this poll
that predictions as to the result, sealed and filed a week prior to the
election by each of the members of the Republican State Executive
Committee, the writer being one, varied only from two hundred to three
thousand votes of the final result. Hayes' majority in '69 was 7,506--a
little above the average majority. The canvass was fought largely upon
the issue of the greenback payment of the debt. The Pendleton plan of
indirect repudiation failed, and the rag infant was decently interred,
to await an inglorious resurrection.

Governor Hayes was re-inaugurated January 10, 1870, on which occasion he
delivered the following address:

_Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives:_

In the annual message transmitted to the General Assembly a few
days ago, a brief exposition of the condition of the State
government was given, and such measures were recommended as the
public good seemed to me to require. It will therefore not be
expected that on this occasion I should again discuss subjects
pertaining to the usual routine of legislation.

The most important questions concerning State affairs which in the
ordinary course of events will engage the attention of the people
of Ohio, during the term of office upon which I now enter, are
those which relate to the action of a Constitutional Convention
authorized to be called by a vote of the people at the October
election in 1871. The present organic law provides for submitting
to the electors of the State, once in twenty years, the question of
holding "a convention to revise, alter, or amend the constitution."
It is no disparagement of the work of the last Constitutional
Convention to say that experience has already demonstrated the
wisdom of this provision. It would be strange, indeed, if the last
eighteen years had developed no defects in the constitution of
1851.

It is, perhaps, not improper at this time to call attention to some
of the amendments of the existing fundamental law which the next
Constitutional Convention will probably be required to consider.

The provision of the present constitution which prohibits the
General Assembly from authorizing "any county, city, town, or
township, by vote of its citizens or otherwise," from giving aid to
any "company, corporation, or association," was designed to remedy
an ev