It was discovered very early in American experience that without
organization issues would disintegrate and principles remain but
scintillating axioms. Thus necessity enlisted executive talent
and produced the politician, who, having once achieved an
organization, remained at his post to keep it intact between
elections and used it for purposes not always prompted by the
public welfare.

In colonial days, when the struggle began between Crown and
Colonist, the colonial patriots formed clubs to designate their
candidates for public office. In Massachusetts these clubs were
known as "caucuses," a word whose derivation is unknown, but
which has now become fixed in our political vocabulary. These
early caucuses in Boston have been described as follows: "Mr.
Samuel Adams' father and twenty others, one or two from the north
end of the town, where all the ship business is carried on, used
to meet, make a caucus, and lay their plans for introducing
certain persons into places of trust and power. When they had
settled it, they separated, and used each their particular
influence within his own circle. He and his friends would furnish
themselves with ballots, including the names of the parties fixed
upon, which they distributed on the day of election. By acting in
concert together with a careful and extensive distribution of
ballots they generally carried the elections to their own mind."

As the revolutionary propaganda increased in momentum, caucuses
assumed a more open character. They were a sort of informal town
meeting, where neighbors met and agreed on candidates and the
means of electing them. After the adoption of the Constitution,
the same methods were continued, though modified to suit the