Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, my ancestral forefather traveled to this country 200 years ago or so. He was born a poor Irishman with no path toward prosperity that did not lead through oppressive government, indentured servitude. He arrived in the port of New Orleans after scrapping together enough money to book passage on a sailing vessel that had been converted from carrying cargo to carrying human beings. He survived the journey, although many poor Irishmen did not. He came to this land seeking freedom. He found it. He prospered. And through the generations the Higgins family established itself as a solid, working-class American family. Construction workers, firemen, police officers, soldiers, and sailors. After my father passed, my mother and her sister, my Aunt Gloria, took it upon themselves to research the family tree. They discovered some of the truths that I am sharing with you tonight. This was way before the Internet and computers and iPhones. They worked in the actual archives. One of the things they discovered was a letter written by my ancestral forefather describing the conditions on a vessel he traveled to America upon. His sleeping berth measured 2 by 2 by 5. 2 by 2 by 5. I think about that as I serve within this body. I recognize the pain that our ancestral forefathers and foremothers endured to carve this country of greatness from the wilderness. There has never been a moment when American patriots claimed that our Nation was perfect.…”