Issue Position: Liberty/Constitution

Issue Position

Thank you for the opportunity to visit with you and share some thoughts on Lincoln's contribution to our enduring Constitution on this Constitution Day.

It seems that in the last few years, America's thoughts are returning to that remarkable man and searching him for answers to the questions that now perplex us in our own times. People are beginning to sense that perhaps we have more in common with his generation than might be apparent (and so we have), making his words and wisdom as valuable today as they were more than a century and a half ago.

One of the most common questions I'm asked as a member of Congress is, "Why must things be so partisan in Washington? Why can't you guys just compromise, be reasonable and behave like grown-ups?"

If you think things are partisan today, one day in 1856, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina walked across the Capitol into the Senate Chamber, approached Senator Charles Sumner of Maine, raised his walking stick and smashed it over Sumner's head, almost killing Sumner and shattering the walking stick to pieces. Brooks' constituents responded to this act of barbarity by sending him more walking sticks!

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