ABSTRACT
The Founders were conflicted about the role that the people should have in selecting their leaders. Jefferson and Madison led the Democratic Republicans, a group of leaders more skeptical about centralized power and the role of the executive. Political parties played a crucial role in the democratization of the presidential selection process. On the last day of 1831, the anti-Jackson National Republican Party held a convention in Baltimore to nominate Henry Clay as their presidential candidate. The convention was attended by 155 delegates from eighteen of the nation's twenty-four states. The national conventions, in addition to providing a new mechanism for nominating presidential candidates, were instruments for the creation of a national political party structure. By 1796, political parties had emerged, and although there was no official process for nominating each party's presidential candidate, Federalists coalesced around Adams and Democratic Republicans around Jefferson.
