[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Page 24377]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        HONORING SENATOR INOUYE

  Mr. CARPER. Madam President, Senator Inouye has been a good friend 
and mentor to this new Senator, as has a Senator I call ``Mr. 
Secretary,'' the former Secretary of the Navy, Senator Warner from 
Virginia, who also has been a good counselor and advisor to me. When 
these two Senators stood and entered the armed services six decades ago 
almost, they raised their arms and took an oath to defend our 
Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They 
participated in a war that brought us in the 20th century to become the 
great Nation we are today.
  Sixty years ago today, Pearl Harbor was bombed. Two hundred fourteen 
years ago today, the Constitution which they took an oath to defend was 
first ratified by any State in the United States of America. Two 
hundred fourteen years ago today, in a place called the Golden Fleece 
Tavern in Dover, DE, about 30 delegates who had been there for 3 days 
debating what steps to take decided that Delaware should be the first 
State to ratify our Constitution and provide the foundation which has 
enabled our Nation to survive World War I and World War II, the Korean 
war, the Vietnam war, the war against communism, to win the battle 
against the Great Depression.
  We are fighting another war on terrorism around the world and here in 
this country and other places. That Constitution, which provides us 
with our three branches of Government--the legislative branch, of which 
we are one-half, the executive branch, and the judicial branch--the 
most enduring of any constitution in the world, which provides the 
foundation for the longest living democracy in the history of the 
world, was first ratified today 214 years ago.
  Any country that can survive two world wars and a civil war and the 
Great Depression, vanquish the Communists, we can certainly handle the 
terrorists, and we can handle the issues that divide us here today. I 
am confident we will.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Delaware for his 
thoughtful remarks and for his service to the Nation in the U.S. Navy, 
when I happened to have been Secretary of the Navy. He is very 
respected for that period when I was the boss.

                          ____________________