The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-06-16

In the national Democratic convention
which meets at Chicago on Tuesday next
two-thirds vote is required to nominate.
The history of this rule is interesting at
the present time. The first Democratic
national convention met at Baltimore,
May 81, 1882. Party nominations by con-
gressional caucus had proved failure in
1924 in ISIS circumstances had designated
both candidates with perfect certainty,
and isolated nominations in different
parts of the country were then in no dam
ger of clashing, but in 1882 the first Demo-
cratic national convention was proposed
by the most judicious friends of General
Jackson's administration as plan
of putting stop to partial nominations
and Of harmonizing the party. The
first call for such a convention
came from the New Hampshire Democ-
racy, then led by an able man, Isaac Hill.
When this first Democratic convention
met, to assure what was deemed reason
able approach TO unanimity, two-thirds of
the whole number of votes was required
for choice, a precedent fatal 10 Van
Buren, when he sought third nomination
of his party in 1874. On the first ballot at
the national convention of 1882 Van Buren,
was nominated for vice president getting
POS out or 2s3 votes. At the next Demo-
cratic national convention, which met at
Baltimore May 10Th, 1885, nearly eighteen
months before the election, the rule re-
quiring two-thirds of the whole number
OF votes TO nominate was again adopted,
although nearly half the convention, 2i0
TO 23i, thought majority more ''in &C
cordance with Democratic principles"
Van Buren, received the unanimous vote of
the convention. In 1910, when Van Buren,
was renominated, the two-thirds rule was
not adopted.
When the Democratic national conven-
ton met at Baltimore, May -, 1874, Van
Buren's nomination was supposed TO be
assured. The delegates had very generally
been instructed for Van Buren,, and two
months before the assembling of the con-
vention it seemed beyond doubt. Call
houn and Robert J. Walker secured the
defeat of Van Buren's nomination by the
adoption of the two-thirds rule. By the
Il
members escaped obedience TO the instruc.
tons for Van Buren, to defeat him.
Walker quoted the precedents of 1892 and
1885, when the nominations made under
the two-thirds rule led to victory, and
then said that in 1870 when il had not
been adopted the Democracy had been de-
feated. Walker argued that without this
Ia Al j; IL
motto seemed TO be "rule or ruin" But
Ter, of New York, pleaded in reply that
the true Democratic rule required the Mi
nority - submit TO the majority Morton.
of Massachusetts,, urged that Jefferson had
been nominated under the majority rule:
that the rule governed state. county and
township conventions. Walker. in replv,
said that if the two-thirtis rule were not
adopted, and Mr.. Van Buren, nominated
under the majority rule, that Clay would
be elected. The two-thirds rule was adopted
b. las u rs. All the negatives were from
the North except fourteen from Missouri.
Maryland and North Carolina. Fifty
eight Northern men with Southern u-ir-
ciples Joined ninety Southe-ners in the
AilFth@tiFe- Il Wts rratiy vote on an
Buren,, or rather on the annexation OF
Texas and the extension of more slave
territory, TO which Mr.. Van Buren had un-
dinchinely declared his opposition in
the bravest letter ever written hy
candidate for denomination. Van
Barren had voted for "a free"
Missouri in 1880; he was opposed to the
annexation Of Texas, and he was the irst
conspicuous victim of the first encounter
between the South and the rising tide of
opposition 20 the extension Of slavery.
Since the day of Martin Van Buren's
defeat for a third nomination in 1914 the
two-thirds rule has been adopted AMI en-
forced by the Democratic national con-
yantinDx