But it has been made at once practically ir resistible, and largely worthless for its osten sible purpose of determining the general senti ment of the party, by the 'spoils system," which throws the organization and management of the caucuses into the hands of those who can give their whole time to political work, because paid for this service (in reality though not in name) out of the public treasury. Thus managed, the caucus in the larger places does not necessarily represent the views of the majority, and very often the leading object is to prevent the ma jority from meddling with the machine. In theory, the caucus being a voluntary association of the members of a voluntary association, to deliberate as to its policy and agents, all are fairly bound by its decisions, and have no right to "bolt" afterward; otherwise there is an end of all common action. It is of course to the interest of the managers to cultivate this the ory, and the military similes of "campaigns" and "forces') and °deserters° and "closing up ranks," etc., and to stigmatize all individual courses as equivalent to treachery and insubor dination; and no matter how spurious this technical majority may be, or by what meth ods a real minority may have attained a seem ing vote of confidence, a "regular') nomination will always have enormous weight In part, it is true, this is because the vast majority have no common wish or purpose, and are destitute of constructive political ideas; and any pro nouncement of the constituted party authori ties is really their will, which is simply to ob tain such a mandate. Hence, "regularity)) is the test of merit; and this willingness to accord to the show what belongs to the substance is the almost invincible bulwark of political cor ruption.
This has generated in the last few years a host of efforts, public and private, to break down the monopoly of the caucus and substi tute a real and direct control of nominations by the party; control of policy cannot thus be shifted, but corruption is the work of men, not of measures. It cannot be said that any of these movements as yet are very successful or promising,. largely owing to the consideration just mentioned, that the initial possession of political ideas is a condition precedent to ex pressing them. One scheme is to have nomi nations made by direct popular vote instead of by primaries; but this simply shifts the func tion of the caucus one stage back, to decide on the votes for nomination instead of the votes for offices. More elaborate, and in some di rections more efficient, are the legislative pro visions made in several States for taking the primary caucuses themselves under the con trol of the law, as elections have always been. In this case, all persons who wish to vote in a party caucus must register themselves as mem bers of that party. The effects of this meas ure have been a singular mixture of good and evil, and probably reflect in this regard the motives of the enactment On one hand, fac tion leaders can no longer swamp a caucus with a rabble of purchased voters from the lowest element of the other party. In theory a check list was always used; but as it had no legal validity, it was scouted whenever a ma jority, real or spurious, was interested in evad ing it. The check list under the law cannot be so treated. On the other hand, an obvious ef fect of the law, probably not absent from the minds of the framers, is to extinguish as a party force the independent or "mugwump" element of both parties, who try to reform their own party by a leverage obtained from the other; and are therefore excluded from either, as they cannot keep changing registra tion. If this was a motive, the Nemesis has been speedy. The party managers in various
places are greatly disappointed and alarmed to find that only a fraction even of their normal and calculable voting strength will register at all, and therefore they are nominating in the dark, without knowing what the party senti ment is. When they honestly wish to ascertain the party feeling they have great difficulty in doing it. The dislike to sporting a registered, public and unchangeable party label is not con fined to the more intellectual independents, but is strong in the general mass; and the attend ance at primaries is a much less sure guide than of old to what the party will support at the polls. The precise future of the caucus cannot be forecast; but there is little evidence thus far of a loosening of its hold.
Congressional Caucuses for President and Vice-President.— These grew out of the Elec toral system (see ELECTORAL. Cou.F.GE), and perished, significantly, at the same time that the old theories of an educated official class and professional trained office-holders gave place to the inrush of the untrained democracy and ro tation in office. It is no mere coincidence that the last Congressional caucus was held to nomi nate a candidate in the last election that re turned a President of the old school. The masses were taking everything into their own hands; Jackson and popular nominations came in together, though there was one intermediate link when the people acted through the State legislatures. The theory of the electoral sys tem was that the electors, themselves the chosen sages of the people, should make free choice of the best men in the country for the chief executive offices; but from the first their choice was pointed out in advance. While Washington lived and would take office, no other candidate for President was possible; and for his first Vice-President, John Adams was the choice of New England, and the other States had either their "favorite sons" or no special wish. In 1792 the same circumstances controlled; though New York's favorite, George Clinton, won the support of several southern States. The electors deferred to the notorious public feeling; but their action was nominally independent. In 1796 this was still true of the Federalists, who made a combination of North and South on Adams and Pinckney; it was substantially true of the Republicans, for Jefferson was the undisputed leader, and while the Republican members of Congress infor mally agreed to support Burr, there was no set ticket for the electors to support at party peril. But in 1800 both parties held regular but se cret caucuses and adopted tickets which the electors voted solidly and even stupidly, with results still memorable. The Federalists voted that Adams and Pinckney should be supported alike. The point of this was that up to that date, there was no distinct candidate for Presi dent and Vice-President, the one who received the largest electoral vote being President and the next one Vice-President. Adams was cer tain to receive no Republican votes, but if all the Northern Federalists voted for Pinckney, he as a popular Southerner would probably receive some stray votes from that section, and so be elected President over Adams, whom the Fed eralists hated but did not wish to bolt. Thus they would defeat him by appearing to keep strict party faith. The Republicans on their part held a caucus, and made a similar agree ment with regard to Jefferson and Burr; not with similar designs, but to placate New York, which complained that her candidates were "knifed" in the South. Of course in both cases, if the whole electoral body voted there would be a tie and no election.