Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, speaks on the floor of the U.S. Senate in February. Image taken from U.S. Senate broadcast

Sen. Angus King urged his colleagues on Tuesday to put country over party and warned of creeping authoritarianism, invoking the iconic 1950 speech by former Maine Sen. Margaret Chase Smith.

“Mr. President, almost 75 years ago, the junior senator from Maine rose in this chamber to deliver a speech from her heart about a crisis then facing our country,” King began in his speech from the Senate floor. “A crisis not arising from a foreign adversary but from within. A crisis that threatened the values and ideals at the base of the American experiment.”

In her now-iconic “Declaration of Conscience” address, Smith denounced Republican colleague Joseph McCarthy for his aggressive pursuit of those he considered communist sympathizers, including academics, entertainers and left-wing politicians. She delivered the speech during her first term as a senator, which followed nearly a decade in the House of Representatives.

King’s speech was intended to mark the upcoming 75th anniversary of Smith’s landmark speech, which comes June 1, as well as the broader significance of the 75th year. Asked about the precise timing, a spokesperson for King’s office said “the urgency eclipses the exact timeliness.”

“I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its members to do some real soul-searching,” King said, quoting directly from Smith’s speech. “It is high time that we stop thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom.”

King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, repeated the second sentence before returning to his original remarks.

“Mr. President, I fear that we’re at a similar moment in history,” King said, speaking again as himself. “And while today’s ‘serious national condition’ is not involving the actions of one of our colleagues, it is involving those of the president of the United States.”

King said the issue was not President Donald Trump’s agenda, but his apparent attempts to centralize power, including by “ignoring the Constitution” and the rule of law.

Though she originally ran to fill a vacancy created by the death of her husband, Rep. Clyde H. Smith, Smith forged a legacy all her own, one that eclipsed his. Years after giving her declaration, Smith would go on to become the first woman nominated for president by a major political party in 1964.

The Skowhegan native’s legacy remains an enduring story of courage and bipartisanship for many Mainers. It has, at times, fueled modern-day comparisons to Sen. Susan Collins, another Republican woman who has openly opposed her own party’s leadership.

“Senator Smith’s distinguished career has led to a string of more than 50 years of leadership from centrist Republican Senators in Maine who have always put the needs of the state and the country ahead of the concerns of their party,” Blake Kernen, a spokesperson for Collins, said in a written statement.

The comparisons have not always been supportive of Collins. Progressive-minded voters, including some who have written letters in this paper, have at times used Smith’s legacy to criticize Collins. King, though, did not name Collins in his speech.

“It is ironic that Democrats who either campaigned against or voted against Senator Smith now fill the papers with letters and opinion pieces trying to claim her legacy as their own,” Kernen said. “Senator Collins always works in the best interest of Maine and America, which is why she has been repeatedly recognized as being the most bipartisan member of the Senate.”

King worked on the campaign of Sen. William Hathaway, who ousted Smith from the Senate in the 1972 election. King noted that history in his remarks, but said he and Smith had reconciled any lingering differences while working on a PBS documentary years later.

King went on to quote James Madison, who warned in the Federalist Papers that successful government must be dependent on its citizens for its power, but must also be made to control itself. Madison argued that “auxiliary precautions” against sweeping governance are necessary; here, King pointed to the checks and balances provided by the legislative and judicial branches.

King has been outspoken in opposing the Trump administration’s policies and warning about what he considers a slide toward tyranny. In a February speech — as the Trump administration was in the early stages of a massive effort to slash federal spending — King urged his Senate colleagues to “wake up.”

He also noted the Trump administration’s targeting of Maine following a public confrontation between Trump and Gov. Janet Mills at the White House two months ago. At the time, Mills said she was upholding state and federal law, but Trump argued that “we are the law.”

“That is more fitting to a king than a president,” King said. “This ‘We are the law’ comment is a clear statement of intent to govern as a sovereign without regard to the Constitution or the rule of law.”