Cord Byrd: “last week I was proud to celebrate West Virginia Day, marking the 134th anniversary of the birth of my great State. Born…”

“last week I was proud to celebrate West Virginia Day, marking the 134th anniversary of the birth of my great State. Born in the midst of a terrible war, the mountain State still bears witness to that difficult four years of struggle, from Harper's Ferry to battle sites across her hills and farmlands. But she also still stands fast, and holds onto the traces of earlier history in her sturdy log barns and cabins and the winding rows of moss-covered stones bounding fields and cemeteries. Crumbling now, these long stone walls are losing their battles to the honeysuckle vines and the frosty upheavals of the centuries, but they remind us still of our forebears who settled this rugged and beautiful country and who bequeathed to us a legacy both tangible and intangible. For just as these early settlers left us these stacked stones, they also left us an even greater gift, a gift no one else on Earth has ever truly shared--our American freedom and the remarkable form of government that keeps Americans free. Next Friday, on the Fourth of July, we in the United States will celebrate the declaration of our freedom and the announcement of our intent to form a new government, not bound by happenstance of birth or caste, but one that gives each man an equal opportunity to rise above the circumstances of his own beginning and to make of his life whatever his ability and ambition would allow.”