bitrary and aristocratic, and tends to beget,
first life office, and then hereditary office, which leads to the
destruction of free government." The solution offered was the historic
doctrine of "rotation in office." At the same time the principle of
popular election was extended to an increasing number of officials who
had once been appointed either by the governor or the legislature. Even
geologists, veterinarians, surveyors, and other technical officers were
declared elective on the theory that their appointment "smacked of
monarchy."

=Popular Election of Presidential Electors.=--In a short time the spirit
of democracy, while playing havoc with the old order in state
government, made its way upward into the federal system. The framers of
the Constitution, bewildered by many proposals and unable to agree on
any single plan, had committed the choice of presidential electors to
the discretion of the state legislatures. The legislatures, in turn,
greedy of power, early adopted the practice of choosing the electors
themselves; but they did not enjoy it long undisturbed. Democracy,
thundering at their doors, demanded that they surrender the privilege to
the people. Reluctantly they yielded, sometimes granting popular
election and then withdrawing it. The drift was inevitable, and the
climax came with the advent of Jacksonian democracy. In 1824, Vermont,
New York, Delaware, South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana, though some
had experimented with popular election, still left the choice of
electors with the legislature. Eight years later South Carolina alone
held to the old practice. Popular election had become the final word.
The fanciful idea of an electoral college of "good and wise men,"
selected without passion or partisanship by state legislatures acting as
deliberative bodies, was exploded for all time; the election of the
nation's chief magistrate was committed to the tempestuous methods of
democracy.

=The Nominating Convention.=--As the suffrage was widened and the
popular choice of presidential electors extended, there arose a violent
protest against the methods used by the political parties in nominating
candidates. After the retirement of Washington, both the Republicans and
the Federalists found it necessary to agree upon their favorites before
the election, and they adopted a colonial device--the pre-election
caucus. The Federalist members of Congress held a conference and
selected their candidate, and the