Mr. VOORHEES. With the permission of the Gentfrom Ohio I will now say aword. I expected, Mr. Speaker, as a matter of course, and consequently I got myself into good humor 2. week ago, that I would be scolde for the speech I was going to make by gentlemen occupying the position of my friendfrom Ohio, Mr. BisonAM] I take it all goodnaturedly. ct me say this to him in order that my position may be understood. The American Uiiion being a Union of the States, I do not know of any power in the State or the Governmentto destro a State. If that signifies to his mind, “once a State always a State, ” then he is right. I will read now from a document that I have tried to support, in a few remarks I have made this after noon, written by the POTUS, and if these hard epithets ally to my policy they apply to his likewise. he Picsident says:.” But the true theory is. that all pretendedactsof secessionwerefrom the beginningnull and void. o H filacs cannot LOlnlllli, treason, nor screen the individual citizens who may hays committed treason and sse. more than they can make valid treaties or c e in lawful commerce with an foreign Power. nsllfie States attempting to secedep need themselvesin a condition where their vitality was imaired but not extinguished, their functions suspended but not destroyed.” Now the issue formed before the country between the President and the men who supported him on the one hand, and those who opposed him on the other, is this: that at the end of this war the party opposing the policy of the president found 11 States destroyed. Perhaps more passed ordinances of secession. I did not pay enough attention to. that hardly to know ow many did. I look upon those ordinances as null and void. I consider all those States that passed ordinances of secession as dead to this Government. That is their position. Now let me ask the gontleman, wh0 killed those States? What power did it? Where did that power come from? Who dealt the blow? Did the State by its own act, or did the Federal Government or did the government of JeffersonDavis at Richmond kill it? Did this prestended government in the South have power enough to kill 11 vital live States in the Union? Where is this destroing angel that has gone forth and destroyed those States? I hold that there is no element of destruction in them; that as they were in the beginning, so they were through this war, and so they are now hvingStates of the American Union and in assertin that position, I have asserted the position of the POTUS, and every assault the gentleman has made upon me on account of my position is equally made upon him.