al justice
will be administered by an independent judiciary.

I forbear to consider further at this time the interesting
questions which will arise in the revision and amendment of the
constitution. Convinced of the soundness of the maxim that "that
government is best which governs least," I would resist the
tendency common to all systems to enlarge the functions of
government. The law should touch the rights, the business, and the
feelings of the citizen at as few points as is consistent with the
preservation of order and the maintenance of justice. If every
department of government is kept within its own sphere, and every
officer performs faithfully his own duty without magnifying his
office, harmony, efficiency, and economy will prevail.

Under the providence of God, the people of this State have greatly
prospered. But in their prosperity they can not forget "him who
hath borne the battle, nor his widow, nor his orphan," nor the
thousands of other sufferers in our midst, who are entitled to
sympathy and relief. They are to be found in our hospitals, our
infirmaries, our asylums, our prisons, and in the abodes of the
unfortunate and the erring. The Founder of our religion, whose
spirit should pervade our laws, and animate those who enact and
those who enforce them, by His teaching and His example, has
admonished us to deal with all the victims of adversity as the
children of our common Father. With this duty performed, we may
confidently hope that for long ages to come our country will
continue to be the home of freedom and the refuge of the oppressed.

Grateful to the people of Ohio for the honors they have conferred,
I approach a second term in the executive office, deeply solicitous
to discharge, as far as in me lies, the obligations and duties
which their partial judgment has imposed.

The most striking part of the address is that which relates to reform in
the civil service of the State and the Nation. Governor Hayes proposes
to reform the civil service of the State _by means of a constitutional
provision in a new State constitution_. This method of reformation is
radical, and, we believe, original. It suggests the pertinent query,
whether reform in the civil service of the Nation can not be best
accomplished through a new provision in the National constitution. Can