The death of Sen. Robert Byrd on Monday has been met with the inevitable odes and praises that follow the death of a politician. Men and women who had slandered his name up and down the halls of Congress during his lifetime suddenly scurry to sound as sorrowful as politically possible. It’s a horrendous undertaking of outright lies and comical fabrications, unfit for the common citizen’s ear. Of course the jocularity of this false praise is all the more amplified when rained upon a former Ku Klux Klan member who once wrote, “I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side … Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.” This quote ­- along with Byrd’s impressive rise up his local KKK chapter’s ranks – was not-so-shockingly ignored in the ludicrous lamentations Monday.

But the real lesson to learn from the death of Senator Byrd is not what was left out of Monday’s praise or even the lies that were spoken. It’s one fundamental fact, spouted endlessly by every news organization and political friend of the late senator, that should trouble American citizens: Byrd served 58 years in the U.S. Congress. In the eyes on some, including many of the nation’s Founding Fathers, that’s at least 46 years too many.

Political theologians as far back as ancient Greece and Rome imposed term limits on a number of elected offices, including legislative seats. The idea was that the imposition of a constant rotation would limit the inherent evils of power from taking hold in antiquity. Well versed in ancient political theory, the American revolutionaries followed suit, placing term limitations on legislatures and plural executives in many of the colonies. In 1789, Thomas Jefferson successfully made the case for limited tenures “to prevent every danger which might arise to American freedom by continuing too long in office the members of the Continental Congress.” Although a key part of the Articles of Confederation, the absence of congressional term limits in the U.S. Constitution proved unnecessary for the 18th and 19th centuries as congressmen generally upheld the Washingtonian precedent that had been placed on the executive branch.

Political power in the first century after the nation’s founding was dreaded by both those under it and those holding it. The idea of obtaining political power was feared by many revolutionaries who hoped to somehow avoid the hunger of power, the idea that “contact with the affairs of state is one of the most corrupting of the influences to which men are exposed,” as American author James Fenimore Cooper put it.

Strong – albeit futile – attempts in the past two decades to install congressional term limits should be seen as a sign of political discontent and disenfranchisement from the American people. And the supposed legacy of career politician Robert Byrd, a man who certainly didn’t fear the inevitable corruption that accompanies political power, should be a sign of the political situation this nation now finds itself in.