Robert Torricelli: “I thank Senator Jeffords for giving me the opportunity to join with him in this amendment and offer not only my support…”

“I thank Senator Jeffords for giving me the opportunity to join with him in this amendment and offer not only my support by my appeal to our colleagues to not only support us in this effort tonight but in future years to keep the commitment to respond to the threat to battlefield sites and other aspects of American history, to give our true measure to protecting the history of this country. In his Pulitzer prizewinning book, ``Battle Cry of Freedom,'' James McPherson once wrote of the Civil War that: Most of the things that we consider important in this era of American history--the fate of slavery, the structure of both the North and South, the direction of the American economy . . . the definition of freedom, the very survival of the United States--rested on the shoulders of those weary men in blue and grey * * *. Most of those men, Mr. President, were simple volunteers, laborers, farmers. They were paid little and endured horrific conditions. Throughout the duration of the war, 620,000 Americans, black and white, North and South, soldiers and sailors, paid an extraordinary price to preserve this Nation or to define it as they would have had its future. Mr. President, I rise today with Senator Jeffords in memory of those brave men because the lands where they fought, the places where they sacrificed, face a new threat. The battlefields of America, which define this country, where they gave their lives, may be lost to history.”