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The most important thing to realize about Hyde is that he is one of the last of a generation of Congress members who relied on manners to get things done. These days the typical Republican lawmaker is young, brash and in a hurry. Hyde is none of those things. In a House where new members seem to get pancake makeup issued to them at freshman orientation, Hyde sometimes has to be pushed to go on camera. He whispers when he wants to emphasize a point. He speaks in annotations rather than sound bites. His eyes twinkle not when he counts votes but when he quotes Edmund Burke or winds through the story of George Washington quelling a mutiny at Newburgh, N.Y. He was so taken with the portrayal of John Quincy Adams in the movie Amistad that he sent away for the script; he memorized passages about "the very nature of man" and uses them in speeches denouncing partial-birth abortion. "Henry is haunted by the ghosts of this place," says Lindsey Graham, a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee. "He feels as if all those who have come before him are looking at him and saying, 'Don't let us down.'"
Hyde's Old World courtliness has allowed him to pull off the remarkable trick of holding some of the most ideologically rigid views in Congress while maintaining a reputation for restraint. He crafted the famous Hyde amendment--six lines he hastily scribbled on legal paper in 1976 that deny low-income women federal funds for abortions. He was a robust supporter of Oliver North during the Iran-contra affair, and he led the calls for an independent counsel to look into Bill Clinton's 1996 fund-raising practices. But opponents speak of him with respect. Says Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League: "He has been a fierce opponent of a woman's right to choose, but he is also a man of sincere convictions. I think his reputation as a statesman is a fair one and one that he's earned. He is honorable."
He has sometimes been flexible as well. In 1981 California Congressman Don Edwards went with Hyde on a tour of polling places in Texas and Alabama that eased Hyde's knee-jerk opposition to preserving the Voting Rights Act. After listening to men and women describe having had to walk 50 miles to vote only to have the doors shut on them by local sheriffs, Hyde changed his position. "We were coming back home on the plane," remembers Edwards. "And he said, 'We've got to change this.' He started out very conservative and then had a total awakening." Hyde has also famously bucked Republican orthodoxy on term limits, the Family Leave Act and gun control. His support for the ban on assault weapons in 1994 is credited with saving the measure. "The assault weapons have no other purpose than to kill a lot of people in a hurry," said Hyde, whose stance even tipped the opinion of his party leader, Bob Michel.