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Robert C. Byrd was born Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr., in North Carolina in 1917. Adopted and raised by his aunt and uncle, Byrd grew up in the coalfields of West Virginia, where his father worked as a teamster, farmer, and coal miner. The Byrd family was poor, and Robert Byrd frequently did his homework by the light of oil lamps because their home had no electricity. After Byrd graduated from high school in 1934, he worked as a gas station attendant and a produce boy. After taking welding classes, he helped build cargo ships during World War II.

In 1946 Byrd ran for the West Virginia House of Delegates and won. While he was in the House of Delegates, he studied at Morris Harvey College (now the University of Charleston), at Concord College, and at Marshall College (now a university) but did not graduate. In 1950 he ran for a seat in the West Virginia Senate and won. Then, halfway through his Senate term, he ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and was elected in 1952. In 1953 Byrd began attending law school at American University in Washington, D.C., and finally earned his law degree in 1963. In the meantime, in 1958, he won the first of nine consecutive terms in the U.S. Senate.

Early in his political career, Byrd was known as a staunch conservative. Before he entered politics in 1946, he had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in West Virginia. Calling his membership in the organization a mistake, Byrd later claimed his youth and ambition led him to view the KKK as an outlet for his talents and political ambitions. Byrd stated that he had joined the group because it was strongly opposed to Communism and because its membership, made of local elites such as clergy, lawyers, doctors, and judges, supported traditional American values. He also stated that his membership was a reflection of the southern view of race and the fears and prejudices that existed at that time, though he also claimed that at no time did the Klan group to which he belonged preach hatred against blacks, Jews, and other such groups. Byrd maintained that he left the KKK in 1943, although his critics pointed to letters written in 1945 and 1946 that revealed Byrd's continued interest in the organization.

Throughout Byrd's congressional career, his former membership in the KKK led to sharp criticism when he voted on racial issues. Byrd fought against school desegregation in 1954 and held a fourteen-hour filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment. During these years he referred to the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., in highly disparaging terms. In 1967 he voted against the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall as the first black Supreme Court justice in U.S. history. Twenty-four years later he voted against the confirmation of the second black Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas.

Byrd remained a traditionalist. He always carried a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his pocket and often waved it on the Senate floor while he spoke. His strong defense of constitutional law resulted in his adamant opposition to proposed changes to the Constitution, such as line-item veto or balanced-budget amendments. Byrd opposed affirmative action, changes to the Social Security program, acceptance of gays into the military forces, and gay marriage.

Yet he voted against the proposed federal marriage amendment (2006) that banned gay marriages, saying that it was unnecessary because states had the power to bar gay marriages. Despite his desire to protect the American flag, he also opposed the flag desecration amendment (2006), claiming that an amendment to the Constitution was not the way to protect the flag. Still, during his fifty years in the Senate, he became increasingly liberal, focusing on government spending for social programs that improved education and health care and voting for civil rights.

Byrd was a former defense hawk who voted in favor of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August 1964. This resolution broadened presidential power to wage war without a formal declaration. Byrd, however, became the Senate's most outspoken critic of the 2003 Iraqi war. He believed that giving the president such broad authority to engage in war gave away power that belonged to the legislative branch of government. He insisted that Congress alone had the right to declare war under the U.S. Constitution and that presidential usurpation of that power, particularly under the administration of George W. Bush, disrupted the Constitution's system of checks and balances among the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government.

Byrd's congressional career spanned numerous presidential administrations. On June 21, 2007, he became the first senator ever to cast eighteen thousand roll call votes in American history, and in November 2006 he was elected to an unprecedented ninth consecutive term in the U.S. Senate. Over the years, he served as majority leader, majority whip, minority leader, and president pro tempore of the Senate as well as on such key committees as the Senate Appropriations Committee, which he chaired.

References:

1. Gould, Lewis. The Most Exclusive Club: A History of the Modern United States Senate. New York: Basic Books, 2006.

2. Harris, Fred R. Deadlock or Decision: The U.S. Senate and the Rise of National Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

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