The congressional caucus was a method of nominating Presidential candidates used by the Federalist party in 1800 and the Democratic-Republican party between 1800 and 1824.
Borrowing the word from the Algonquian Indians, members of the same political party caucus—or meet together—in closed session. Each party's congressional caucus consisted of its U.S. senators and representatives. At the end of the congressional session in the Presidential election year, the party members met at the Capitol or a local tavern or boardinghouse. A vote was taken, and the candidate receiving a majority would be declared the party nominee for President. A “committee of correspondence and arrangements” would then send word to party newspapers, which would announce the caucus decision to the public.
No congressional caucus was held in 1789, when George Washington was “nominated” by the public by acclamation at huge outdoor rallies. For the second Presidential election, a number of Republicans met in Philadelphia on October 16, 1792, to choose a candidate for Vice President. They decided to back George Clinton rather than Aaron Burr. A similar meeting took place in June 1796, at which time Thomas Jefferson and Burr were chosen as Republican nominees for President and Vice President. In both cases the caucuses were “mixed” because many politicians who were not members of Congress attended the sessions.
The first full-fledged congressional caucus was held by the Federalists on May 3, 1800, when they nominated John Adams for reelection as President and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to be Vice President. The Republicans held their first nominating caucus on March 11, 1800, and chose Jefferson for President and Aaron Burr as his running mate. The Republicans held their first pure congressional caucus (limited to members of Congress) on February 25, 1804. Jefferson was renominated for President. The dispirited Federalists did not even hold a caucus that year.
Federalist representatives from eight states held an informal meeting in New York City in July 1808, but no formal caucus was held. Some Federalist party leaders caucused in 1812 and secretly agreed to back Clinton against James Madison, exploiting a split in the Republican party rather than nominating their own candidate.
Through 1824 Republican congressional caucuses nominated candidates, but from 1808 on, many of the representatives backing candidates not expected to win the nomination absented themselves, so the caucuses were really gatherings of the front-runner's supporters rather than a deliberative body. Proxy votes (a form of absentee ballot) for missing legislators were permitted in 1816 and 1824. The caucus of 1820 involved only 50 members of Congress, and it was not considered “expedient” to take a vote because James Monroe was the President and had no opposition to his renomination from within his party.
The congressional caucus was discredited in the election of 1824 by Andrew Jackson, who referred to it as “King Caucus” because of its allegedly corrupt and undemocratic proceedings. Tennessee and Maryland instructed their congressional delegations to boycott any caucus proceeding. Several state legislatures favorable to Jackson or John Quincy Adams held their own caucuses to “nominate” their choices. When the congressional caucus was convened on February 14, 1824, only 66 members of Congress, representing only 14 of 22 states, attended. Almost all of those who attended were backers of William H. Crawford. Adams and Jackson simply ignored the congressional caucus and its endorsement.
The caucus system fell into disuse because the Republican party disintegrated under Jackson's onslaught in 1828. That year several state legislatures “nominated” Jackson by passing resolutions recommending him to the electorate. Party conventions eventually assumed the role of nominating Presidential candidates.
After the end of the single-party Era of Good Feelings, which lasted from the War of 1812 until 1828, caucuses took on new importance as the lines in Congress once again became drawn between political parties. Beginning in 1845, the Senate party caucuses began preparing lists of majority and minority party members of the Senate committees. By the late 19th century, the chairman of the Senate's majority caucus (who was elected by the majority party senators) had taken on the duties of opening and closing the session and scheduling legislation, duties that would later be the responsibility of the majority leader.
In the House, strong Speakers such as Thomas B. Reed and Joseph G. Cannon effectively used the caucuses to exert leadership in passing legislation and to discipline political renegades. Republicans adopted “binding caucus” rules—meaning that whatever a majority of members voted for in caucus, all members of the caucus would vote for in the full House—to marshal the maximum strength of their forces behind their legislative programs. When Democrats won the majority in Congress in 1912, they adopted a similar rule to unify behind President Woodrow Wilson's progressive agenda. They agreed to debate the issues within the caucus and then to vote together as much as possible on the floor.
During the 1920s, the caucus declined as a vehicle of party unity and discipline. As caucuses developed a negative public image, Republicans in both houses and Democrats in the Senate began calling the caucuses party conferences; only the House Democratic Caucus retained the name. Whether caucus or conference, the groups devoted themselves to electing floor leaders and performing organizational duties rather than to setting legislative agendas. Party leaders became reluctant to call many conference meetings because they did not want to expose the divisions within their party.
Numerous smaller caucuses also operate on Capitol Hill. The first such organization was the Democratic Study Group, begun in 1958. Others include the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues, the Dairy Caucus, and other like-minded or single-issue groups that meet, elect officers, hold discussions, and issue publications to forge unity behind their legislative proposals. ;
See also Adams, John; Adams, John Quincy; Burr, Aaron; Clinton, George; Jackson, Andrew; Jefferson, Thomas; Madison, James; Monroe, James; Washington, George
Sources
- Edward Stanwood, “The Defeat of King Caucus”, in A History of the Presidency (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1898).
- C. S. Thompson, The Rise and Fall of the Congressional Caucus (New Haven: Yale University Academical Department, 1902)
