boroughs a little knot of active bailies and other citizens combined to bring out a candidate, but generally kept their action secret, for "the clique" was always a term of reproach. The practice is common in France now, where the committees of each party recommend a candidate.

The third system is that in which the candidate is chosen neither by himself nor by the self-elected group, but by the people themselves, i.e. by the members of a party, whether assembled in mass or acting through representatives chosen for the purpose. This plan offers several advantages. It promises to secure a good candidate, because presumably the people will choose a suitable man. It encourages the candidate, by giving him the weight of party support, and therefore tends to induce good men to come forward. It secures the union of the party, because a previous vote has determined that the candidate is the man whom the majority prefer, and the minority are therefore likely, having had their say and been fairly outvoted, to fall into line and support him. This is the system which now prevails from Maine to California, and is indeed the keystone of transatlantic politics. But there is a further reason for it than those I have mentioned.

That no American dreams of offering himself for a post unless he has been chosen by the party is due not to the fact that few persons have the local preeminence which the social conditions of Europe bestow on the leading landowners of a neighbourhood, or on some great merchants or employers in a town, nor again to the modesty which makes an English candidate delay presenting himself as a candidate for Parliament until of good birth and large estates, offers to retire in order to make room for the eldest son of the Duke when he comes of age.

1 It may sometimes, though rarely, be a schismatic or recalcitrant section of the party, as will be seen hereafter.

he has got up a requisition to himself to stand, but to the notion that the popular mind and will are and must be all in all, that the people must not only create the officebearer by their votes, but even designate the persons for whom votes may be given. For a man to put himself before the voters is deemed presumptuous, because an encroachment on their right to say whom they will even so much as consider. The theory of popular sovereignty requires that the ruling majority must name its own standard-bearers and servants, the candidates, must define its own platform, must in every way express its own mind and will. Were it to leave these matters to the initiative of candidates offering themselves, or candidates put forward by an unauthorized clique, it would subject itself to them, would be passive instead of active, would cease to be worshipped as the source of power. A system for selecting candidates is therefore not a mere contrivance for preventing party dissensions, but an essential feature of matured democracy.

It was not however till democracy came to maturity that the system was perfected. As far back as the middle of last century it was the custom in Massachusetts, and probably in other colonies, for a coterie of leading citizens to put forward candidates for the offices of the town or colony, and their nominations, although clothed with no authority but that of the individuals making them, were generally accepted. This lasted on after the Revolution, for the structure of society still retained a certain aristocratic quality. Clubs sprang

up which, especially in New York State, became the organs of groups and parties, brought out candidates, and conducted election campaigns; while in New England the clergy and the men of substance continued to act as leaders. Presently, as the democratic spirit grew, and

people would no longer acquiesce in self-appointed chiefs, the legislatures began to be recognized as the bodies to make nominations for the higher Federal and State offices. Each party in Congress nominated the candidate to be run for the presidency, each party in a State legislature the candidate for governor, and often for other places also. This lasted during the first two or three decades of the present century, till the electoral suffrage began to be generally lowered, and a generation which had imbibed Jeffersonian principles had come to manhood, a generation so filled with the spirit of democratic equality that it would recognize neither the natural leaders whom social position and superior intelligence indicated, nor the official leadership of legislative bodies. As party struggles grew more bitter, a party organization became necessary, which better satisfied the claims of petty local leaders, which knit the voters in each district together and concentrated their efforts, while it expressed the absolute equality of all voters, and the right of each to share in determining his candidate and his party platform. The building up of this new organization was completed for the Democratic party about the year 1835, for the Whig party not till some years later. When the Republican party arose about 1854, it reproduced so closely, or developed on lines so similar, the methods which experience had approved, that the differences between the systems of the two great parties are now unimportant, and may be disregarded in the sketch I have to give.1

The essential feature of the system is that it is from bottom to top strictly representative. This is because

1 What makes it hard to present a perfectly accurate and yet concise description is that these are variations between the arrangements in cities and those in rural districts, as well as between the arrangements in different States.

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it has power, and power can flow only from the people. An organization which exists, like the political associations of England, solely or mainly for the sake of canvassing, conducting registration, diffusing literature, getting up courses of lectures, holding meetings and passing resolutions, has little or no power. Its object is to excite, or to persuade, or to manage such business as the defective registration system of the country leaves to be fulfilled by voluntary agencies. So too in America the committees or leagues which undertake to create or stimulate opinion have no power, and need not be strictly representative. But when an organization which the party is in the habit of obeying, chooses a party candidate, it exerts power, power often of the highest import, because it practically narrows the choice of a party, that is, of about a half of the people, to one particular person out of the many for whom they might be inclined to vote. Such power would not be yielded to any but a representative body, and it is yielded to the bodies I shall describe because they are, at least in theory, representative.

1 The rapid change in the practice of England in this point is a curious symptom of the progress of democratic ideas and usages there. As late as the general elections of 1868 and 1874, nearly all candidates offered themselves to the electors, though some professed to do so in pursuance of requisitions emanating from the electors. In 1880 many—I think most-Liberal candidates in boroughs, and some in counties, were chosen by the local party associations, and appealed to the Liberal electors on the ground of having been so chosen. In 1885 nearly all new candidates were so chosen, and a man offering himself against the nominee of the association was denounced as an interloper and traitor to the party. The same process has been going on in the Tory party, though more slowly.

CHAPTER LX

THE MACHINE

THE organization of an American party consists of two distinct, but intimately connected, sets of bodies, the one permanent, the other temporary. The function of the one is to manage party business, of the other to nominate party candidates.

The first of these is a system of managing committees. In some States every election district has such a committee, whose functions cover the political work of the district. Thus in country places there is a township committee, in cities a ward committee. There is a committee for every city, for every district, and for every county. In other States it is only the larger areas, cities, counties, and congressional or State Assembly districts that have committees. There is, of course, a committee for each State, with a general supervision of such political work as has to be done in the State as a whole. There is a national committee for the political business of the party in the Union as a whole, and especially for the presidential contest.1 The whole country is covered by this network of committees, each with a sphere of action corresponding to some con

1 Within the State Committees and National Committee there is a small Executive Committee which practically does most of the work and exercises most of the power.