688
THE GREEN BAG
was within its power, and that the courts could not control its discretion, and in the opinion, delivered by Judge Welch, will be found a further vindication of the action of the Board as in the interest of true religi ous freedom. In 1872 Judge Hoadly took an active part in the movement which led to the calling of the Cincinnati convention of that year, but on the nomination of Mr. Greeley, feeling that, by temper and opinion alike, the candidate selected was unfitted to be the leader of the movement for financial and tariff reform, which he with many others had hoped to see the outcome of that convention, he was reluctantly led to support General Grant for re-election. In the constitutional Convention of 18734, in which he was chairman of the com mittee on municipal corporations, he gave much time and labor to perfecting the con stitution drawn by that body, and in par ticular to the provision of safeguards against municipal extravagance. • Although the constitution drawn by that convention was defeated at the polls, a large part of the changes which it made in the constitution of 1851 have since been adopted, in the form of separate amend ments to that instrument. In 1876 he was an earnest supporter of the candidacy of Governor Tilden for the presidency, and was one of the counsel before the electoral commission on behalf of the democratic candidates. The ques tions argued by him were those presented by the contests in Florida and Oregon. Space will not permit the quotation of these arguments, and neither an abridgment nor a selection of extracts would do justice to them. In 1879 and 1880 he was employed with Charles O'Connor as counsel for the holders of the railroad bonds of the state of Ten nessee in an effort to collect these bonds by foreclosure on behalf of the bondholders of a lien reserved by that state on the railroads which had received state aid. The attempt
failed of success for the reasons given by the Supreme Court in the "Tennessee Bond Cases," 114 U. S. 663. In 1880 he was temporary chairman of the Democratic Convention which nomi nated General Hancock for the presidency. In 1883 he became fhe candidate of the democratic party for the governorship, and was elected by a plurality of about thirteen thousand. At that time the powers of the Governor of Ohio were more restricted than they are at present, as the Governor then did not have the veto power, so that the office was rather one of honor than of authority, except in emergencies. During his two years of incumbency there were but few emergencies, the most important, and that of most interest from a legal standpoint, being the riot in Cincinnati, due to the unsatisfactory condition of the administration of justice, on March 28 and 29, 1884, which resulted in the burning of the court house, the destruction of a large part of the records of Hamilton county, and the killing and wounding of a large number of people by the fire of the tropps. When a candidate for re-election in 1885, he was defeated by Governor Foraker, whom he had defeated two years before. In 1884 at the sixtieth anniversary of the foundation of the Yale Law School, he was invited to deliver an address before the graduating class. He selected as his subject "Codification in the United States," a subject in which he had for many years felt a profound interest, his voice and pen being used on every appropriate occasion in favor of the codification of the common law. On this occasion that University honored him with the degree of L.L.D. In 1887, in company with his friend and partner, Edgar M. Johnson, Governor Hoadly removed to New York City, forming with Edward Lauterbach the firm of Hoadly, Lauterbach and Johnson. With this re moval ended his active connection with the Bar of Ohio which had lasted forty years, and his further occasional appearances in
