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COOPER, SAMUEL COPYING MACHINES
COOPER, THOMAS (1517-1594) COPYRIGHT
COOPER, THOMAS (1759-1840)

CONVENTION (Lat. _conventio_, an assembly or agreement, from
_convenire_, to come together), a meeting or assembly; an agreement
between parties; a general agreement on which is based some custom,
institution, rule of behaviour or taste, or canon of art; hence extended
to the abuse of such an agreement, whereby the rules based upon it
become lifeless and artificial. The word is of some interest
historically and politically. It is used of an assembly of the
representatives of a nation, state or party, and is particularly
contrasted with the formal meetings of a legislature. It is thus applied
to those parliaments in English history which, owing to the abeyance of
the crown, have assembled without the formal summons of the sovereign;
in 1660 a convention parliament restored Charles II. to the throne, and
in 1689 the Houses of Commons and Lords were summoned informally to a
convention by William, prince of Orange, as were the Estates of
Scotland, and declared the throne abdicated by James II. and settled the
disposition of the realm. Similarly, the assembly which ruled France
from September 1792 to October 1795 was known as the National Convention
(see below); the statutory assembly of delegates which framed the
constitution of the United States of America in 1787 was called the
Constitutional Convention; and the various American state constitutions
have been drafted and sometimes revised by constitutional conventions.
In the party system of the United States the nomination of party
candidates for office or election is in the hands of delegates, chosen
by the primaries, meeting in the convention of the party; the convention
system is universal, from the national conventions of the Republican and
Democratic parties, which nominate the candidates for the presidency and
vice-presidency, down to a ward convention, which nominates the
candidate for a town-councillorship. In diplomacy, "convention" is a
general name given to international agreements other than treaties, but
not necessarily differing either in form or subject-matter from a
treaty, and sometimes used quite widely of all forms of such agreements.
Many conventions have been made for the formation of international
"unions" to regulate and protect various economic, industrial and other
non-political interests, such