Bob Franks: “Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, there was a time when the rules of Congress forbid anyone to petition this…”

“Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, there was a time when the rules of Congress forbid anyone to petition this Congress against slavery. For some inexplicable reason, once in a while, it seems mankind becomes completely blind to a monstrosity. History is replete with such examples. It seems we are never quite so eloquent as we are when we decry the crimes of the past generation, and yet we seem as staggeringly blind as some of our most sightless predecessors when it comes to facing and rejecting atrocities in our own time. Whether it was slavery, the Nazi Holocaust, or the many human genocides across history, the patterns were the same. Innocent human beings, children of God all, were systematically dehumanized and then subjected to the most horrifying inhumanity. All the while, human society as a whole hardened their hearts and turned away. But, Madam Speaker, truth and time travel on the same road. And although it was often agonizingly slow, the truth of these tragic inhumanities in our past began to dawn on people of reason and good will. Their hearts first and then their minds began to change. I've often asked myself: What was it that changed their minds? What changed the minds of those who had previously embraced an invincible ignorance to hide from themselves the horror of what was happening to their innocent fellow human beings?…”