"Statement on the Electoral College," June 27, 1979.

Excerpt: Mr. President, I rise to speak briefly and for the first time in what I believe will be an extended debate on the matter before us, Senate Joint Resolution 28. I wish to address this subject in the context, as I see it, of the historical experience of the American Constitution and the American political system.

I suppose the first thing to say, Mr. President, is that there is no fact more singular about our Constitution than its durability. As a written constitution, it is the oldest in the world save only for the medieval Constitution of Iceland, which still persists in that small nation. No other large industrial, and certainly no continental, nation has anything like our experience of a sustained and stable government under a constitution basically unchanged from its original construction.

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Teaching American History