Even though ive come to work virtually every day here for 25 year, never fails to impress me. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Appreciate it. You bet. That was senator Mitch Mcconnell speaking in 2010. Hes the Incoming Senate majority leader for the 114th congress which convenes on january 6. We continue our look at the historical role of the Senate Majority leader. Well hear from robert byrd of West Virginia. He spoke in 1998 inside the Old Senate Chamber. Weve had three lecture series this year and we hope to have three more next year. When this idea was first suggested that we have some further attempt to preserve the history of the senate, and that we had a unique time in history because we had such a large number of former Vice President s and leaders of the senate that are still in the senate or are alive that we should take advantage of this opportunity. And the first person who came to my mind as i thought about how to put this together was senator bob byrd. Because i knew that he probably more than any of us knows about and cares about the institution of the senate and the history of the senate and all of its procedures and traditions. And so i went to him and said what about this idea . When i left, i had the volumes that he had done on the history of the senate, the history of the senate in the roman empire, and various other books that i could read. I had to ask if i could have a staff member help me get back up to the office. The answer to my question, should we do this, was a resounding yes. So i think its appropriate that he is the twhaun we used this opportunity to honor and to hear what he has to say. Its often said that a Great Institution like the senate of the United States has a life of its own. I disagree. For all its grandeur and for all its continuity, the life of this institution is nothing more than the inner woven lives of those who serve here. Their lives are what enoebled this place. The shortcomings are what humanized this place. Their deeds may be routine or to borrow a well chosen word, rep sounding. Any either place, their stature both in the eyes of cleg colleagues and the judgment of history is something earned by achievement, not devised by sound bytes or staging. Our speaker this evening embodies that truth. Seven times, seven times the people of West Virginia have elected him to the senate he came to this body at a time ike was in the white house and three future president s frequented the senate floor. Nixon, kennedy and johnson. Now they and so many more are figures in history while our speaker is still making history and writing it as well. His service has encompassed 40 years and still counting. During that time, his colleagues have placed the trust in him in the highest offices of the institution. Hes been both the majority leader and the minority leader. Hes been our president pro tem and hes chaired the committee on appropriations. What he has brought to those positions has been more than hard work although theres been be plenty of that. And high skills. He brought a passion. This week maybe last week, he found out that i cut a corner a little bit in the way i asked for unanimous consent. And noted it, preserved it, and said that i should take another look at it. Certainly i did. I will comply. Within the senate family, we are a family in some way, we know him as the rules and the prerogatives, not as an ends themselves themselves but a means the senate preserves the constitutional system that we have sworn to uphold. On occasion, hes regaled the senate with a discourse on antiquity, and more specifically, the history of greece and rome. Yes, when we speak, we come out of the cloakrooms and come from our offices and sit and listen enthralled to the history that he knows that he quotes from memory. In todays world where everything older than a decade is ane chebt, his knowledge is extraordinary and the insistence of the somber relevance are irrelevant to our own times is truly sobering. There have been areas where they are troubled. In those the senate role to give the nation the reassurance of stability and endurance. That is what the framers intended when they devised an Upper Chamber in that once popular metaphor, a steady anchor against the wild winds of public passion and hasty action. No one knows that better than the speaker. They have toiled in the halls or causes larger than their own advancement. The example brings to mind the cautionary explanation by the seen yores favorite author. But in king henry 6 part i, shakespeare warns that glory is like a circle in the water which enlarges itself until by broad spreading it disperse to naught. The first hero Richard Russell of georgia have been those to pursue duty rather than passing glory and who in the process won for themselves a lasting remembrance in the annals of representative democracy. It is appropriate that this evening we turn that accolade back on senator robert byrd of West Virginia. We are honored to hear from this great and distinguished senator. And i thank him for agreeing to be here tonight and give us the thoughts and his ideas on what the senate is and will be. To formally introduce him though i know its a long comment on this occasion, our good friend and the colleague of the democratic leader, tom daschle. Congratulations on your standing remarks. Its my formal responsibility to introduce robert c. Byrd, im going take the liberty of introducing one other person. She is to our spouses to what he is to the United States senators. Irma byrd is here and were delighted that she has graced us with her presence. [ applause ] we know that many of robert byrds family is here are here and were delighted youre here. We welcome you tonight. When senator lott talked about this series he explained that the speakers will enrich the memory of the senate by sharing with us the wisdom and the insights that can be gained only by a lifetime of service to free people. People. Without question, tonights speaker, robert c. Byrd will more than live up to that lofty objective. We know robert byrd is in the business of enriching the senates memory for decades. One intangible example of this Award Winning four, the Award Winning volume, 3,000 page history of the United States senate the historian is called birds history, a magisterial enterprise, the most ambitious study of the United States senate in all of our history. Never before he said, has a distinguished member of the United States senate carried to completion a comprehensive history of the senate, drawing upon both his insights and recollection of and the most recent work of all scholars. Now, all of senate birds history lessons, of course, are contained in books. Sometimes theyre offered in private conversations. I certainly as senator loath just noted have benefitted from many of senator byrds tutorials over the years. His most powerful history lessons, however, have been those delivered on the senate floor. We saw that again last week. These are painful days for the senate and for our entire nation. Days of Great Potential consequence. Our responsibility as senator byrd reminded us in the typically elegant ander diet remarks last week is to put the good of our nation first. To be guided in these difficult days by two things only our history and our own individual consciousness. If we flowed his advice, i believe future history books looking back on these days will record that we served our nation well. That is the same way im confident that history will judge senator byrds own long and distinguished career. Raised by foster parents in the Hard Scrabble cold country of West Virginia, robert byrd came of age in the desperate days of the great depression. Fully deserving of the award he won 15 years ago, he turned adversity to opportunity every step of the way. Since taking the first senate oath in 1959, senator byrd has achieved an unsurpassed record of service to his faith and to this nation. As you all know, if i were to recite all of the highlights of the senate career, we simply wouldnt have time for senator byrds remarks. So let me just cite a few examples. Among the 1,843 americans who have served in the senate since 1789, no one has cast more roll call votes or held more office. Only two senators in all of our history share the distinction of having been elected to seven consecutive full senate terms. And only three have served longer. Senator byrds congressional career has stood the tenure of ten president s, including harry truman. Following 12 years is his partys senate floor leader. He easily shifted his deep Institutional Knowledge and experience to two other major Senate Leadership positions. Chairman of the committee on appropriations, and Senate President pro tem. The longest serving West Virginia senator in history, robert byrd is the only person in the States History to win all 55 counties in a contested election and the only person to run unopposed for the United States senate in a general election. Last year his state paid him an honor, second only to reelection. When they dedicated the tenfoot, 1500 pound statue to his likeness. The statue standing alone in the Capitol Rotunda of charleston depicts him upholding the constitution in one hand and pointing to the other to the section hat provides congress the power of the purse. This senate giant from West Virginia has been an active participant in so much of the nations history from the cold war to civil rights, the Great Society of vietnam, watergate, i ran continue are a, and the collapse of the soviet union. His path might be different without the love and support of the coal miners daughter, his wife and partner of 61 years. Robert c. Byrd is truly a legend in his own time. Like his statue in the state capitol, he stands larger than life, not only for the accomplishments but also for his principles. Guided by his conscious and deep understanding of the constitution hes taken some lonely stands speaking candidly about controversial nominations and treaties and calling for senators to step down when their actions were detrimental to the senate. As you know, senator byrds highest compliment to another senator, a compliment he awards most sparingly is to refer to that colleague as a senators senator. In the 200year history of this body, no one has deserved that more than tonights speaker, the distinguished and legendary robert c. Byrd. [ applause ] thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you very much. I am deeply grateful for the overly charitable and generous words from our leader. Who initiated these this series of lectures. And i thank my leader on the democratic side. Also more than kind. Always overlooking my thoughts, words from my own leader, mr. Daschle. I thank you for introducing my wife. She has put three children through school our two daughters and myself. They honor me by coming here tonight. I deeply appreciate it. [ applause ] and i could Say Something good. About any one of them. Because i know that something good let me begin this evening with the look back ward in the well travelled road of history. History always turns our faces back ward. And this is as it should be so that we might be better informed and prepared to exercise wisdom in dealing with future events. To be ignorant of what happened before you were born, said cicero, is to remain always a child. So for a little while, as we meet together in this hallowed place, let us turn our faces backwards. Look around you, we meet tonight in the senate chamber, not the chamber in which we transact our business daily now but the Old Senate Chamber where our predecessors wrote the laws before the civil war. Henry clay ford, john c. Calhoun stood here in this foot of mississippi full of and Thomas Hart Benton of missouri. He ripped open his coat and senator met the assassin, fired. Here the eccentric virginia senator John Randolph brought his hunting dogs into the chamber and the dashing texas senator sam houston sat here and sat at the desk. And here seated at his desk in the back row, massachusetts senator Charles Thurman beaten violently over the head with a cane wielded by representative preston booths of South Carolina who objected to sumners strongly abolitionist speeches and sumner had heaped upon brooks uncle with the governor of South Carolina. Because our british cousin ss chose to set fire to the capitol in the war of 1812, congress was forced to move into the Patent Office building in Downtown Washington and late into a building known as the brick house located on the present site of the Supreme Court building. The incident was december of 1819 before the senators were able to return to the restored and elegant chamber, they met here for 40 years. And it was during that exhilarating period that the senate experience its golden age. Here in this rom the senate tried to deal with the emotional and destructive issue of slavery by passing the missouri compromise in 1820. That act drew a line across the United States. And asserted that the peculiar institution of slavery should remain to the south of the line and not squared to the north. The missouri compromise also set the precedence therefore every slave stayed admitted to the union, a free state should be admitted as well vice versa. What this meant in practical political terms that the north and the south would be exactly equal in voting strength in this chamber. And that any settlement of the explosive issue of slavery would have to originate here in the senate. As a result, the nations most talented and ambitious legislator began to leave the house of representatives to take seats here in the senates day. Here they thought the whole union was together. The compromise of 1850 only to overturn these efforts by passing the faithful kansasnebraska act of 1854. The senators moved out of this room in 1859, on the eve of the civil war. When they marched in procession from this chamber to the current chamber. It marked the last time that leaders of the north and the south would march together. The next year the south seceded and senators who had walked shoulder to shoulder here parted. To become military officers and political leaders of the union and of the confederacy. This old chamber that they left behind is not just a smaller version of the current chamber. Here the center aisle divides the two parties. But there are an equal number of deaths when you decide, count is 32 on one, 32 on the other. Not because the two parties were evenly divided so much, but because there was not room to move desks back and forth depending upon the size of the majority as we do today. And that meant that some members of the Majority Party had to sit with the members of the minority. And it didnt matter to them. The two desks in the front row on the center aisle were not reserved for the majority and minority leaders as they are now because there were no Party Leaders at that time. No senator spoke for his party. Every senator spoke for himself. There were recognized leaders among the senators, but only unofficially. Everyone knew, for example, that henry clay led the whigs, but he would never claim that honor. Clay generally sat in the last row. At the far end of the chamber so he could talk to senators. The senate left this chamber because it outgrew the states. First met here in 1810, there were 32 senators. So many states were added over the next four decades that when they left in 1859 there were 64 and the senate had increased in time, it was essentially the same institution that the founders had created in the constitution. Today another century and four decades later and having grown to 100 senators, is still essentially the same institution. The actors had changed. The issues had changedment but the senate which emerged from the great compromise in 1787 remain a great forum of the states. This is so largely because as a nation we were fortunate to have wise cautious people draft and implement our constitution. They were prague mattists. Pragmaticists rather than idealists. Seems madison particularly had a shrewd view of human nature. He did not believe in mans perfectibilities. He assumed that those who achieved power would always try to amass more power. In framing a government which is to be administered over men, the great difficulty lies in this you must first enable the government to control the government. And in the next place, control madison and other framers of the constitution divided power so that no one purchase, no Single Branch of government could gain complete power. As madison explained it, ambitions must be made to counteract ambition. However, ambition has not always counteracted ambition. As we saw in the enactment by the congress of the line item veto in 1996. Just as the roman senate seeded the power of the purse to the roman dictator, to caeser, and the later emperors, surrendering is power to check tyranny, so did the American Congress and senate included. By passing the line item veto act, the congress surrendered the control over the purse, control which had been vested by the founding fathers. Here in this legislation lative branch. This leaves me with the first point i would like to leave with you this evening. Its this. The legislative branch must be eternally envisioned over the powers and the authorities vested in it by t