On the eve of his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America, Joseph R. Biden Jr. made an emotional send-off speech in Delaware, the state that he represented in the US Senate for 36 years before he became vice president to Barack Obama in 2009.
(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP / MANILA BULLETIN)
"When I die, Delaware will be written on my heart," a tearful Biden said on Tuesday (Wednesday morning in Manila), referencing an adage from Irish novelist and poet James Joyce.
Born to an Irish Catholic family, the Bidens moved to Mayfield, a middle-class community in Delaware, when Joe was 13 years old.
Although a tiny state with less than a million population (US Census, 2020), it was in Delaware where Joe developed a keen interest in politics during his college years at the University of Delaware, partly encouraged by the inspiring rise of fellow Irish John F. Kennedy to the US presidency in 1961.
After graduating from the Syracuse University Law School in 1968, Joe moved to Wilmington, Delaware’s largest and most populous city, to start his legal practice. It was also around that time when he enlisted as a member of the Democratic Party, and in 1970, he was elected to the New Castle County Council.
In 1972, at the young age of 29, the Democratic Party nominated Joe to run against the popular and then-Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs for the US Senate. Biden won in an upset battle to become the fifth-youngest US senator elected in the nation’s history.
"You've been with me my whole career through the good times and the bad. I want to thank you for everything," Joe told a socially-distanced crowd in his final event at the Major Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III National Guard Reserve Center in Wilmington, which was named after his late son.
Nearly everyone in Delaware has a story to tell about the President-elect, whether it be about his father, sister, or children, those who once lived near his home as a teenager, those who went to the same high school with him, in the dormitory where he stayed in, or in the football team where he played in his college days.
Before embarking on a new journey to Washington, D.C. in the twilight years of his political career, Joe said, "In our family, the values we share, the character we strive for, the way we view the world, it all comes from home. It all comes from Delaware."
Throughout his political career as senator and vice president, Joe commuted regularly between his home state of Delaware to Washington, D.C. via Amtrak train, a 110-miles daily route he traveled for more than 7,000 times. In an interview with the Associated Press last year, the 78-year-old politician estimates he has traveled more than 2.1 million miles of rail tracks in his life.
After the death of his first wife and daughter in a car crash in 1972, he made train travel as one of his advocacies, encouraging the public to patronize the trains, thus earning for him the moniker, “Amtrak Joe.”
On March 19, 2011, the Wilmington Train Station in Delaware was changed to Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Railroad Station in honor of Joe’s advocacy on rail travel and his efforts to modernize America’s railroad system.
Joe’s supposed Amtrak ride to his inauguration in the morning of January 20 was scuttled due to security concerns in the aftermath of the recent deadly riot in the US Capitol.
But in his farewell speech, the proud son of Delaware recalled the sentimental journeys he made in his political career that transpired in the railway stations of Wilmington and Washington, D.C.
"Twelve years ago, I was waiting at the train station in Wilmington for a Black man to pick me up on our way to Washington, where we were sworn in as president and vice president of the United States of America," Biden said.
"And here we are today, my family and I, about to return again to Washington, to meet a Black woman of South Asian descent, to be sworn in as president and vice president of the United States. … That's America. That's Delaware.”
Only 154 kilometers long, Delaware is the second smallest state in the United States next to Rhode Island. It borders the states of Maryland to the south and west, Pennsylvania to the north, and New Jersey to the east.
Also called the “First State,” Delaware was the first state to ratify the US Constitution in 1787.