Adam Byrd: “I would say, particularly in response to the Senator from Massachusetts, that Senators would be pleasantly surprised to…”

“I would say, particularly in response to the Senator from Massachusetts, that Senators would be pleasantly surprised to go back and read the debates of the Senate in the Register of Debates, in the Congressional Globe, in the Annals of Debates, in the National Intelligencer, and in the Congressional Record. Senators would be amazed at the knowledge that our forebears in this institution had, knowledge of the classics. The Framers and the early Senators in this Republic knew a great deal about Plutarch, Polybius, Cicero, ancient Greece and classical Rome, and the great literature of the world. Read it. It is refreshing. It should inspire all of us today to attempt to pick up where they had to leave off and to raise our sights a little when it comes to debate in this institution. Go back and read the classics. They were indelibly etched upon the fertile minds of our predecessors in this body--Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and Benton; and other great names. Even Senators whose names we would not recognize today, read their eulogies to departed Senators and reached out to the great classical writers, the great poets and the annals of history, and worked all these into their speeches. I am afraid we have about lost that art.”