Excerpt from State of New Hampshire, Manual for the General Court, 1997: No; 55

From the founding of our Republic until the introduction of national political conventions in 1831, candidates for president and vice president were named by congressional caucus or other methods chosen by the House of Representatives.

That same year, the Republican members of the New Hampshire Legislature elected their delegates to the first National Republican Convention in Baltimore, where Henry Clay received the Republican presidential nomination. Following his defeat by Democrat Andrew Jackson, those early Republicans disbanded. Most of them joined the Whigs and did not reappear as a formal political party until their 1856 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.

Beginning in 1831, except for the Republicans that year, New Hampshire chose delegates interested in or committed to certain presidential candidates at town caucuses held throughout the state, then sent them to the state conventions of their respective political parties. The state party conventions, in turn, selected from the delegates those who would attend the party's national convention where the party's presidential nominee was eventually determined.

By the late 18005 the railroad lobbyists wielded a powerful influence over the state's government. New Hampshire's Winston Churchill writes eloquently of that plight in his historical novel, Coniston. People became alienated from the entrenched political power brokers who had succeeded to the upper crust of society. Nationally, the Progressive Movement was also fighting the political bosses who controlled nominations, thus controlling elections. It was probably in reaction to the exclusionary practices of this era that reform became inevitable.

In 1913, the nominating procedure was changed definitively when the New Hampshire Legislature substituted a presidential primary for the caucus system. This law allowed any potential delegate to be listed on a statewide ballot for election to the national convention. A candidate was permitted to sign up either as pledged to a particular presidential candidate or as uncommitted.

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