ever, that the people placed less reliance in their legíslative bodies than did the people of the Revolutionary era. Instead of general grants of legislative power, there are specific prohibitions and positive injunc tions. Important limitations are imposed upon the form and mode of legislation. It is clear, too, that fear of an over-strong executive had given way to a belief in the necessity of having a stronger countervailing influence, capable of checking the legislative. Everywhere the governor was made elective directly by the people and given the veto power. The conviction was often expressed in constitutional conventions that the governor was peculiarly the representative of the people, a popular tribune who would protect them against the indiscretions of their legislative representatives. The extension of the elective principle to all important offices was accompanied also by a general conviction that life tenure of office is undemocratic. "Rotation in office," said Andrew Jackson, voicing a popular feeling, "is a cardinal principle of democracy."

The spirit of Western democracy leavened also the older States. The people of Maine, breaking away from Massachusetts and her ancient ideals, boldly declared for manhood suffrage in their new constitution. Connecticut adopted a constitution in 1818 to replace the old charter, and dissolved the old union. of Church and State by declaring that no preference should be given by law to any Christian sect or mode of worship. At the same time Connecticut extended the suffrage to all who served in the militia or paid a state tax. New York in the constitution of 1821

and Massachusetts by a constitutional amendment in the same year abandoned the old property qualifications for voting.

In both Massachusetts and New York, conservative men like Chancellor Kent and Daniel Webster frankly avowed their apprehensions of universal suffrage. "The tendency of universal suffrage," said Kent in the New York convention, "is to jeopardize the rights of property, and the principles of liberty." He held society to be an association for the protection of property as well as of life," and the individual who contributes only one cent to the common stock ought not to have the same power and influence in directing the property concerns of the partnership as he who contributes his thousands."

The democratic movement affected not only the formal organization of State Governments, but also the machinery and methods of political parties. In the Northern States there was increasing dissatisfaction with the practice of nominating candidates for office by legislative caucus. The rank and file of the parties were no longer willing to submit blindly to the dictation of leaders. In deference to party voters in districts which were not represented by men of their political faith, the leaders of the respective parties now found it expedient to summon special delegates to their party conclaves, in order to give a more truly representative character to the organization of party. The legislative caucus, in short, gave way to the mixed caucus.

But the old vice remained. The selection of candidates for office was still made by those who had no

mandate to act for the party except in a legislative capacity. If the voters of the party were in truth the source of authority within the party, then a means had to be devised of ascertaining their will. The democratic principle, in short, had to be applied to party. In response to this feeling, mass meetings and irregular conventions were held; but these methods of securing an expression of party opinion were only transitional. Indeed, so long as the means of communication were defective, popular gatherings were necessarily poorly attended. The next step in the democratization of party organization could only be taken when the barriers of space were overcome by the application of the steam engine to transportation. The nominating delegate convention waited on the development of transportation.

Much the same popular hostility was directed against the congressional caucus. Candidates for the presidential nomination were not blind to this movement, and for the most part they sought other means of promoting their chances. Monroe had hardly entered upon his second term when state legislative caucuses began to nominate favorite sons. In 1821, the legislature of South Carolina put forward the name of William Lowndes, and upon his death named John C. Calhoun as its candidate for the Presidency. In 1822, the legislature of Tennessee presented the name of Andrew Jackson, "the soldier, the statesman, the honest man," to the consideration of the people of the United States. In the same year Republican members of the legislature of Kentucky recommended Henry Clay "as a suitable person to

succeed James Monroe as President.” A “joint meeting of the Republican members of the Massachusetts legislature and of Republican delegates from the various towns of the Commonwealth not represented in the legislature" nominated John Quincy Adams for the Presidency in January, 1823. And finally, illustrative of the varied methods in use and of the strange vicissitudes of politics at this time, a public gathering or mass meeting at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in March, 1824, nominated Adams for President and Jackson for Vice-President.

A series of resolutions passed by the legislature of Tennessee in 1823 called attention in no uncertain language to the shortcomings of the congressional caucus and called for its overthrow. A canvass of the members of Congress showed that one hundred and eighty-one out of two hundred and sixty-one believed a caucus inexpedient at this time. Nevertheless, the minority, acting in Crawford's interest, took their courage in both hands and held a caucus on February 14, 1824. Sixty-four out of sixty-eight votes were cast for William H. Crawford, who thus became by all precedents the "regular" candidate of the Republican party. This nomination and the indorsement of Jackson by the Republicans of Pennsylvania spoiled Calhoun's chances. In the spring of 1824, he allied himself with the Jackson faction by accepting the nomination for Vice-President at the hands of a state nominating convention at Harrisburg, which had put Jackson at the head of the ticket.

Such issues as were discoverable in the presiden