Cord Byrd: “And, since I have 5 remaining minutes, let me say again that what I am doing here is attempting to show that the U.S.…”

“And, since I have 5 remaining minutes, let me say again that what I am doing here is attempting to show that the U.S. Constitution is the result of the struggles of men in centuries before our own, this last year of the 20th century. Forget what the media says, forget what politicians say, this is not the first year of the 21st century, nor is it the first year of the third millennium. Anybody who can count, whether they use the old math or the new math, knows better than that. This is the last year of the 20th century. But I want to show that these liberties, which were assured to us by our Federal Constitution, did not just spring up overnight like the prophet's gourd at Philadelphia. They had their roots going back decades, centuries--1,000 years or more, and that those roots and those documents--the Articles of Confederation, the State constitutions, the colonial documents, the covenants--the Mayflower Compact and all of these things--were known by the framers and they were guided in their writing of the Federal Constitution by the experience that had been gained by living under the articles, by living in the colonies, and by the lessons taught by the British experience which had come at the point of a sword and through the shedding of blood through many centuries before. This is not just something that sprang up there between May 25 and September 17, a total of 116 days in 1787.…”