Limitations upon the Power of the Legislature to Control Political Parties and Their Primaries

The convention system of nominating candidates for public office is, in a great degree, peculiar to the United States. England has in recent years borrowed in part our caucus, but as late as 1893, a writer in the American Law Regisieri says: "A nomination is made in the British dominions by a paper filed by one person and one or a very few seconders." Nor have we always had the convention system here. The first national nominating convention was held in Baltimore, by the anti- Masonic party, on September 26, 1831.