Robert C. Byrd: “We Stand Passively Mute” Speech (2003)

Senator Robert Byrd’s speeches before the Senate exhibited the oratorical skills of nineteenth-century statesmen, complete with flowery rhetoric and grand gestures. He recited poems; quoted historical figures, particularly the Roman statesman and orator Cicero; and frequently used parables from history and classical fairy tales to make his point. His “We Stand Passively Mute” Speech, given in February 2003, was one of twenty-seven speeches he delivered to the U.S. Senate between October 2002 and April 2004 on the topic of the war in Iraq. In 2002, after the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City and the attack on the Pentagon by Islamic extremists on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush began to push for an invasion of Iraq. Seemingly the lone voice of opposition to this preemptive military action, Byrd rails against his colleagues for going along with what he saw as an illegal war with Iraq and for remaining “ominously, dreadfully silent.”...