POLITICAL CONVENTION. A gathering of dele gates representing a political party for the pur pose of placing in nomination the candidate of that party for an elective office. The method of holding elections is carefully regulated by statute in all communities in which public offices are filled by popular vote, but the method of nominat ing candidates for such offices is usually left to the initiative of the voter. Under the party system which prevails in most popular govern ments. the process by which candidates are se lected and placed in nomination is usually super vised by the party organizations seeking to con trol the election. In Great Britain candidates for Parliament are named by committees com posed of party leaders, and in the early history of the United States the necessary leadership was supplied by party committees in Congress. Nominations for the Presidency were made in this way until 1824. At the present time. how ever, nearly all nominations for elective offices in the United States, whether great or small, are made by the primary and convention systems. The primary is the meeting of the electors them selves, at which delegates to the nominating con Nentions are chosen. In some instances, 11.1W ever, the system is more complicated, the voters at the primaries choosing delegates to local con ventions, and these, in their turn, electing di-le gates to represent the party in State or national conventions. The enormous extension of this system is doubtless due to the case and com pleteness with which it lends itself to partisan control of elections, and thus of the machinery of government. It has doubtless dune much to build up the system of party domination and the power of the great party leaders. The party organization, controlling the primaries. makes up a convention of its partisans and dependents, and thus dictates the nominations for office, leav ing to the voter no choice but that of support ing or rejecting the candidate of his party. Then, when the party organization of city, county, or State, through a refinement of these methods, becomes wholly subservient to one man, we have the 'boss' system as it exists and flourishes in this country at the present time. In some of the States attempts have been made to render the primaries and conventions more truly repre sentative of the body of the voters by statutory regulation of the nominating machinery, espe cially in the direction of providing for inde pendent nominations without the employment of primaries, and conventions, but tlms far with out much success. The political convention con
tinues, and is likely to continue, the usual and favorite method of procuring nominations for office.
National conventions—for the nomination of candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presi dency of the United States—were first held about seventy years ago. The Anti-Masonie Party (1828-32) was the first political party to per fect the national-convention system. and that party held the first national convention in the Presidential campaign of 1832. Both factions of the Democratic-Republican Party had, how ever, held nominating conventions that were not national nor systematically representative dur ing the campaigns of 1824 and 1828. The col lapse of the Congressional nominating caucus in the campaign of 1824 hastened the development of the convention system. Political conventions, like most other representative bodies, usually reach their conclusions by a majority vote of the delegates present. The national conventions of the Democratic Party, however, are governed by a peculiar rule, requiring a two-thirds vote for a candidate in order to secure the nomina tion. Another practice, peculiar to the machin ery of time Democratic Party in nominating its candidates for time Presidency and Vice-Presi dency, is time 'unit rule.' as it is called, under which certain State conventions hind the dele gates of those States in the national convention of the party to east the unanimous vote of the delegation according to the wishes of the major ity of its members.
Although the principal business of political conventions is the nomination of candidates for office. they have. in the course of American polit ical development. become the councils of the great parties, and in and by them the principles of political action are formulated and declared.
The 'platforms,' as they are called, adopted at State and national conventions, constitute the declarations of policy of the parties making them, upon which they seek the verdict of the people at the ensuing election. This declaration of principles has become one of the most impor tant functions of political conventions, and often constitutes the principal part of their work. See ELECTION; NOMINATION; POLITICAL PARTY. Consult Bryce, The American Commonivealth (ed. 1S93).