It became customary to nominate
candidates in such congressional caucuses, but there was much hostile
comment upon the system as undemocratic. Sometimes the "favourite son"
of a state was nominated by the legislature, but as the means of travel
improved, the nominating convention came to be preferred. In 1824 there
were four candidates for the presidency,--Adams, Jackson, Clay, and
Crawford. Adams was nominated by the legislatures of most of the New
England states; Clay by the legislature of Kentucky, followed by the
legislatures of Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, and Louisiana; Crawford by the
legislature of Virginia; and Jackson by a mass convention of the people
of Blount County in Tennessee, followed by local conventions in many
other states. The congressional caucus met and nominated Crawford, but
this endorsement did not help him,[15] and this method was no longer
tried. In 1832 for the first time the candidates were all nominated in
national conventions.
[Footnote 15: Stanwood, _History of Presidential Elections_, pp.
80-83.]
[Sidenote: Nomination conventions.]
[Sidenote: The "primary."]
These conventions, as fully developed, are representative bodies
chosen for the specific purpose of nominating candidates and making
those declarations of principle and policy known as "platforms.
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