Robert C. Byrd

We should refuse to further subsidize those who would take our money and turn their backs upon us when the chips are down, as they are down now in Vietnam.

Mr. President, are we going to allow our colleges and universities to be destroyed from within? Is every irresponsible student who thinks he has some grievance going to be allowed to defy authority with impunity?

I have no objection to those individuals who wish to rent or lease or sell to a person of a different color or of a different religion or of a different race. I only maintain that they have a right to sell and use and rent their property…

The people of this country are going to ask their representatives for an accounting. I for one am not going to be charged with having whittled away their rights-their property rights.

Mr. President, if we erode and take away the right to use, to manage, or to dispose of property, to that degree we take away a man's property.

No one can give any citizen status, or equality, or education, or success. It is a fact of life that each individual, whatever his race, has to earn those things. They cannot be conferred upon any child or adult, black or white.

Public statements by public officials, if intemperate, may very well reduce the options of the President and make his already onerous burden an even greater one.

Over and above the economic desirability of giving men and women the opportunity to be self-supporting is the overriding moral responsibility to give them a chance to achieve human dignity.

The Congress may not see eye to eye with the President in every particular, but it will be a responsible Congress, aware of its high duties. A responsible Congress will work with a responsible and capable President to give the people…

We in the Congress do have a responsibility. We are accountable for the final budget decision through the time-tested appropriations process. There is no way by which, with good conscience, we can ignore that responsibility.

We should try to break the cycle of poverty, not freeze poverty into job categories.

Something will have to be done with regard to the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court of the United States, and I consider it my duty as a Senator and the duty of all of us to be more careful in the future than ever in the past in…

The social security system has been a godsend for millions of older Americans, and it provides faith in the future for all of us as we grow older.

I am sure that I speak the thoughts of many of my fellow West Virginians, and millions of my fellow Americans, both white and Negro, when I say that we cannot stand idly by and tolerate the shameful rape of democracy in our Republic. Those…

In any event, we should take heed-we should stop to review the manner in which we may become quickly and easily committed in the internal difficulties of foreign nations.

I am opposed to our intervention where our country's security interests are not endangered in any way. We have no business in the Congo, and I protest the action our Government has taken.

As a sovereign power, Israel has a right to unrestricted access to international waterways for her shipping. She is a sovereign state with all the perquisites of any other sovereign state, and this time she must be guaranteed the integrity…

Once and for all, the questions of international waters must be resolved. Statements which simply delay a solution will only provide the seeds for a future conflict which could engulf the great powers in world war III.

We want peace. This is the cry not only of the people of the United States and of South Vietnam-but also of mankind.

The doves accurately convey the distaste all Americans feel about the necessity for war, but they do not represent the overwhelming majority's determination to keep our pledge to the people of South Vietnam until an honorable settlement…

I say to those who are impatient about Vietnam-a heedless policy, borne of frustration and anger, that ignores the dangers of full-scale escalation, will succeed only in spreading the conflict, not in ending it.

I urge those who are calling for unlimited escalation in this war to remember the most basic fact involved in this conflict: The United States is not in Vietnam to invade the north, but to secure the freedom and independence of the south.

When our forefathers thought of establishing justice, I am sure they meant justice for all and not a tenuous justice for the habitual transgressor. In the early days of our country, those who did not abide by the law were punished and…

More and more, because of unrealistic Supreme Court decisions, America is becoming not the land of the free, but the land of the freed criminal.

I believe there should be less talk, openly at least, regarding negotiations. We should stand united behind the President, and we should let the world know that we intend to keep our commitment.