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Robert Byrd Proposes Constitution Holiday in 2004

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A decade ago, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., pushed on the Senate floor for a holiday to celebrate the Constitution, “the document that establishes the duties and rights of citizenship,” according to the late senator. During a Sept. 20, 2004, speech on the Senate floor, Byrd detailed his proposal while speaking to the relationship between the president and Congress with respect to war powers. “The framers ensured that the people, through their elected representatives in Congress would control the military so that it could not become a tool of government repression against their own people or a way for presidents to lead the nation into foreign misadventures.”

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