nd wise. Many other citizens who would not support the amendment
if it was presented as the inauguration of a new policy, in view of
the fact that impartial suffrage is already established in the
States most largely interested in the question, now regard the
amendment as the best mode of getting rid of a controversy which
ought no longer to remain unsettled. Believing that the measure is
right, and that the people of Ohio approve it, I earnestly
recommend the ratification of the fifteenth amendment to the
constitution of the United States.

CHAPTER VIII.

SECOND ELECTION AS GOVERNOR.

_Re-nomination--Democratic Platform--Nomination of
Rosecrans--Declines--Pendleton Nominated--Hayes at
Wilmington--Election--Second Inaugural--Civil Service Reform--Short
Addresses--Letters--Annual Message--Democratic Estimate of
it--Davidson Fountain Address--Message of_ 1872--_Work
Accomplished._

The State Convention of the Republican party of Ohio, which met at
Columbus, June 23, 1869, nominated Governor Hayes for a second term by
acclamation.

So acceptable was his two years' administration of the chief executive
office of the State, that no competitor entered the lists against him or
contended with him for the nomination. On the question of his
re-nomination the unanimity in his party was absolute. He appeared
before the convention, in response to its invitation, and delivered the
speech printed in the Appendix to this volume, which sounded the
key-note of the campaign. We ask the reader to turn, at this point, to
this speech, as it is impossible to epitomize it without filling as much
space as is filled by the speech itself. The well-founded and
well-supported charges he made against the Democratic Legislature of the
State brought upon him the savage strictures of the Democratic partisan
press, showing that he had penetrated the weak point in his adversaries'
somewhat defenseless defenses.

The Republican platform condemned the reckless expenditures of the
Legislature, its efforts to disfranchise soldiers, students, and all
having African blood in their veins, and squarely declared for the
ratification of the fifteenth amendment.

The Democratic Convention, which assembled July 7, 1869, denounced the
fifteenth amendment, and had much to say about the reserved rights of
the States. The platform contained these resolutions, which sound, at
this day,