Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1911-06-09
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CHOOSING A PRESIDENT.
Early Methods That Paved the Way to
National Conventions.

VaLIOndi SOTNSTIiOHSs
History records that George Wash.
ington was chosen president Of the
United States without first having
been nominated and even without an
opposing candidate. So was his sue
cessor in Office, John Adams. In the
language Of the street the presidency
was In the ease of each of these dis
tinguished patriots handed to him on
q silver platter" The presidency went,
as it were, by common consent to the
founders Of the republic, to whom a
grateful people looked for continued
service and guidance.
In the early days president choosing,
according to the primitive way, was as
simple compared to modern methods
as a kindergarten exercise beside a
course in four dimension mathematics.
Since then the changes. though gradu-
al, have been marked and have led up
to our present complicated convention
nominations that make the electoral
college but q mechanical device for
registering the popular decision as be-
tween rival party organizations. 1t
was the fiuke that almost installed
Aaron Burr as president instead of
Thomas Jefferson that forced the in
itial notifications Of the plan of presi-
dent choosing agreed upon by the
trainers Of the constitution.
Originally members Of the electoral
college were to vote for two persons,
the one receiving the highest number
Of votes to be president and the next
highest to be vice president. The
danger of q succession that would pull
the political lever each time from one
side to the other made imperative the
change by which the electors should
vote for only one person for president
and for another for vice president.
Two or three object lessons, too, of
irresponsible and haphazard action by
the electoral college, throwing the
choice of president to the house or of
vice president to the senate, because
no one had a majority Of the votes
cast, showed the necessity Of centering
the efforts of the newly aligned politi-
cal parties each on single presiden-
tial ticket and Of imposing on the
members Of the electoral college a
moral obligation to cast their ballots
uniformly for the nominees Of the
party which had elected them.
The forerunner Of our national nom1-
mating convention was the caucus or
conference of members of congress Of
the same political faith who got to-
gether on their own initiative and
without any mandate from their con-
stituents assumed to advise as to who,
in their Judgment, was entitled to be
recognized as the party standard bear
er. This caucus must necessarily have
proved to be too crude and unsatisfac-
tory to serve long as the president
choosing machinery. In such an as
semblage only those states and dis
tricts represented in congress by mem
bers of one and the same political
party had a voice, and all the others
were left without representation. 1t
was to remedy these defects and to
enable the rank and file Of the parties,
wherever they might be, to exercise at
least q nominal control Of the presi-
Dental nomination that the national
convention. meeting every four years,
came to be evolved as we know It,
Victor Rosewater in American Review
of Reviews.