Charles Skelton: “Mr. Speaker, I hail from Lafayette County, Missouri. Its county seat is Lexington, my home. A few miles westbound on…”

“Mr. Speaker, I hail from Lafayette County, Missouri. Its county seat is Lexington, my home. A few miles westbound on Highway 224 are the small towns of Napoleon, Wellington and Waterloo. These communities, which are nestled into the fertile farmland and rolling hills south of the Missouri River, are named after prominent figures or places in French history. They are a very long way from France. But their names and the namesake of my home county, Marquis de Lafayette, reflect a friendship that has existed between the United States and France since the early days of the American Revolution. No one person better symbolizes that friendship and the assistance American colonists received from Europe in our struggle for independence than the Marquis de Lafayette. He occupies a considerable place in the history of the United States, which is why I was pleased to author H. Res. 171, a resolution honoring the life of the Marquis de Lafayette on the occasion of his 250th birthday on September 6, 2007. Lafayette was a man of considerable military skill who sympathized with the American revolutionary fighters.”