Sir: The questions submitted by you to the members of your Cabinet for their opinions are:
1. Whether the convention agreed upon on the 18th inst., by and between
General Johnston, commanding the Confederate forces, and
Major-General Sherman, commanding the forces of the
United States, in
North Carolina, should be ratified by you.
2. If so, in what way should it be done.
The terms of that convention are substantially as follows:
That the armies of the
Confederate States shall be disbanded and their arms surrendered.
That the several State Governments shall be recognized by the
Executive of the
United States, upon their officers and legislatures taking the oaths prescribed by the
Constitution of the United States; and where there are conflicting State Governments the question to be referred to the decision of the Supreme Court.
That all political rights and franchises, and all rights of person and property, shall be respected and guaranteed.
That a general amnesty be granted, and no citizen be molested in person or property for any acts done in aid of the
Confederate States in the prosecution of the war.
Taken as a whole the convention amounts to this, that the States of the
Confederacy shall renter the old Union upon the same footing on which they stood before seceding from it.
These States having, in their several conventions, solemnly asserted their sovereignty and right of self-government, and having established for themselves, and maintained through four years of bloody war a government of their own choosing, no loyal citizen can consent to its abandonment and
