Cord Byrd: “to contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experience. On this February day, as this Nation stands…”

“to contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experience. On this February day, as this Nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war. My wife says to me at night: Do you think we ought to get some of those large bottles, the large jugs, and fill them with water? She says: Go up to the attic and see if we don't have two or three there. I believe we have two or three there. And so I went up to the attic last evening and came back to report to her that, no, we didn't have any large jugs of water, but we had some small ones, perhaps some gallon jugs filled with water. And she talked about buying up a few things, groceries and canned goods to put away. I would suspect that kind of conversation is going on in many towns across this great, broad land of ours. And yet this Chamber is for the most part ominously, dreadfully silent. You can hear a pin drop. Listen. You can hear a pin drop. There is no debate. There is no discussion. There is no attempt to lay out for the Nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing. What would Gunning Bedford of Delaware think about it? What would John Dickinson of Delaware think about it? What would George Read think about it? What would they say? We stand passively mute in the Senate today, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events.”