As governor, Warfield also favored the establishment of direct-voting for U.S. Senators. He argued this before the General Assembly in 1906, believing the power should be in the hands of the people. The direct election of senators eventually became national law with the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Other accomplishments as governor included the authorization and approval in 1904 of an official state Flag of Maryland, (by using the design and colors on the shield of the Calvert family's coat-of-arms with a red-and-white cross with bottony (trefoil) ends of the Crosslands and the black-and-gold chevrons of the Calverts, each in two alternating quarters, like the shield. During the previous Civil War, the severely divided Border State used the two elements of the Maryland shield to represent their side of the War, (Unionists wore black/gold chevrons and Confederate Marylanders wore badges with red/white crosses on their uniforms. The return of a quartered flag and seal and shield represented a reuniting of the "Old Line State" and was fostered by the newly re-organized militia as the Maryland National Guard flying the new/old Maryland flag. Another historical "final act" was the success of a long search and process by the then U.S. Ambassador to France to discover the where-abouts in Paris, France of an American naval hero's burial site and have the return of the body of American Revolutionary War Captain John Paul Jones, (1747-1792), considered the father of the United States Navy to the specially-prepared marble crypt under the newly constructed domed chapel at the U. S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Also the western expansion and annex construction (with two new marble chambers for the houses of the General Assembly of Maryland) along with the remodeling of the old Maryland State House on State Circle, including the Old Senate Chamber to match its original Colonial appearance when General George Washington resigned his position in the Continental Army at the State House in December 1784, then serving as a temporary national capitol with the Confederation Congress then meeting there. Warfield left office in January 1908.