and other products
to market. The only obstacles in the way are the restrictions of
the Treasury Department. It would be a blessing to the country if
the whole system could be abolished. Now only one man in North
Carolina is authorized to buy cotton, and he does not pay money
for it. It is impossible for people to get their products to market
in this way."

The imperative need of the Southern States at the close of the war
was temporary military government, and permission, under such full
military protection, to reorganize their civil governments. In
the following letter to General Grant, dated May 10, I submitted
by views concerning the policy that ought to be pursued:

"I desire to submit to you my views concerning the policy that
ought to be pursued in North Carolina, leaving it to your judgment
whether or not to submit them to the President or Secretary of War.
I am now led to this mainly by a letter which I received on the
7th from Chief Justice Chase, giving some points of the policy
advocated by him, which, if adopted in this State, would in my
opinion lead to disastrous results.

"The points I refer to are briefly as follows, viz.:

"The organization of the State government to be left to the people
acting in their original sovereign capacity.

"In determining the right of suffrage, the old Constitution, amended
in 1835, to be followed in preference to the new one which was in
force at the commencement of the rebellion--the object being to
give negroes the right to vote.

"The first proposition is not, I think, open to serious objection.
With proper assistance from the military authorities, it can be
successfully carried out.

"The second proposition is the one to which I refer as specially
objectionable, and this for two reasons.

"First. The Constitution of the State as it existed immediately
prior to the rebellion is still the State Constitution, and there
is no power on earth but the people of the State that can alter it.

"The operations of the war have freed the slaves in this and most
other States, and, doubtless, slavery will be constitutionally
abolished throughout the country. But the United States cannot
make a negro, nor even a white man, an elector in any State. That
is a power expressly reserved by the Constitution to the several
States. We cannot alter or amend the Constitution of North Carolina,
as it now exists, without either first altering or else violating
the Constitutio