The Wit and Wisdom of Ted Kennedy (3 page)

—Speech, January 26, 1976

When missiles were discovered in Cuba—missiles more threatening to us than anything Saddam [Hussein] has today'some in the highest councils of government urged an immediate and unilateral strike. Instead the United States took its case to the United Nations, won the endorsement of the Organization of American States, and brought along even our most skeptical allies. We imposed a blockade, demanded inspection, and insisted on the removal of the missiles.

When an earlier President outlined that choice to the American people and the world, he spoke of it in realistic terms—not with a sense that the first step would necessarily be the final step, but with a resolve that it must be tried.

As he said then, “Action is required … and these actions [now] may only be the beginning. We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of … war—but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.”

In 2002, we too can and must be both resolute and measured. In that way, the United States prevailed without war in the greatest confrontation of the Cold War. Now, on Iraq, let us build international support, try the United Nations, and pursue disarmament before we turn to armed conflict.

—Remarks about the prospect of a
U.S. invasion of Iraq,
September 27, 2002

We face no more serious decision in our democracy than whether or not to go to war.

—Comment on the Bush Doctrine
of Pre-emptive War,
October 7, 2002

Just as the 20th Century was the century of the physical sciences, the 21st Century will be the century of the life sciences. In the last century, we developed the automobile, the computer, and the rocket ship. We unlocked the secrets of the smallest atomic particles and peered into the vastness of space.

This new century is still young, but it has already witnessed astonishing breakthroughs in medical research. Scientists have mapped the human genome—a task that once seemed inconceivable. Cracking the code of life will have profound implications for the treatment and prevention of disease. Treatments can be prescribed based on an individual's genetic signature to prevent side effects. Diseases can be diagnosed and treated before symptoms appear.

—Speech at the Kennedy Library,
April 28, 2002

Our struggle is not with some monarch named George who inherited the crown—although it often seems that way.

—Comment about President George W. Bush

Every society is a mixture of stability and change, an irrevocable history and an uncertain future. We are both what we have been and what we desire to be. We are creatures of memory and hope, struggling with uncertainty as we try to fulfill the promises we know we must keep. Thus our society is in constant flux—different today from what it was yesterday—a continuation of the past, part of an organic process with roots deep in the history of our nations and of our common ancestors. Societies are like rivers, flowing from fixed and ancient sources through channels cut over the centuries—yet no man can ever step in the same water in which he stood only a moment ago.

—Address at the Bicentennial of Trinity College,
Dublin, Ireland,
March 3, 1970

It is not by accident that America over the years has been able to combine the wisdom of Athens and the might of Sparta. We have been a nation thrice blessed: blessed once with abundant natural resources; blessed a second time with a resourceful and stubborn citizenry; blessed a third time with a system of self-government that has reconciled, perhaps more perfectly than any other nation in history, the aspirations of individual freedom with the requirements of social order.

—Speech, April 30, 1979

One by one, issue by issue, program by program, the Republican Right has methodically turned away from policies which brought about a century of progress for working Americans. They want to build the 21st century economy on 19th century economic values, as if the last 100 years had not occurred. For them, the law of the jungle is the best economic policy for America—not equal opportunity, not fairness, not the American dream. Their policies will inevitably result in a lesser America, and have already meant a growing gulf between rich and poor.

—Speech, “Creating a Genuine
‘Opportunity Society,'” March 1, 2004

More than any of our Presidents, John Adams secured the institutions of the freedoms and the democracy that we have enjoyed for many generations of Americans. John Adams helped bind an emerging young nation by appointing George Washington, a southerner, to lead the largely northern Continental Army—one of the first acts of national unity. … John Adams laid the basis for our independent judiciary by appointing John Marshall to the Supreme Court. From his influence on the Constitution, his belief in the importance of a bicameral legislature, his insistence on a separation of powers and an independent judiciary—to his service as the nation's first Vice-President and second President—Adams' marks on our political institutions and judicial system are unique in our nation's history.

—Statement Proposing a National Memorial
in Honor of President John Adams,
April 5, 2001

The fall of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of this century is widely attributed to the excesses of a top-heavy civil service and a system of administrative regulation imposed by a bureaucracy run wild. The traditional American reaction to a problem or abuse has been to say, “There ought to be a law.” But now, as we survey the complex legal framework of the nation, we should also be prepared to say of many areas, “There ought
not
to be a law.”

—Speech, June 14, 1979

It is time for all governments, political leaders and peoples everywhere to recognize the Armenian Genocide. These annual commemorations are an effective way to pay tribute to the courage and suffering and triumph of the Armenian people, and to ensure that such atrocities will never happen again to any people on earth.

—Statement on the 86th Anniversary
of the Armenian Genocide,
April 4, 2001

Even without the bonds of blood and history, the deepening tragedy of Ulster today would demand that voices of concerned Americans everywhere be raised against the killing and the violence in Northern Ireland, just as we seek an end to brutality and repression everywhere. … Ulster is becoming Britain's Vietnam.

—Senate address, October 20, 1971

Perhaps never before in the history of the world has there been an emblem so full of the great aspirations of all men everywhere as the flag of the United States. … The flag our forebears received at their citizenship ceremony initiated them into the life of love and freedom, and they went forth to build a new nation. Our common aspirations today are as boundless as the mind of man. … They exceed even the deepest divisions of our time, because they reflect the timeless quest of men to be free, to live in a society that is open, where the principles of freedom and justice and equality prevail.

—Fourth of July Address, Wakefield, MA, 1970

Rarely if ever in our history have private-interest groups been better organized, better financed, or more resistant to the force of change. It was Lord Bryce who commented in the Nineteenth Century that American government was all engine and no brakes. Today it could be said … that our government is all brakes and no engine.

—Speech, September 22, 1978

What we do in the outside world must be based on a deep moral sense of our purpose as a nation. Without that sense of our enduring heritage—the values on which this nation was founded, the basic compassion and human concerns of our people—there is little we can do both for ourselves and for others. American involvement in the outside world must reflect what is best in our heritage and what is best in ourselves.

—Speech, June 14, 1976

ON THE CONSTITUTION AND
EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW

I
F
T
ED
K
ENNEDY HAD NOT BEEN A SENATOR, WHAT A
great Supreme Court justice he might have made!

Looking over his lifetime of work, we find a dazzling array of writings on law and justice, many worthy of a legal scholar, but never as dusty and dry as the work so often found in academic journals.

He combined the scholar's breadth of knowledge with the advocate's passion, standing up for causes and principles in the style of a committed courtroom defender speaking for an embattled innocent. We saw this quality in him in the way he questioned nominees for attorney general who struck him as insufficiently committed to the preservation of our essential liberties. He took with utmost seriousness his charge as a senator to deliver to the president his best advice when it came to selection of justices for the highest court in the land; he would not consent to the appointment of anyone whose interpretation of the Constitution he found rigid and literalistic, unappreciative of the spirit of the founders' vision.

At the same time he courageously opposed movements, however popular they may have been, to tinker with the Constitution unnecessarily: He believed that the American flag stood for free speech and that an amendment to restrict that speech honors neither the flag nor the Constitution. Nor would he sit silent as opponents of gay rights proposed to write their hostility to gay relationships into the Constitution in the form of a “traditional marriage” amendment.

Each time the rights of a segment of our society have come under fire, Senator Kennedy was right there, returning fire—defending civil rights for racial minorities, civil liberties for victims of profiling, equality for women, fair treatment of immigrants—and kept at it, right till the end. John F. Kennedy once observed that “life is unfair,” and that is certainly indisputable. But it is also true that life in America today is now to some degree a little less unfair due to his brother Teddy's lifetime of work for “justice for all.”

Words [in the Constitution] are fine, but it has to be what a generation reads into those words.

—Speech to students
at Boston Latin Public High School,
April 29, 2002

Equal justice under law is not just a phrase carved in marble. It is the essence of the law, and the continuing challenge for our times is to see that it is a reality in our lives.

—Speech at the Judicial Conference
of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit,
Washington, DC, September 13, 1993

The Constitution does not just protect those whose views we share; it also protects those with whose views we disagree.

—Letter to a constituent, 1997

Today, many of us are concerned about the preservation of basic liberties protected by the Constitution. Clearly, as we work together to bring terrorists to justice and enhance our security, we must also act to preserve and protect our Constitution. The ideals we stand for here at home and around the world are indispensable to our strength. We betray those ideals and we betray the Constitution when we support detention of U.S. citizens without legal counsel or fair judicial review, and mass registration and fingerprinting of Muslim and Arab visa holders.

—Comments at the Senate Judiciary Hearing on
“The War Against Terrorism,” March 4, 2003

The First Amendment is one of the great pillars of our freedom. As we wage the war on terrorism to protect the nation for the future, it is also our responsibility to protect the ideals that America stands for here at home and around the world. This is not the time to restrict fundamental constitutional rights. …

Freedom of the press is essential to the public's access to information. A free press is an important part of checks and balances on government and an important remedy for excess secrecy in government, and journalists have an indispensable role in fulfilling the public's right to know.

I remember a speech by Justice Bill Douglas when I was in law school. A student asked him what the most important export of the United States is. He said, without hesitation, “The First Amendment.” The reason why is obvious. It gives life to the very concept of our democracy. It protects the freedoms of all Americans, including the right to criticize their government.

—Statement of support
for the Reporter Shield Bill,
July 20, 2005

If we set the precedent of limiting the First Amendment, in order to protect the sensibilities of those who are offended by flag burning, what will we say the next time someone is offended by some other minority view, or by some other person's exercise of the freedom the Constitution is supposed to protect?

—Letter to a constituent, 1997

As a nation we have no hereditary institutions, and a minimum of ceremonial schools. The Constitution itself is our national symbol—the symbol of our identity, our continuity, and also our diversity. It requires a mature people, mature in intelligence and political understanding, to respect that kind of abstract symbol, rather than the more tangible or human symbols of other nations.