Senators paid tribute Wednesday to Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the longest-serving member of Congress in American history with nearly 57 years in the House and Senate. In addition to Senate speeches, a ceremony for Byrd will take place at the West Virginia State Capitol Wednesday afternoon, which Byrd will attend.

Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, kicked off the morning of speeches.

"There will never be another senator like Senator Byrd, and today's milestone is another record that will never be broken," Reid said. Reid then listed a few of the records that Byrd has set in office, including having cast the most votes -- more than 18,500; of being elected to the most full terms in Senate history, with nine; of being the longest-serving member on any Senate committee; and of holding the most leadership positions, including Reid's current job of Senate majority leader.

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Reid closed by calling Byrd, "an orphan who made history." Byrd's mother died when he was 1, and his father sent him to West Virginia's coal country to live with an aunt and uncle, who adopted him.

The Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell, said, "In a long life, he has known his share of hardships and triumphs. But he has run the race as if to win." McConnell noted that although Byrd did not attend college, he did get a law degree in 1963 by attending night school while he was in the Senate. Byrd then arranged for President John Kennedy to give him his diploma at the American University commencement ceremony.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Byrd's fellow Democrat from West Virginia, spoke of Byrd's "iron will and sense of purpose," as well as Byrd's wife of nearly 69 years, Erma Ora, who died in 2006. "She gave him great strength and great faith," Rockefeller said. "It is a little sad to me and to all of us who know him the cost to him of her death."

Sen. Mark Warner, a junior member of the Senate, called Byrd a tireless advocate for the state of West Virginia. "I have to say, I sometimes watched with awe Sen. Byrd's ability to bring home jobs to West Virginia," Warner said with a smile. "He was able to relocate federal buildings and jobs that may have previously been in Virginia."

Robert Byrd began his Senate career in 1959 on the same day Alaska became the 49th state in the union, after three full terms in the House of Representatives. Through assiduous work, including private study sessions with the Senate parliamentarian, Byrd eventually became an expert on Congress. The "Almanac of American Politics" said Byrd "may come closer to the kind of senator the Founding Fathers had in mind than any other."

Although he did not attend college, as McConnell noted, Byrd is a student of history, Roman history in particular. On Friday afternoons after other senators had left Washington, Byrd could often be found in years past on the Senate floor, lecturing about the Roman Senate or the need for civility in politics. Newly elected senators often visit Byrd's office first as a part of their initiation into the body.

Byrd's power to steer money to West Virginia comes from his strategic decision to join the Senate's Appropriations Committee on his first day in the Senate. He has remained on the committee ever since, including nearly 30 years as the top Democrat on the panel, and has consequently pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into his home state.

His career has spanned 12 presidencies, numerous wars, countless political movements, and the nearly the full arc of the civil rights movement. Once a staunch segregationist, Byrd endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008 and praised him as a "good Christian." In 2009, he returned to the Senate chamber after a lengthy illness to vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic member of the Supreme Court.

Of all of the debates he saw, including the Senate's debate of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, Byrd told C-SPAN in 2005 that the debate over the invasion of Iraq stood out in his memory. "That debate, such at it was, is etched in my memory forever until kingdom come, because it was there that the Senate gave away its heart and soul."

While in the Senate, he has also authored five books and recorded his own album, "Mountain Fiddler." In October 2008, the Grand Ole Opry gave him its Distinguished Fiddler Award. He also published "Letter to a New President," counseling the new commander in chief, "Only dictators and kings can get away with never admitting their mistakes."

Finishing the tributes to Byrd was the newest member of the body, Sen. Paul Kirk (D-Mass.). Kirk wears a watch that Byrd gave him when Kirk was a staffer to Ted Kennedy, one of Byrd's oldest rivals and closest friends, who used to say of Byrd, "His oratorical skills would make even Cicero envious."

Byrd will turn 92 on Friday. He has been hospitalized several times this year and now uses a wheelchair to maneuver the halls of the Senate. He can frequently be spotted just behind Harry Reid on the Senate floor, his head hooked with age, his hand unsteady over the pages he is reading.

He released a statement on the day's events, thanking the people of West Virginia and promising to serve 56 more years. "My only regret is that my beloved wife, companion and confidant, my dear Erma, is not here with me to witness this wonderful day," he wrote. "I know that she is looking down from the heavens smiling at me and saying, 'Congratulations, my dear Robert -- but don't let it go to your head.'"


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