nks, and, knowing that the business of these would be injured if
the branches of the United States Bank were allowed to come among them,
the people of that region resented the reestablishment of a national
bank. Jackson, as a Western man, shared in this hatred, and when he
became President was easily persuaded by his friends (who wished to
force the Bank to take sides in politics) to attack it. The charter had
still nearly eight years to run; nevertheless, in his first message to
Congress (December, 1829) he denounced the Bank as unconstitutional,
unnecessary, and as having failed to give the country a sound currency,
and suggested that it should not be rechartered. Congress paid little
attention to him. But he kept on, year after year, till, in 1832, the
friends of the Bank made his attack a political issue[1].

[Footnote 1: Roosevelt's _Life of Benton_, Chap. 6; Parton's _Life of
Jackson_, Vol. III., Chaps. 29-31; Tyler's _Memoir of Roger B. Taney_,
Vol. I., Chap. 3; Von Hoist's _Constitutional History_, Vol. II., pp.
31-52; Schurz's _Clay_, Vol. L, Chap. 13; _American History
Leaflets_, No. 24]

%338. The First National Nominating Convention; the First Party
Platform.%--To do this was easy, because in 1832 it was well known
that Jackson would again be a candidate for the presidency. Now the
presidential contest of that year is remarkable for two reasons:

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
C