The Senate lost its heart and soul this week. Robert Byrd, a constitutional scholar and good ol’ boy from West Virginia coal country, died after serving in the Senate for more than a half-century — longer than anyone in history. He was the epitome of an enlightened redneck.

Byrd, who was 92, made one last appearance on the Senate floor today. An honor guard carried his body into the chamber to lie in state. It was the first time since 1959, the year Byrd was first elected to the Senate, that senators had paid tribute to one of their own in such fashion.

Politically, I was not a Byrd man. I never voted for him when I lived in the great Mountain State, and I detest to this day the pork-barrel politics he mastered. Money is the most corrupting influence in politics, and pork too often is all about rewarding political allies with taxpayers’ money.

But I always respected Byrd for his love of family, his commitment to the Constitution, his eloquent defenses of the legislative branch in general and the Senate in particular, and his passion for the state we both love. Robert C. Byrd was a statesman with an expensive soft spot for West Virginia, and while I wish the practice of earmarking federal funds would die with the “King of Pork,” I forgive him that flaw.

Rest in peace, “Big Daddy.”