1.  Because each of the three parties held a national convention for the nomination of candidates.

2.  Because a party platform was then used for the first time.

The originators of the national convention were the Antimasons.  State conventions of delegates to nominate state officers, such as governors and congressmen and presidential electors, had long been in use.  But never, till September, 1831, had there been a convention of delegates from all parts of the country for the purpose of nominating the President and Vice President.  In that year Antimasonic delegates from twenty-two states met at Baltimore and nominated William Wirt and Amos Ellmaker.

The example thus set was quickly followed, for in December, 1831, a convention of National Republicans nominated Henry Clay.  In May, 1832, a national convention of Democrats nominated Martin Van Buren for Vice President[1]; and in that same month, a “national assembly of young men,” or, as the Democrats called it, “Clay’s Infant School,” met at Washington and framed the first party platform.  They were friends of Clay, and in their platform they demanded protection to American industries, and internal improvements at government expense, and denounced Jackson for his many removals from office.  They next issued an address to the people, in which they declared that if Jackson were reelected, the Bank would “be abolished.” [2]

[Footnote 1:  It was not necessary to nominate Jackson.  That he should be re-elected was the wish of the great body of voters.  The convention, therefore, merely nominated a Vice President]

[Footnote 2:  For party platform see McKee’s National Platforms of all Parties.]

%339.  Jackson destroys the Bank.%—­The friends of the Bank meantime appealed to Congress for a new charter and found little difficulty in getting it.  But when the bill went to Jackson for his signature, he vetoed it, and, as its friends had not enough votes to pass the bill over the veto, the Bank was not rechartered.

The only hope left was to defeat Jackson at the polls.  But this too was a failure, for he was reelected by greater majorities than he had received in 1828.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Of the 288 electoral votes, Jackson received 219, and Clay 49.  Wirt, the Antimason, secured 7.]

%340.  Jackson withdraws the Government Money from the Bank.%—­This signal triumph was understood by Jackson to mean that the people approved of his treatment of the Bank.  So he continued to hurt it all he could, and in 1833 ordered his Secretary of the Treasury to remove the money of the United States from the Bank and its branches.  This the Secretary[1] refused to do; whereupon Jackson removed him and put another,[2] who would, in his place.  After 1833, therefore, the collectors of United States revenue ceased to deposit it in the Bank of the United States, and put it in state banks ("pet banks”) named by the Secretary of the Treasury.  The money already on deposit was gradually drawn out, till none remained.[3]