven tion; and the various American State Constitutions have been drafted and are from time to time revised by constitutional con ventions. In the party system of the United States the nomina tion of party candidates for office or election was formerly in the hands of delegates chosen by the primaries, meeting in the convention of the party; and the convention system was universal, from the national conventions of the Republican and Democratic Parties, which still nominate the candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency, down to city or county con ventions, which nominated the candidates for local offices. Except for the nomination of candidates for the highest offices, the convention has been superseded by the primary election in most instances. In diplomacy, "convention" is a general name given to international agreements other than treaties, but not necessarily differing either in form or subject-matter from a treaty, and sometimes used quite widely of all forms of such agreements (see TREATIES).