Cord Byrd: “we might pause tomorrow, July 17, to remember that it was on July 17, 1789, 2 years later, that the Senate of the United…”

“we might pause tomorrow, July 17, to remember that it was on July 17, 1789, 2 years later, that the Senate of the United States passed the Judiciary Act. The Senate was not expected to originate legislation. That didn't mean it could not, but it was anticipated that the House would originate about all the legislation and the Senate would tamper with it, improve it, refine it, and so on. But in the U.S. Senate, on July 17, 1789, history will always mark the passage of the Judiciary Act, which created the judicial system. Oliver Ellsworth was a key player in that matter. He later became Chief Justice of the United States. But he was never as a justice what he was as a legislator. Oliver Ellsworth. It all causes one to marvel at how that first Senate came to grips with these problems and legislated for the first time on so many of these things. And it was in that first Congress that the two Houses learned to work together and have conferences on bills, where they resolved the differences between the two Houses. Our forebears were remarkable men. That was a remarkable time in history. I will never fail to believe that Providence had its hand in the destiny of this country when those marvelous things happened in Philadelphia.…”