[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 95 (Thursday, July 16, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8294-S8297]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT COMPROMISE

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, today marks the 211th anniversary of one of 
the more momentous, but little-understood, perhaps, events in our 
country's history. I will just take a few minutes to remind ourselves 
of that event and to consider just how the course of this Nation's 
history might have been forever altered if not for what transpired on 
July 16, 1787.
  It should be of special significance to Members of this body, because 
it was, fortunately for us, that those who attended the Philadelphia 
Convention were some of the ablest, brightest figures of the time; in 
fact, of any time. Ah, Mr. President, to have been a fly on the wall at 
that gathering! Truly, this was a gathering graced by an accumulation--
nay, an abundance--of wisdom, learning, grace, and dignity of a like 
not seen since the conclaves at Mt. Olympus! From Virginia alone, there 
were Washington, James Madison, George Mason, and Edmund Randolph; from 
Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry and Rufus King; from Pennsylvania, James 
Wilson, Gouverneur Morris and Benjamin Franklin; and from New York, 
Hamilton. Here was a constitutional dream team for the ages! And what a 
starting five! What foe could resist a lineup featuring Wilson's full-
court vision, Madison's patience and tactical prowess, Hamilton's 
aggressive offense, Franklin's experience, and George Washington's 
dominating presence in the center, as the one who presided over the 
gathering.

  These five were just the tip of the iceberg. Fifty-five men in all 
presented themselves at the Convention, representing every State, save 
one--Rhode Island. And with passion and gusto they soon set about 
devising a plan to guide the country past the shoals and rocks and 
storms that beset it and into a new sea of tranquility and prosperity.
  Nowadays, many of us overlook the tremendous physical and mental 
effort that were expended in drafting the Constitution. In reading this 
short document--here it is, I hold it in my hand--in reading this short 
document, with its precise and careful phrases, it is easy to forget 
the toil, the sweat, the frustration, the shouting, the argumentation, 
the thinking, speechifying, and the pleading that went into its 
creation during that hot Philadelphia summer. For progress was 
unavoidably slow, and the greatest sticking point--``the most 
threatening that was encountered in framing the Constitution,'' 
according to Madison--was the question of whether States should be

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represented in Congress equally or on the basis of population.
  This question was far from academic, of course. In order to create a 
Constitution acceptable to the States, the delegates needed to assuage 
the fears of the small States that they would be swallowed up in a more 
centralized union. The smaller States looked to Virginia, 
Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, with fear and with distrust. The small 
States feared that a Congress based on population would soon fall under 
the sway of the large States. New Jersey's delegates declared that it 
would not be ``safe''--the word is theirs, not mine--they would not be 
safe to allow Virginia 16 times as many votes as Delaware. They 
rejected the Virginia Plan, which was presented by Governor Edmund 
Randolph, with its legislature of two houses, and instead proposed a 
Congress with a single legislative chamber in which the States had an 
equal vote.
  The Continental Congress, of course, had been a single Chamber, a 
unilateral legislative branch. It was followed by the Congress, under 
the Articles of Confederation, again, one body. It was legislative, 
executive and, to some considerable part, judicial all in one. There 
was no Chief Executive in the form of an individual. It was the 
Congress under the Confederation.
  Days, and then weeks, of prolonged and acrimonious debate failed to 
resolve the issue. Some suggested redrawing State boundaries so that 
all the States would be of roughly equal size. The Convention 
considered, and then failed to agree upon, equal representation of 
States in the lower House of Congress. Several times, Connecticut 
advanced a proposal, initially made by Roger Sherman, calling for equal 
representation of States in the Senate. This, too, failed to win 
support. Madison--James Madison--labeled it unjust. Massachusetts' 
Rufus King angrily announced that he would not, could not, listen to 
any talk of equal representation in the Senate. James Wilson declaimed 
that the small States had nothing to fear from their larger brethren in 
the large States. To this, Delaware's Gunning Bedford retorted, ``I do 
not, gentlemen, trust you!'' and warned his colleagues that the small 
States might themselves confederate or even find ``some foreign ally of 
more honor and good faith who will take them by the hand and do them 
justice.'' Bedford was roundly rebuked for his words, but the threat of 
foreign alliances lingered in the stale and sticky summer air. There 
was no air-conditioning, much like it was in this Chamber up until 
1929, when air-conditioning first came to this Chamber.

  Efforts to resolve this question ``nearly terminated in a dissolution 
of the Convention''--it came that close; the effort to resolve this 
question--according to Luther Martin of Maryland, whose own 
impulsiveness and heated language did little to calm matters. 
Washington, that charismatic sphinx who presided over the Convention 
but kept his thoughts mostly to himself, confided to Hamilton in July 
that he ``almost despaired'' of success. And Sherman of Connecticut 
lamented that ``[i]t seems,'' he said, ``we have got to a point that we 
cannot move one way or another.''
  On Monday, July 16--Monday, July 16--some 2 months after the 
Convention began--the question was finally resolved. Perhaps it was 
fear of failure that led the delegates to settle, for they knew that 
the country's future was in their hands--their hands. Perhaps it was 
exhaustion, for they had already spent many long days and weeks in 
earnest debate. It may have been because of the heat that had tormented 
them for so long. Maybe that finally broke that day. Or perhaps the 
open exchange of opinions, that wrenching but vital process of 
questioning, debating, and argumentation--that process had successfully 
whittled away extraneous detail and opinion to arrive at an essential 
verity. Franklin had described the Convention as ``groping . . . in the 
dark to find political truth''; perhaps they had at last stumbled upon 
it. In any event, this day, 211 years ago, the delegates agreed that 
Congress would be composed of a Senate with equal representation for 
each State and a House based on proportional representation. This was 
the Great Compromise, as it was, and has ever since been, called.
  Perhaps, Mr. President, we would do best to avert our mind's eye from 
the horrors that might have befallen this country had the framers not 
struck the Great Compromise. Perhaps we would be better off simply to 
thank them, and to also thank Providence, for the miraculous document--
the miraculous document; there it is in my hand--the miraculous 
document that is our Federal Constitution. Perhaps . . . but one thing 
is clear; without the Great Compromise, the Senate as we know it would 
not exist.
  Without that compromise, without that Great Compromise, the 
Constitution might not even exist; the Senate, as we know it, you can 
be sure, would not exist. For this body was conceived that day, 211 
years ago today, in Philadelphia when the framers agreed to an upper 
House of Congress in which each State--each State--had an equal number 
of votes, each State had equal representation. This is the forum that 
was born on that day. This is the body--the unique; the body sui 
generis--that was born on that day, the Senate of the United 
States. But for the Great Compromise, the Senate--that beloved 
institution to which so many of us have dedicated our lives, our hopes, 
our reputations, our strength, our talents, our visions--might never 
have seen the light of day, let alone played an often pivotal and 
dramatic role in our national history over the course of more than two 
centuries.

  Mr. President, we would all do well to recall from time to time that 
the chamber in which we sit owes its existence to a remarkable instance 
of compromise and conciliation.
  Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, Senator Thad Cochran of 
Mississippi, Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia might never have 
met, might never have known one another, might never have had an 
opportunity to work together in the interests of our respective 
constituencies, in the interests of this great Republic.
  When next we in the Senate are unable to reach agreement--when we 
find ourselves plagued by seemingly insurmountable obstacles--when we 
become frustrated at the obduracy and narrow-mindedness of our 
opponents--perhaps then, we should remember that minds far more 
intelligent, visions far more far seeing, persons far more learned--Ah, 
that learned group of men, they knew about the classics. They knew 
about Rome and Athens, Persia, Polybius, Plutarch. They knew about 
Montesquieu. They knew about the colonial experience, the history of 
England, the history of the ancient Romans.

  They were able to find common ground on a matter of far greater 
import and controversy than much of what we discuss here today. And we 
should then think to ourselves that just maybe we, too, can find some 
compromise, some meeting of the minds such as our framers found on that 
day so long ago in Philadelphia.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, I rise to express my profound gratitude 
to my distinguished colleague from West Virginia, Senator Byrd, for 
always injecting a meaningful, penetrating history lesson such as we 
have just been subjected to. It had not occurred to me that it has been 
211 years since those magnificent days in Philadelphia brought us this 
sacred document we call the Constitution which has made us the longest 
living democracy on Earth, under a Constitution that is the longest 
living organic law under which any nation has ever lived.
  I have made speeches on the floor time and again about what I call 
the trivialization of the Constitution. When one considers since 
Congress first convened there have been over 11,500 efforts to amend 
this document, over 11,500 resolutions introduced in the House and the 
Senate to amend the work of Madison, Franklin, Hamilton and Adams, and 
all those great minds which, as the distinguished Senator knows, the 
great scholar Arthur Schlesinger called the greatest assemblage of 
political genius ever under one roof--I don't quarrel with that for an 
instant.
  As you have so eloquently pointed out, those men were schooled in the 
art and the nobility of government. They were historians and they were 
lawyers, but they were brilliant men. They knew there would be 
charlatans coming down the pike, trying to trivialize

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the Constitution. I remember some since I came to the Senate.
  I am very pleased to say that I will, at the end of this year, have 
been a Member of this body for 24 years. I voted for one constitutional 
amendment the first year I was in the Senate, and it was a mistake. I 
am often asked by some member of the press, ``Do you regret some of 
your votes?''
  Of course I do; I am not infallible. If I were doing it over again, I 
don't know which ones offhand, but if I went through my record, there 
would be votes I would change. And one amendment to the Constitution 
which I supported--which, in my opinion today, was dead wrong--I will 
tell you, was the Equal Rights Amendment. We didn't need a 
constitutional amendment to provide women with equal rights. We did 
that in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and it has been working just 
fine. We did not have to tinker with the Constitution to do it.
  I believe my staff has told me I have voted 38 times against 
constitutional amendments. I think I want that on my epitaph. And, 
while noble men may disagree on this, I do not intend before I leave 
the Senate to cast a vote to change the Bill of Rights. The Bill of 
Rights--I defer to my colleague--I think they were ratified in 1791. 
But when the framers left Philadelphia, it was understood that James 
Madison was going to compose these 10 amendments to the Constitution. 
These are today called our Bill of Rights. That is the first ten 
amendments to the Constitution, which provide us freedom of the press, 
freedom of religion--we have more freedom of religion than most of us 
are taking advantage of now--and freedom of speech.
  Sometimes when I read stories in the press, I think, surely there is 
some way we can change the freedom of the press clause in the 
Constitution to stop this sort of irresponsible reporting. But I am not 
going to do that, because I don't think you can do it without creating 
a lot more problems than you will solve.
  Senator Byrd, if I had my way, no youngster would graduate from 
college without a fundamental, profound understanding of the 
Constitution. And precious few of them are graduating with that 
knowledge today.
  Congress deserves a lot of credit. Oh, we take a lot of slings and 
arrows in this body about knuckling under the special interests, the 
voters, and the money, and all that sort of thing, but does it not 
speak well for the Congress that, out of 11,500-plus efforts to change 
the Constitution, we have only seen fit to do it 27 times? And that 
includes the first block of 10, called the Bill of Rights, in 1791. You 
take the 10 in the Bill of Rights out; that leaves 17 times we have 
actually amended the Constitution. And you remember, we decided we 
wouldn't drink, and later we decided we would drink; you take those 2 
out and there are only 15 times. That is pretty amazing, is it not?
  We are importing workers. You heard the debate here just recently 
about how we are going to allow 75,000 to 95,000 high-tech personnel 
from abroad, special visa status to come to this country to work. I 
didn't vote for that bill, incidentally. I still think it was a 
mistake. But one of the things that troubles me about that is why we 
are going all out in this country to train people to be computer 
experts or high-tech gurus. Yet this poor document, the Constitution--
which is next to the Holy Bible in sacredness to me--youngsters are 
graduating from college, and they don't know who James Madison is --the 
father of the Constitution.
  Now, I don't want to denigrate any of my colleagues, but I have to 
look very carefully at somebody today who thinks he can improve on the 
words of James Madison. I can assure my colleagues and my constituents 
back home that I will leave here this fall still only having voted for 
only one constitutional amendment in my 24 years here.
  So, Mr. President, I might just quit on this one note. If I were 
going to confess to this body the one thing about the Constitution that 
disturbs me more than anything else--it was a good idea in its time, 
but I am troubled about it now--that is the fifth amendment requirement 
of grand juries. The States have long since pretty much eliminated 
grand juries. But the grand jury system was guaranteed for serious 
offenses in the Fifth Amendment because they wanted a jury of your 
peers to make the decision to indict, not the King.
  As a matter of fact, the authors of the Constitution intended to make 
sure that we had no more kings, and they succeeded very admirably. We 
have had 42 Presidents, I guess, and no kings, since 1787. But I will 
say this. Their idea was that you could trust the people with your 
deciding fate and your innocence or guilt a lot more than you could the 
Crown or anybody representing the Crown.
  And, so, the grand jury system had the noblest of intentions. But I 
would be remiss if I didn't relieve myself of this thought for the 
benefit of whoever wants to listen. I can tell you, what is going on 
with the grand jury system in this country right now is dangerous--
dangerous in the extreme. I am not suggesting we change the 
Constitution to do away with grand juries, but I am saying that the 
grand jury system needs some control and it needs reforming. I have 
introduced legislation which will do that.
  Well, Mr. President, this conversation has been the highlight of my 
day. I hadn't thought lately about that hot July in 1787 in 
Philadelphia. It was so hot and George Washington was so intent on 
everything being secret, they closed the windows and they almost 
suffocated just to make sure that nothing of the deliberations was 
heard on the street. But what a lucky people we are to have the honor 
and the privilege of living in this great country of ours because of 
those men. Some of them fought in the Revolution, sacrificed their 
families to fight in the Revolution. And they went there and provided 
us with this magnificent document.

  I thank the Senator again for raising our awareness level on that 
point.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, we might pause tomorrow, July 17, to 
remember that it was on July 17, 1789, 2 years later, that the Senate 
of the United States passed the Judiciary Act. The Senate was not 
expected to originate legislation. That didn't mean it could not, but 
it was anticipated that the House would originate about all the 
legislation and the Senate would tamper with it, improve it, refine it, 
and so on.
  But in the U.S. Senate, on July 17, 1789, history will always mark 
the passage of the Judiciary Act, which created the judicial system. 
Oliver Ellsworth was a key player in that matter. He later became Chief 
Justice of the United States. But he was never as a justice what he was 
as a legislator. Oliver Ellsworth. It all causes one to marvel at how 
that first Senate came to grips with these problems and legislated for 
the first time on so many of these things. And it was in that first 
Congress that the two Houses learned to work together and have 
conferences on bills, where they resolved the differences between the 
two Houses.
  Our forebears were remarkable men. That was a remarkable time in 
history. I will never fail to believe that Providence had its hand in 
the destiny of this country when those marvelous things happened in 
Philadelphia. When one pauses to think about it, the real miracle--and 
there were many miracles that happened there--was when men of different 
minds and different experiences, different temperaments, viewpoints, 
and attitudes, were able to mold their opinions and give and take, 
compromise, and come to a conclusion. That was a miracle in many ways.

  It seems to me that the greatest miracle of all was the convergence 
of circumstances and people that took place with the Convention. 
Perhaps 5 years earlier it would not have happened, because the country 
had not yet fully experienced all of the weaknesses and shortcomings of 
the Articles of Confederation. A consensus had not yet formed as to the 
necessity for a new Constitution. Its experiences under the Articles 
taught it many things to avoid in this new Constitution. And it was 
fortunate that the Convention was not delayed until 5 years later, as 
we consider the events that occurred in France with the French 
Revolution and all of the horrors that took place there with the 
execution of King Louis XVI.
  The fruit ripened just at the right time. That, to me, showed the 
hand of Providence, and that was somewhat of a miracle in itself.
  I thank the Senator and I yield the floor.

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  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I join my friend from Arkansas in 
thanking the distinguished Senator from West Virginia for his comments 
today. It is always a pleasure to hear him recount the history of our 
country. In doing so, I can't help but remember the time and effort and 
diligence he put to the task of writing the ``History of the U.S. 
Senate,'' which we have in our offices and others have had an 
opportunity to enjoy and appreciate over the last several years. It is 
one of the remarkable acts of scholarship that has been turned in by a 
U.S. Senator and probably ranks No. 1 in the list of books written by 
active Members of the U.S. Senate, for all of which I think we owe a 
deep expression, and sincere expression, of gratitude to the Senator 
from West Virginia.

  Mr. BUMPERS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, there is just one final little anecdote 
that I would like to share with the Senate.
  When my former colleague, Senator Pryor, left the Senate last year, 
he went home to the University of Arkansas to teach. He is sort of a 
roving professor. He taught one day at the school of business, and the 
next day the school of agriculture, and so on. He was at the law school 
one day. He said that some smart law student got up and said, ``Why 
don't you deliver a lecture someday on the comparison of our democracy 
and the Athenian democracy?'' Senator Pryor said he didn't know what to 
do. So he went back to his office and he called the Senate historian 
and he told him what he was up against. The historian said, ``You are 
lucky. Senator Byrd has just delivered about 15 speeches on Athenian 
democracy.'' He sent those to him, and he said everybody in the 
university thinks he is an Athenian scholar.

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