It is a rule which even now is enforced in National Conventions of the Democratic party.

It was through the enforcement of this rule that Mr.
Cleveland was renominated, when he was so bitterly opposed by a portion of the delegation from his own State,--especially the Tammany delegates,--that General Bragg was moved to make the celebrated declaration that he "loved Mr.Cleveland on account of the enemies he had made." Notwithstanding the fact that those delegates were strongly opposed to Mr.Cleveland, and though they protested against having their votes recorded for him, they were so recorded through the application and enforcement of the unit rule.

It was the enforcement of this rule upon which Mr.Conkling insisted in the National Republican Convention of 1880.

About twenty of the New York district delegates, under the leadership of Judge W.H.Robertson, refused to be governed by the instructions of the State Convention.

Their contention was that the State Convention had no right to bind by instructions any delegates except the four from the State at large.