APPENDIX
TO THE
BREVIER LEGISLATIVE REPORTS.
VOLUME
FOURTEEN.
MESSAGE
OF
GOVERNOR BAKER
TO THE
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
OF THE
STATE OF INDIANA.
TRANSMITTED JANUARY 10, 1878.
INDIANAPOLIS:
W. H. DRAPIER, PRINTER, JOURNAL OF COMMERCE
BUILDING.
1873.
Appendix B. R. - vol xiv - 1
page: [2][View Page [2]] page: [3][View Page [3]]MESSAGE.
Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives;
The hope expressed at the close of the address delivered to you at the commencement of the late special session, that your deliberations during that session might be characterized by harmony and be fruitful of good legislation, I am happy to say, was realized. Since my connection with public affairs, I have never witnessed a session of the General Assembly in which a more intelligent appreciation of duty was manifested; and in point of industry the late session, in my judgment, excelled any of its predecessors. This will not be understood as an idle compliment on the one hand, or as an unqualified indorsement of every act that was passed at the late session on the other. In welcoming you for the last time to this seat of legislation, I sincerely congratulate you in view of what you have already accomplished, and trust that during your present session you will be guided by that wisdom which cometh from above, and which is profitable to direct.
STATE DEBT AND STATE FINANCES.
The foreign debt of the State outstanding at this time (January 10, 1873), may be thus stated, viz:
| Amount of five per cent. State stocks issued under the adjustment of 1847: | $32,869 99 |
| Do. two-and-a-half per cents: | 4,060 13 |
| Amount of war loan bonds issued under legislation of 1861, still outstanding: | 139,000 00 |
| Making together: | $175,930 12 |
To the above, however, must be added amount of old bonds issued prior to 1841, the payment of which is provided for by the act approved December 12, 1872, including the interest accrued thereon.
page: 4[View Page 4]| The principal of these old bonds can not exceed: | $191,000 |
| Adopting the most unfavorable rule for the State that can be claimed, the interest up to this time can not exceed: | 378,000 00 |
| Estimated amount of old bonds issued prior to 1841: | 569,000 00 |
RECAPITULATION.
| Amount of five and two-and-a-half per cent, and war loan bonds still outstanding, as before stated: | $175,930 12 |
| Add estimated amount of old bonds, as above: | 569,000 00 |
| Total foreign debt ascertained and estimated: | $744,930 12 |
| The domestic debt of the State now consists of non-negotiable bonds of the State issued to its own school fund and amounting to: | $3,905,906 25 |
| Total debt, foreign and domestic: | $4,650,830 37 |
| There is at this time in the State Treasury the sum of: | 499,268 44 |
| There is at this time in the hands of the Agent of State: | 108,475 40 |
| Total cash on hand: | $607,743 84 |
| Add proceeds of State tax of 1872, not yet collected, estimated at: | 350,000 00 |
| Amount available for State purposes for the year commencing November 1, 1872, and ending October 31,1873: | $957,743 84 |
| The expenditures for the same year are estimated as follows, viz: | |
| For expenses of the present session of the General Assembly: | 100,000 00 |
| Other expenditures including ordinary expenses of the State government, benevolent institutions, reformatories, prisons, interest on domestic debt, and on War Loan Bonds, etc., etc., upon the supposition that these expenditures will not exceed those of 1872: | $785,388 00 |
| Total estimated expenditures: | $885,388 00 |
| Amount available for State purposes for 1873, as above stated: | 957,743 84 |
| From this deduct estimated expenditures: | 885,388 00 |
| Leaving only a balance of: | $72,355 84 |
If immediate provision be made, as in my judgment there should be, for the enlargement of the House of Refuge, and the Institution for the Education of the Blind, and for the completion of the Female Reformatory, the above balance will not only be exhausted, but a deficiency will be created of over $100,000. It must be remembered that the act providing for the payment of the old bonds already mentioned, may add a considerable sum to this deficiency; and it is possible that the 5 and 2 per cent. stocks still outstanding to the amount of $36,930.12, or some considerable part thereof may be presented for redemption during the current year, and if so, they must be paid.
In view of all this, and of the pressing demand that exists for making increased provision for the insane, it will be necessary in my judgment to levy a State tax for each of the years 1873 and 1874, of fifteen cents on the $100 of the taxables of the State. The collection of the revenue of 1873, will also have to be anticipated by a temporary loan, and the commencement of a new Hospital for the Insane will probably have to be deferred until the revenue of 1873 can be made available.
SINKING FUND.
Two years ago I recommended that; the Auditor of State be relieved from the duty of acting as the Treasurer of the Sinking Fund by providing for the transfer of the moneys and effects belonging to that fund to the care and custody of the Treasurer of the State, so that the State might have one treasury instead of two. The moneys and effects belonging to the Sinking Fund are now so reduced that there can be no valid objection to such a transfer. They are, as I am informed by the Auditor of State, as follows, viz:
| Cash on hand: | $3,935 22 |
| Due from the State to the fund on divers loans, including interest thereon to February 1, 1873: | 35,631 73 |
| Bills receivable: | 50,000 00 |
| Interest on last item: | 1,800 00 |
| Mortgage loans: | 21,024 53 |
| Total: | $112,391 48 |
I recommend that the cash and effects of the Sinking Fund above mentioned be transferred to the State, and constitute a part of the general fund of the State Treasury, and that the State issue a non-negotiable bond to the school fund for the amount bearing interest at six per cent., payable semi-annually.
page: [6][View Page [6]]ATTORNEY GENERAL
The duties and responsibilities of the Attorney General ought to be greatly enlarged, to the end that his office may be increased in usefulness in a corresponding degree. Under existing legislation that officer may reside at the most distant point in the State from the eapitol, and is not required to have an office or a deputy at Indianapolis. The compensation he receives is such as to preclude the idea that he should give much of his time to the business of the State, and the result is that such business as naturally falls within the scope of his office must be either neglected or entrusted to other lawyers at an expense greater for each year than would be expended if an adequate salary were allowed to justify and require the residence of the Attorney General at the capitol, and the giving of his whole time to the duties of the office. I therefore respectfully recommend that the law governing the office of the Attorney General be so remodeled as to make the following provisions, viz :
First. That the Attorney General be required to reside at the State Capitol and keep an office there, and that he shall on all business days, during business hours, be at said office in person or by deputy, except when he shall be engaged in court or elsewhere in the service of the State.
Second. Requiring him to attend to the State's interests in all actions in which the State is interested (criminal prosecutions excepted,) whether the State shall be a party to such actions or not, and authorizing the Governor or a majority of the other State officers, to direct the Attorney General to perform such duty in any particular case.
Third. Requiring the Attorney General to give his legal opinion to the Governor, whenever requested so to do, touching any question or point of law in which the interests of the State may be involved, and to any other State officer, touching any point or question of law concerning the duty of such officer. Also, to either House of the General Assembly as to the constitutionality of any existing or proposed law, whenever requested so to do by resolution of such House.
Fourth. Giving the Attorney General a supervisory care over all the prosecuting and district attorney's throughout the State, and requiring the latter to report to the former, at stated periods all fines assessed and recognizances forfeited in the several courts within their respective circuits and districts, and requiring the Attorney General to keep a record of all such fines and forfei- page: [7][View Page [7]] tures alphabetically arranged by counties, and of the steps taken from time to time for the collection thereof. Also, requiring such prosecuting and district attorneys to report to the Attorney General from time to time the statistics of crime and criminal prosecutions, and of divorces granted and refused by the several courts in their respective circuits and districts.
Fifth. Requiring the Attorney General to report annually to the Secretary of State the statistics thus collected.
Sixth. Authorizing the Attorney General upon the direction of the Governor to appear as the prosecuting officer of the State in any criminal prosecution in any court within the State, and to assume charge of such prosecution either with or without the assistance of the circuit or district prosecutor, and to prosecute the same for and on behalf of the State.
The necessity of some such provision as the one last mentioned is manifest, when it is remembered that the Constitution of the State makes it the duty of the Governor "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed," but so far as executing or aiding in executing the penal laws through the courts is concerned, he is under existing legislation, left without means to perform this constitutional duty. If a mob should defy the laws of the State and execute lynch law on any portion of its citizens, the Governor may call out the power of the State to suppress the violence and restore order. But when this is accomplished the prosecution of such violators of the public peace can only be carried on through the local prosecuting officers, although these officers may be in sympathy with or in fear of the very men to be prosecuted. In such cases, and in many others, which might be instanced, the Governor, to enable him to obey the constitutional injunction before mentioned, ought to have the power to direct the chief law officer of the State to appear in any court and assume the prosecution of any person charged with crime against the laws of the State.
Of course the changes above indicated would necessitate a very considerable increase in the salary of the Attorney General, but this would be compensated fifty-fold by the increase of the school fund, by the collection of fines and forfeitures that are lost to the State under the present system. The opinion of the Attorney General should also be required to be given to the Governor as to the propriety or impropriety of remitting each fine and forfeiture for the remission of which application may be made.
page: [8][View Page [8]]BUREAU OF STATISTICS.
In this connection, I desire to call your special attention to the necessity for the establishment of a Bureau of Statistics, in connection with the Secretary of State's office. The Governor, and other State officers are, every year and sometimes many times in a year, called upon for statistical information by the different departments of the General Government, and by the governments of foreign countries, on some or all of the subjects usually embraced within the operations of such a Bureau, and are subjected to the mortifying necessity of being compelled to reply that Indiana collects no statistics, and can, therefore, impart no statistical information. It is as preposterous, in this age of the world, to attempt to legislate wisely and well for a State and its inhabitants without full statistical information, as it would be to conduct extended business operations without keeping an account of bills payable and receivable. I therefore recommend the establishment of a Bureau of Statistics, under the supervision of the Secretary of State, and that provision be made in connection therewith for encouraging immigration by publishing such statistical information as will make known the resources and advantages which this State offers to those in search of homes.
The office of Secretary of State, I will here suggest, ought to be reconstructed by dividing it into Bureaus, and allowing an increase of clerical force.
EDUCATION OF FEEBLE-MINDED AND IDIOTIC CHILDREN.
There is also an urgent necessity for the establishment of a school for the education of idiotic and feeble-minded children. The success of such institutions in other States places their utility beyond doubt, I would recommend the inauguration of an experimental school at a small cost in the first instance, as was done in Illinois, feeling assured that the experiment would soon demonstrate, as it did in that State, the necessity of a permanent institution for the class of children just mentioned. A bill was matured two years ago, but was not passed, and I understand that substantially the same bill was again introduced at the special session, and is now pending. I trust it will become a law before your session shall close. Before dismissing the subject, I desire to call your attention to the fact, that the Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb has a tract of land containing about thirty-six acres situated south of the Michigan page: [9][View Page [9]] road, which is not now and can not be in the future, necessary for the purposes of that Institution, the same being separated from the grounds on which the buildings of the Institution stand by several railroad tracks. I am informed that this land, if sold for one-fourth cash and the residue in four equal annual payments, with interest at six per cent., would bring $75,000. I know of no better purpose to which the proceeds of the surplus lands of the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb could be applied than to the founding of an institution for the education of idiotic and feeble-minded children. I therefore recommend that authority be given to the trustees of the Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb to sell the land before mentioned on the terms above indicated, and that said trustees before making any sale be required to advertise for sealed bids for the land, such bids to be opened in the presence of the Governor, and the sale to be subject fo his approval. I further recommend that a portion of the proceeds be applied, first, to the opening of an experimental school, and that ultimately the residue of such proceeds, if the experiment shall be successful, be applied to the establishment of the institution on a permanent foundation.
EDUCATION.
I have not had an opportunity to examine the report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, but as it will soon be printed and laid upon your tables, you will have ample opportunity to inform yourselves of the progress which our system of public schools has made during the last two years. I am gratified to be able to say, however, that one marked evidence of progress is the fact that the average school term has, since 1867, been prolonged thirty-three days in the year, and that more than the half of this increase in the length of the school year occurred in 1872. I commend the common school system to your fostering care, feeling assumed that popular education is a necessary safeguard of free institutions.
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.
I call your special attention to the fact that the time limited by Congressional legislation for the putting in operation of a college devoted to the teaching of such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, expired in July last, and the college not being opened, the State, by the letter of the law, has forfeited the grant, and is liable to be called upon by the General Government to refund the amount received. There is no probability page: [10][View Page [10]] that such a demand will be made, but it is highly important that the General Assembly should memorialize Congress to waive the forfeiture and grant further time to the Trustees of Purdue University in which to put the college in operation. I therefore recommend that a joint resolution be passed, asking Congress to waive the forfeiture and grant further time for the opening of the college.
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
The proposed amendment to the Constitution of the State, inhibiting the General Assembly from ever recognizing or assuming the Wabash and Erie Canal debt as a charge upon the treasury of the State having passed two successive General Assemblies, is now in a condition to be submitted to the people for ratification whenever provision shall be made by law for such submission.
Being still deeply impressed with the necessity and importance of calling a convention of the people at an early day to revise the Constitution of the State, I respectfully submit the following recommendations in relation to the submission of the proposed amendment to the people for ratification, and also in relation to the calling of a convention to make a thorough revision of the Constitution ; that is to say: Let an act or acts be passed making the following provisions, viz:
First. For submitting said proposed amendment to the people for ratification, at an election to be held on the second Tuesday in October, 1873.
Second. Providing further for the election, at the same election, of delegates to a constitutional convention to revise the Constitution.
Third. Providing still further, that at the same election the question whether a constitutional convention shall be convened or not, shall be submitted to a direct vote of the people, and that if a majority of all the votes cast on the question at such election shall be in favor of the calling of a convention, then the convention shall meet as may be provided for in the act, but that if a majority of said votes shall be against a convention, then no convention shall meet in pursuance of the provisions of the act, and the election of delegates shall, by reason of such adverse vote, become null and void.
By this plan the expense of but one election would be incurred, and yet all the questions involved would be submitted to and decided by the qualified electors of the State.
page: [11][View Page [11]]CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.
I herewith respectfully submit the report of the Commissioners for Indiana appointed upon my recommendation by the President of the United States, in pursuance of an act of Congress, approved May 3, 1871, and entitled "An act to provide for celebrating the one hundredth Anniversary of American Independence by holding an International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the soil and mine in the city of Philadelphia, and State of Pennsylvania, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-six." I commend the report to your attentive consideration, and trust nothing will be left undone which ought to be done to enable Indiana to contribute her full share towards the work of making the Exposition a success. I hope the bill which passed the House at the late session, and is now pending in the Senate in relation to this Celebration, will be speedily passed.
MEMORIAL OF THE AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION.
I submit herewith at the request of sundry good citizens of this State, their petition presenting the accompanying memorial of "The American Woman Suffrage Association," and requesting the General Assembly to fix a time when such persons as may be selected for the purpose by said Association, shall receive from you a patient and respectful hearing on the propositions contained in the memorial. I cordially join in the request of the petitioners, and add that the propositions contained in the memorial are in themselves worthy in my judgment of the most thoughtful consideration of the American Statesman.
For my own part I am willing to give my vote and influence in favor of conferring the right of suffrage on the wromen of Indiana whenever they shall with any considerable degree of unanimity signify a desire to assume the responsibilities which such a change in their relations to the State would impose.
REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS.
I beg leave to again call your attention to the unfinished condition of the Indiana Reformatory for Women and Girls, and to urge the passage of the bill which passed the House at the late session, and is now pending in the Senate, in relation thereto. A bill of which this is a copy received the sanction of the proper committees two years ago, and the passage of the pending bill was recommended by the Senate committee at the late special session. The debt due on account page: [12][View Page [12]] of the construction of the building ought to be paid without further delay, and the building should be completed, and the female prisoners now in the State Prison at Jeffersonville ought to be removed to the Reformatory at the earliest practicable time.
STATE GEOLOGIST.
I again call your attention to the great importance of more liberal appropriations to the Department of Geology and Natural Science established in connection with the Indiana State Board of Agriculture. That department has assuredly fulfilled all the just expectations that were formed concerning it, notwithstanding the disadvantages under which it has continuously labored ever since it had an existence. The rooms of the State Geologist are too circumscribed for the accommodation of the constantly increasing business of the department, and his salary is inadequate for the support of his family, much less to compensate him for the arduous labors and varied learning required by the position.
I trust that these deficiencies will be remedied and that provision will be made for the completion at an early day of the geological survey of the entire State.
WASHINGTON NATIONAL MONUMENT.
I herewith respectfully submit, at the request of His Excellency Joel Parker, Governor of New Jersey, a copy of an act of the Legislature of that State, making an appropriation to aid in the completion of the Washington National Monument, at Washington City, on certain conditions named in the act. I also submit Gov. Parker's letter to myself transmitting said copy, the object being as I suppose to procure a like appropriation from this State.
JOINT RESOIUTION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF OHIO.
In February, 1871, and just after the session of the General Assembly of that year had terminated, I received a communication from his Excellency, R. B. Hayes, Governor of Ohio, transmitting to me a joint resolution of the General Assembly of the State of Ohio in relation to the construction and maintenance of the Wabasll and Erie Canal within the State of Indiana, and requesting me to communicate the same to the General Assembly of this State. I accordingly herewith submit for your consideration the said joint resolution, with the letter of Gov. Hayes transmitting it to me.
page: [13][View Page [13]]I beg leave to say that the Ohio joint resolution assumes the making of a compact or stipulation by Indiana to or with Ohio that Indiana would perpetually keep in repair and in good navigable order, so much of the Wabash and Erie Canal as is situated in Indiana, and calls upon this State to perform the supposed compact. The answer to this complaint is that the assumption that such a compact ever existed or was made by Indiana, is unsupported by the facts. No such compact ever was made by Indiana with Ohio. The agreement made in 1829, by Jeremiah Sullivan on the part of this State, and Wyllys Silliman on the part of Ohio, recited in the Ohio joint resolution, never was ratified by either of said States, and, therefore, never took effect or became binding on said Stakes, or either of them. The only agreement or arrangement of any kind between the two States is that contained in the joint resolution of the General Assembly of Indiana, of February 1, 1834, and in the acceptance of the arrangement proposed thereby by the joint resolution of Ohio, passed February 24, 1834. By the Indiana joint resolution, this State relinquished and conveyed to the State of Ohio certain lands ceded to this State by Congress, in consideration and on condition that Ohio should construct and keep in repair a canal from the Ohio and Indiana line to a point as low down the Maumee river toward Lake Erie as the towns of Maumee and Perrysburgh, and in consideration that Ohio should perform divers other stipulations contained in the Indiana joint resolution. Ohio, by her joint resolution of February 24, 1834, accepted the terms of the Indiana joint resolution, and the two joint resolutions contain the only contract made between the two States. This contract was wholly an executed contract on the part of Indiana, and executory on the part of Ohio; and it was impossible for Indiana ever to be guilty of a breach of the contract, because it was wholly executed, so far as she was concerned, the moment it was made. I therefore recommend the passage of a joint resolution, in response to the Ohio joint resolution of February 21, 1871, respectfully denying the existence of any such compact as the one of the supposed breach of which she complains.
DONATION OF LAW BOOKS TO CHICAGO LAW INSTITUTE.
In the fall of 1871, and after the great fire at Chicago, the Judges of the Supreme Court with my full concurrence, sent a full set of Indiana Reports, the property of the State, to the Law Institute of Chicago, that Association having lost its library by the fire. I also page: [14][View Page [14]] added to the contribution a set of Indiana Statutes (Gavin & Hord) consisting of three volumes. The books were all sent to Hon. S. B. Gookins, now of Chicago, but formerly one of the Judges of our own Supreme Court, and were received with the understanding that they would be returned to the Judges of the Supreme Court, unless the General Assembly should sanction their retention by the Law Institute of Chicago as a donation to its library in view of the great loss it had sustained by the fire. I herewith submit a copy of Judge Gookins' letter to Judge Downey, acknowledging the receipt of the books and stating the conditions on which they are held by him.I respectfully ask that a joint resolution may be passed sanctioning the retention of said books by said Law Institute as a contribution to its Library by the State in view of the loss before mentioned.
LEGISLATIVE PRACTICE.
The kindness with which you received, and the promptness with which you adopted a few suggestions I made in my last message in relation to the journals of the two Houses, encourages me to call your attention to another matter of legislative practice, in which there is great need of improvement. I allude to the titles of many of the bills that are passed from time to time. The impression seems to prevail that because the Constitution has declared " that every act shall embrace but one subject and matters properly connected therewith, which subject shall be expressed in the title,"it therefore follows that the titles of bills must be longer than was necessary before such a provision existed. Such an impression is altogether incorrect. The principal subject, or one of the principal subjects of the act, should be briefly expressed in the title, and, this being done, every matter properly connected with the one so expressed, can be provided for without being alluded to in the title. Such phrases as the following are always unnecessary and, therefore, inelegant and improper in the titles of bills, viz: "And to declare an emergency," "and to repeal all laws inconsistent therewith," "and matters properly connected therewith," etc., etc. A very cursory examination of our legislation for years past, not excluding that of the late special session, will satisfy you how sadly our legislative literature is marred by the singularly grotesque, inelegant and almost interminable titles that are too often prefixed to bills. Not a few of these bills were signed by nie as approved, but I want it distinctly understood that I reserved the right to protest against Such titles. The title of one of them passed at the late special ses- page: [15][View Page [15]] sion, contains one hundred and sixty words, when a perfect title could have been framed in fifteen words. It is almost impossible to amend an act with such a title, so as to make the amendatory act and its title intelligible. I suggest the propriety of having a joint committee, whose duty it shall be to supervise the titles of bills, so that our statute books in the future may not be deformed by such titles as those to which allusion is made.
INTEMPERANCE.
The intelligent legislator can not close his eyes to the fact that the intemperate use of intoxicating liquors is fearfully prevalent, and that it is the fruitful source of pauperism and crime, of social disorder and domestic wretchedness. Nor can it be doubted that much the larger share of this intemperance is caused by the existence of the numerous places where public tippling is practiced and encouraged for pecuniary gain, under the auspices of the State. While it must be conceded that men can not be made virtuous by statutory enactments, it does not follow that schools of vice and nurseries of crime ought not to be restrained or suppressed to that extent to which public opinion will sustain and execute the laws made for that purpose. As Mr. Lincoln said of slavery, so say I of tippling houses, namely: If they are not wrong, then nothing is wrong. Every existing wrong can not, however, be overthrown in a day by a mere act of legislative authority, but it does not follow from this that nothing is to be done looking or tending toward such overthrow. The legislation of the State should on this subject keep pace with public opinion, and it would be better to have the law a little in advance of public opinion than to have it lag far behind. Good laws aid in the formation of a healthy public opinion, just as an enlightened public opinion aids in the formation and execution of good laws. I do not believe in the existence of the power or in the expediency of enacting sumptuary laws, but a law which restrains or suppresses one tippling house or all the tippling houses in the State, attempts to regulate no man's expenditures, nor does it prescribe what he shall eat or what he shall drink, or wherewithal he shall be clothed. In one set of public schools we educate the children and youth of the State, at the expense of the State, for the performance of the duties of American citizenship. In another set of public schools, over which mammon presides and in which the State is a partner, we authorize their proprietors to undo what the first have done or are doing, and to unfit every citizen who will yield to their influence for the performance of these same page: [16][View Page [16]] duties of American citizenship. No man who has any faith in human progress can believe that this state of affairs can or will always last. The enlightened statesman, remembering that in a republic public opinion is the foundation of the laws as well as the mainspring of their execution, will ask himself not only what is right, but what is practicable under existing circumstances, and will legislate for the right without defeating his own intentions by attempting the impracticable. You are fresh from the ranks of the people, assembled from all parts of the State, and are much better acquainted with public opinion than I am, and should, in my judgment, legislate for the restraint and diminution of public tippling houses to the highest point that the existing state of public opinion will sustain, so that (as Mr. Lincoln on another occasion said of slavery) the public mind may confidently rest in the belief that they are in process of ultimate extinction. In my opinion public drunkenness ought to be declared a misdemeanor by State law, and punished accordingly.
PARDONS.
I herewith respectfully submit pursuant to the requirements of the Constitution a report showing all reprieves, commutations and pardons granted, and another showing all fines and forfeitures remitted since the previous report made to the last General Assembly two years ago. After no inconsiderable thought and experience in relation to the exercise of the pardoning power, I am satisfied that the Governor ought to be authorized by law to issue revocable pardons, so that the person pardoned may be put upon his good behavior, and if he relapses into vicious ways, returned to the prison to serve out the residue of his sentence. Similar legislation should be adopted as to prisoners confined in the county jail for the non-payment of fines, to the end that they may be discharged from imprisonment conditionally, without a remission of their fines, and if they prove unworthy of the favor shown them, the discharge may be countermanded, and they may be returned to prison. Bills have been prepared and are now pending, intended to give effect to these views, and I feel confident that their passage would inaugurate not merely a change, but a reform.
CONCLUSION.
And now, having performed the duty for which we assembled, I desire to express to you my grateful acknowledgments for the uniform kindness with which you have treated me; to return through you to the people of the State my profound thanks for the marks of confidence which they have more than once bestowed upon me, and to invoke the choicest benedictions of the Good Father upon our beloved State now and at every step in her future progress.
