A Constitutional History of the United States Chapter XXXI - The Party System and Party Machinery. The Death of King Caucus byMcLaughlin, Andrew C.
At the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century the American
people were in certain respects a very different people from what they were
forty years before. They had become democratic; the nation was a democratic
nation. The word "democracy" has too many connotations to be used lightly; but
plainly, as shown by the changes in the state constitutions, the
people-at-large were entitled to take a much larger share than were the men of
the earlier generation in the management of their own political affairs.
Self-confidence in the wisdom and capacity of the common run of men was
manifest — especially of course in the west — , and we may remind
ourselves again that a democracy distrusting itself is not a democracy
justifying the trust of others, if indeed it be a democracy at all. If the
individualism of Jeffersonian democracy was not plainly manifest in all
respects, the average person had nevertheless no difficulty in assuming his own
worth and preparing to act upon it. To maintain and manage democratic
institutional forms, a nation must be democratic-minded; forms are not of so
very much consequence in and of themselves; the development, therefore, of this
spirit and sense of popular power and of popular competence is of more real
significance even for the constitutional historian than are the formalities of
the law — of more real significance because the most important
constitutional question in the history of a free, self-governing nation is
whether it can be really free, actually self-governing, capable of living.
This spirit of self-confidence was sufficiently present by 1824 to
resent the prevailing system of nominating candidates for public office. In a
number of the states, the method of the earlier days had already been
abandoned; the representative convention — or a convention ostensibly
representative — had taken the place of the legislative caucus for the
selection of leading state officials. This change means simply that the people
were not content with voting for candidates selected by an inner circle of
politicians and chiefly office-holders. In 1824, the dissatisfaction was
extended to national politics. This leads us to an examination of the party
system as it had developed up to that time. And we are also called upon to
examine for a moment the character of the party as an instrument of government.
This cannot be done without a general description of the party system as it has
developed during the last century and more; and we may, therefore, well begin
with commenting briefly on the nature and effect of this institution which has
played such an important role in American political life.
The political party is essentially an instrument of government. It is
one of the methods whereby men in the popular state manage their political
affairs; it is an institution through which they seek to control the formal,
legal government and to direct the workings of the constitutional system. We
might even call it a constitutional institution, if we look at the Constitution
not as a formal document but as the combination of institutional forms,
practices, and principles which constitute the structure and the actual
political activities of the state. The very fact that the people are divided
into two great armies, each with its officers, history, traditions, esprit
de corps, character, treasure, and power, is in itself of significance. In
any study of the party, we should see that the important thing is not its
principles, but the fact that it exists at all and that it is used as a means
of conducting public affairs, of doing — or failing to do — the
tremendously difficult job of carrying on popular government. The political
party, as we now see it, is an essentially modern thing; and in some ways we
obscure its character if we use the word "party" indiscriminately to describe
old-time factions, hostile groups, or social cliques which had their many exits
and entrances in the long drama of history before the rise of the modern
popular state. Certainly what we now call a "party" was begotten by the duties
and the opportunities of democracy; it came into being as the result of an
attempt to actualize popular government.
In America, the party has for the historian particular interest because
the constitutional system, at the beginning at least, appeared peculiarly
ill-adapted to the party system. The clashing factions of the Revolutionary
period and of the years immediately following bore some resemblance, it is
true, to the modern party; but when the Constitutional Convention met, the
fathers had no knowledge of parties as we now know them; a party appeared to be
a quarreling faction, endangering the stability of the government. They had
little or no conception of a party as a means whereby issues could be
discussed, the people could decide on questions of policy, men could be chosen
for office according to popular desire, and unity in governmental plans and
procedure could in a measure be secured. And thus, when the Constitution was
signed and adopted and the document was safely locked away, there remained
still unprovided for the two supreme jobs of democracy — the placing in
office of the men whom the people wish to have in office and the transferring
of the people's desires into legislation and administration. Representation and
elections were, it is true, recognized and provided for in general terms; but,
as we now know, these are not enough if the people are to have institutional
forms and practices for actually carrying on popular government.
And so, after the new government was established, parties arose and
assumed the new duties and responsibilities of making democracy real. This does
not mean that men were quite conscious of the significance of what they were
doing; but it can hardly be denied that the party as an institution took upon
itself the two duties already referred to; the extent to which it performed
those duties and the extent to which it proved unfaithful are a long and
wearying story, an important, indeed the central, theme in the confusing and
distracting history of a nation which has prided itself on being democratic but
has often questioned whether its democracy was real or pretended. Certain it
is, when once parties and the government of parties were established and
operative, the job of the people, desiring to be their own governors, was to
control this new institution which, like all living institutions, sought to
develop and strengthen its own life; the job within each party, if men could
only see it, was the job of making the government of the party — the
machine — subject to the will of the party as a whole. Thus in the course
of the passing decades emerged the new task — to control the government
that would control the government, actually to use the party and the government
of the party as means of putting into office men whom the people wish to put
into office and as means of insuring reality to the popular state.
It is often difficult to distinguish cause from effect. One may hesitate
to say whether essential national unity, that is to say, a degree of harmony on
fundamental matters and a nation-wide readiness to coöperate, made the
party or the party made the nation. Certainly the party organization gave
expression to common interests and created ties holding together men of various
sections; it held them by a loyalty to a national, not to a sectional interest;
it made for coöperation; it tended to subject local interests to a wider
and more comprehensive system. In the course of time, party loyalty appeared to
be stronger than any other influence in the actual maintenance of the union;
the time came when the dissolution of the Democratic party implied the
dissolution of the union itself. Even on the slavery question, for more than a
decade before the Civil War, opinions and irritations were held in check by the
unceasing pressure of party. Thus as a general rule — for we can and must
admit exceptions — , the party has reacted against sectionalism and has
aided the process of adjustment or compromise which must always be conspicuous
in the tasks of a people occupying half a continent.
Did democracy make the party or did the party make democracy? Democracy,
unless we insist on mere individualism, connotes solidarity; a people divided
into cliques and factions, separated into groups, each sharking for its own
booty, each unconscious of community of interest, each unwilling to yield its
own pet opinions, cannot function as a democracy. Willingness to work and act
together for a common end is the heart and center of the democratic spirit, and
without the spirit the body has no life. If you answer to this that there were
two parties and they were often at daggers drawn, nevertheless it must be
admitted that each held its own adherents; and moreover, whenever a party seeks
popular support and wishes to place its own men in office, it reaches out after
the "vote"; it must accommodate its action and propensities to a fairly general
desire or inclination. Seldom, if ever, has a party openly and in its own
consciousness, sought to banish public good and attain only selfish ends; such
a tendency is characteristic of a faction rather than of a party. Furthermore,
the eagerness to win and the struggle for votes make ostensible
class-selfishness a practical menace to party success and reasonable
longevity.
If these reflections appear to be fanciful, the reader will surely
confess that party machinery has furnished means for popular action. If we have
outgrown all this, if the whole system of committees and leaders and managers
and all the intricate mechanism appear now antiquated and more than humanly
vulgar, the historian nevertheless finds in the earlier days the development of
a system which helped to make the people articulate. If in reality the
directive force was at the top, if it did not spring from the people-at-large,
if orders, though carefully concealed, went out from a centralized bureau of
astute politicians, yet on the whole, without mechanism, nothing would have
been left but confusion or at least nothing but incoherence. And if this
statement meets with objection because it has lost its force in these days of
the radio, and the telegraph, and a public press hungry for readers, it stands
true of the earlier days when the party mechanism linked the people together
and gave them a method of expressing an opinion which they thought was their
own.
No one can discuss the party without falling into contradictions or
paradoxes; no one can doubt, for instance, that the mechanism of the party and
the passions of party loyalty have often distorted public purposes or at least
inhibited popular desires; and furthermore, great changes in legislation and
even in the written Constitution itself have come about, not through the
agitation of parties or the use of party machinery, but by the development of
popular sentiment created and expressed in the countless ways familiar to us
whereby sentiment and purpose are impressed on the public
mind.[1]
The party has made inroads upon the very structure of federalism. In
principle, a federal state is characterized by the distribution of powers among
governments. But the unremitting influence of national parties has tended to
obscure the states and to rob them of their significance. State issues have
been subordinated to the needs of national parties. Governors and legislators
and road commissioners have been chosen, not because of their attitude toward
state problems, but because of their affiliation with the national party.
Nationalism in the very real sense has been created by the development of
communication, by the actual interdependence of states and sections. But we
cannot disregard the integrating effect of the party system which has been
national, not federal; the incongruity of national organizations'
managing or trying to manage a federal state is evident. Moreover, all
the elaborate system of checks and balances so dear to the heart of John Adams
has been affected though not destroyed by the party system; for the party is
not troubled by self-imposed inhibitions set up for the express purpose of
preventing effective action.
The choosing of men for office is the most important activity of the
popular state. If the people, through majority decision, can place in office
the men they want in office, they have in one main respect succeeded in the
task of democracy. If they cannot, "popular government" is a misnomer. All the
methods, therefore, used for the selection of candidates and for choosing
between them are of prime significance in the history of a people who would be,
and thought they were, self-governing. And this leads us to see the importance
in the would-be popular state of the methods and the mechanism of election. But
the most difficult and perplexing problem has been that of finding methods of
nominating rather than of electing. In the very early days, state officers of
higher rank were nominated by caucuses of the party men in the state
legislatures. For the presidential election there was no formal method of
nomination, but by 1800 processes were beginning to appear. In that year the
Republicans held two caucuses made up of party adherents in Congress; one
selected Jefferson as candidate for the presidency and the other added the name
of Burr.[2] In the same year, the Federalists followed the caucus
method of nomination for the first and last time. For the next twenty-four
years the party caucus at Washington exercised the privilege and the
responsibility of naming the Republican candidates.[3] The system,
as we have already said, had been disappearing in the states; a representative
convention took its place and before 1824 it was a fairly well-recognized
method of nominating state officers. The change was due in part doubtless to
the improvement of roads, which made it easier for delegates to come together;
it was due also to the development of the party and to the growing sense of
power in the common people. The time was passing when the voter, if interested
in politics at all, was willing to acquiesce in the decisions of a group of
legislators at the state capital.[4] By 1824 men were prepared to
ask, why should congressmen in solemn conclave choose the person to be voted
for by the people? Were not the people capable of nominating the candidate for
the presidency as well as casting their final ballots? Did they need somebody
to guide their faltering steps?
Had there been two or more competing parties in 1824, the old practice
might have continued untouched for a time. In that year, however, there were
many favorites, all Republicans; if the nominee of the congressional caucus
were to be accepted, and if he were to be considered the regular candidate for
the presidency, nomination was equivalent to election. William H. Crawford was
named by the congressional caucus, and the friends of Andrew Jackson, Henry
Clay, and John Quincy Adams, were not inclined mildly to acquiesce. The battle
was on; "king caucus" no longer held the scepter. Tennessee had already through
her legislature named Jackson, and in due course the other aspirants for the
presidency were formally or informally listed and their claims defended.
No one of these men received the majority of electoral votes. Jackson
received ninety-nine votes, Adams, eighty-four, Crawford, forty-one, and Clay,
thirty-seven. The election devolved upon the House, the choice to be made "from
the persons having the highest numbers, not exceeding three, on the list of
those voted for as President...."[5] The House voting by states
elected Adams. At that time, in six of the states the legislature appointed the
electors, and therefore it is practically impossible to get anything like a
definite idea of the desires of the people-at-large. No one can say, or could
have said, with certainty what the result would have been, had Adams and
Jackson been the only candidates. Of course the action of the House was
entirely constitutional. The Constitution-makers of 1787 had no intention of
giving the main body of voters the right of choice; and if the electors did not
give a majority of their votes to any one man, the right to choose was left to
the untrammeled decision of the House.
The heavens rang with declamation against this desecration of what
Benton called the "Demos Krateo" spirit; the will of the people had been
violated; the fundamentals of popular rule had been profaned. The old
activities of "king caucus" had been attacked and scorned, but here, forsooth,
the House had elected the President and acted with unbecoming independence!
Adams's presidency was sure to be strewn with difficulties. There was a
widespread determination to give the voice of the "people" its full effect.
Here, then, is a fact of profound importance: the "people" have appeared upon
the scene; they are (or think they are) the real rulers. It is impossible to
put down in words the exact significance of the word "people" as it came to be
used and as we still use it. Certainly we should err, if we intimated that
before the second quarter of the century the wishes of the people-at-large had
not been considered; but certainly also there had been a rise of
self-consciousness in the masses of men, a growing belief in their own
capacity; there was a very real though intangible power, the will of the people
— not the will to be expressed by ballots alone, but nevertheless real and
always to be obeyed. And this marks, not so much in technical law as in deeper
reality, the fuller emergence of the popular state. Democracy, though still
subject to the freaks and follies of adolescence, was coming of age.
In 1828, the names of Jackson and Adams were put forward in various
ways, but for the next presidential election the representative convention was
used for nominations.[6] This gathering, taken in connection with
the disappearance of "king caucus", must be looked upon as an effort in the
main body of the voters to select their own candidates, an effort to reach out
and to control the mechanism of selection. The presidential convention has
lasted until the present day, modified in some degree by the use of the
presidential preference primary which was established in some of the states
early in the twentieth century. It still stands, though the states have
commonly established, for the nomination of candidates for state and local
office, the direct primary, the product of a popular revolt against the
corruption or the inadequacy of the convention system.
But it is needless to tell the reader that the dethronement of "king
caucus" did not mean that the people had actually succeeded in wresting the
power from the party operatives; they had not succeeded in reaching the throne
themselves. Popular government is not so easily obtained, or, if obtained in a
momentary fit of enthusiasm, it is not easily made permanent and secure. Under
the worst conditions, the convention was held safely within the hands of the
machine; it was not infrequently manipulated by political traders and those
ready to indulge in corruption; at its best, the whole system was managed by
the professional politician, who, however skillful and unvenal, was not the
pliant servant of his constituents. And there, as a living thing, stood the
party, holding men by ties of tradition and loyalty; it held within its ranks
thousands and, in later years, millions of men; it was by its inner instincts
prompted to perpetuate and strengthen itself. Constitutional problems and even
sectional interests must not be allowed to endanger party stability or to sap
its vigor. Is it necessary to say again that if the people cannot place in
office men of their own choice, they are not living in a democracy?
[1] I have in mind all the amendments to the Constitution
that have been added since 1870. I mean also the mass of national and state
legislation, some of which is of immense consequence, such as workingmen's
compensation acts and a vast amount of welfare legislation.
[2] Whether Burr was proposed distinctly as candidate for the
vice-presidency is not entirely plain. It is said that Burr insisted on
receiving equal support with Jefferson. But the fact, if it be a fact, is not
of supreme importance in this connection.
[3] It appears that in 1820 the caucus was called but found
it unnecessary to make a choice. See J. B. McMaster, A History of the People
of the United States, IV, pp. 515-516.
[4] One writer has wisely said: "The nominating convention is
an incident in the effort of the masses to pull down authority from the top and
place it on the ground — an instrument by which they try to get vital
control of the business of governing." Carl Becker, "Nominations in Colonial
New York," Am. Hist. Rev., VI, pp. 270-271. This article deals with
revolutionary activities and methods and treats of tendencies which I have had
to ignore in the condensed treatment of the text. But it is well to notice
Professor Becker's clear statement of the connection between the rise of
democracy and "the transition from absolutist or autocratic methods of
nomination to democratic methods."
[5] Constitution, amendment XII.
[6] The Anti-Mason party held a nominating convention in
1831.
