In compliance with the constitution, the last General Assembly submitted to the people the question of holding a convention "to revise, alter, or amend" the constitution, and at the October election a large majority of the voters of the State decided in favor of a convention. It is the duty of the General Assembly, at its present session, to provide by law for the election of delegates and the assembling of the convention.
The vote on the question of calling the convention which formed the present constitution was taken at the October election, 1849. At the next session of the General Assembly an act was passed which provided for the election of delegates to the convention the first Monday of April, 1850, and the convention was convened on the first Monday of May following.
In conclusion, I wish to make my grateful acknowledgments to the people of Ohio for the honorable trusts they have confided to me, and to express the hope that the harmony, prosperity, and happiness which they now enjoy in such full measure may, under Providence, be perpetual.
Hayes, during his two terms as Governor, proposed and carried through the following measures of the first importance to the welfare of the State:
He recommended and had completed a comprehensive Geological Survey of Ohio.
He secured the establishment of a Soldiers' Orphans' Home.
He had the powers of the Board of State Charities restored and enlarged.
He had provision made for the care, by the State, of the chronic insane.
Under his direction the graded system was adopted in the State Prison and prison reforms introduced.
Minority representation on Election Boards was secured.