Sen. Byrd’s casket arrives on Capitol Hill.

THE ISSUE: The death of 92-year-old West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd.

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Sen. Robert Byrd was not just a senator but an institution, serving over 50 years in the Senate (“Senate Fixture Byrd, 92, Dies,” June 29).

He was also a man of many paradoxes. Once a member of the KKK and opposed to civil rights legislation early in his career, Byrd eventually became the conscience of the Senate, taking courageous stands on a number of issues, including opposing the Iraq War.

Byrd fervently believed in and guarded the Constitution.

Byrd is perhaps the last of the self-made men in the Senate, taking a decade of night courses to earn his law degree in 1963, five years after he became senator.

K. Zimmerman

Huntington Beach, Calif.

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Byrd was a real American story, for he started life out poor and became a statesman and the voice of a bygone belief that power doesn’t stem from the Executive Branch.

Indeed, he was a quixotic champion of liberty.

Gary Schwartz

Fort Lee, NJ

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Byrd blames his KKK membership on a mistake of misspent youth, but this doesn’t explain his active participation in the filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

As a past chairman and member of the Appropriations Committee, Byrd was also a champion of pork-barrel spending that brought his state billions. Let’s hope his colleagues don’t fund and name millions more in pork-barrel projects in his honor.

How disappointing that as Byrd’s mental faculties and health continued to seriously decline, he refused to retire with his dignity intact.

Larry Penner

Great Neck