ndidates for township offices, district offices, county
offices, State offices, and President and Vice President of the United
States. Therefore each party has a system of committees, conventions,
primary elections, and caucuses, for ascertaining the choice of its
members for these various offices.

Parties and party machinery are not generally provided for in the law,
but they exist by a custom almost as old as the government, and are
firmly fixed in our political system.

COMMITTEES.--Each of the great parties has a _national committee_,
consisting of one member from each State and Territory, chosen by its
national convention. The national committee is the chief executive
authority of the party. It calls the national convention, fixes the
time and place for holding it, and the representation to which each
State and Territory is entitled. It appoints a sub-committee of its
members, called the _campaign_ or _executive committee_, which conducts
the political canvass or campaign, for the party.

The campaign committee distributes pamphlets, speeches, newspapers, and
other political documents among the voters of the country; selects
public speakers; makes appointments for them to speak; arranges for
party meetings; collects funds to bear the expenses of the campaign,
and has a general oversight of the party work in all the States.

Each party also has a State committee in each State, usually consisting
of a member from each congressional district, in some States consisting
of a member from each county; a district committee in each
congressional, judicial, senatorial, and representative district,
consisting of a member from each county composing the district; a
county committee, consisting of a member from each township or civil
district; and in some States, various other committees.

Each of these committees performs for the division for which it is
selected duties similar to those which the national committee performs
for the whole Union.

CONVENTIONS.--The method of ascertaining the choice of a party in the
selection of candidates is either by a primary election or by a
convention.

A _political convention_ is an assemblage of the voters of a party,
either in person or by representatives called delegates. If the voters
assemble in person, the convention is called a primary or mass meeting.

The purpose of a convention may be to select candidates for office, to
send delegates to a higher convention, to adop