The United States has been mourning and paying tribute as the family of Edward Kennedy prepared to accompany the liberal lion's body on its final journey.

All government buildings lowered the Stars and Stripes to half-mast, as did private homes in the Massachusetts seaside resort of Hyannis Port, where the veteran senator, aged 77, died on Tuesday at his family compound.

President Barack Obama led tributes, saying "the outpouring of love, gratitude and fond memories which we have all witnessed is a testimony to the way this singular figure in American history touched so many lives."

On Thursday, family members were to accompany the coffin of Kennedy, whose elder brothers president John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy were both assassinated, in a cortege to his home city of Boston.

There, the senator's body was to lie in state at the John F. Kennedy presidential library ahead of a Catholic funeral Mass on Saturday where Obama was scheduled to deliver a eulogy.

Later that day the Democratic Party giant's remains were to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, alongside his slain brothers. Obama was not expected to attend the burial.

Battle with brain cancer

Kennedy, who served 47 years in the Senate, died after a long battle with brain cancer.

His disappearance ends his family's half-century-long dominance of the Democratic Party and robs Obama of a crucial ally in an increasingly uphill battle to reform the US health care system.

Although long hated by the right, he came to be respected on both sides of the political divide as a larger-than-life figure whose tragedy-filled career was the stuff of American history.

Many thought Kennedy destined for the highest office after the murders of his brothers — first John in 1963, then Robert, as he campaigned for the presidency, in 1968.

Personal scandal got in the way of White House ambitions, particularly the 1969 death of a female passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, when he drove off a bridge at Chappaquiddick, near Cape Cod, and fled the scene.

Yet by the end, the man dubbed the liberal lion for his championing of progressive causes earned the respect even of former foes.

Praise from around the world

Praise poured in from across the world, while US television outlets and newspapers were flooded with retrospectives on his eventful, if controversial life.

In Hyannis Port, police closed access to the compound, a sprawling beachfront residence that served as Cape Cod headquarters for the Kennedy clan.

More than 100 journalists and ranks of trucks with huge satellite dishes besieged the residence as strong winds whipped through the moored yachts.

An emotional Ana Lages, a chemical engineer from Cambridge, Massachusetts, placed flowers at the police line.

Kennedy, who long fought for immigrants' rights, had helped her get a green card 30 years ago, she said, sobbing.

"I'm very grateful to him," she said. While not sharing his left-leaning politics, she admired "a man who helped so many people".

Kennedy neighbour James Quinn called his death "the end of an era. There's no one really to pass the torch to."

Loss of a valuable ally

Obama, whose presidency is becoming mired in the battle over health care, in part owed his meteoric rise to the White House last year to Kennedy's stunning endorsement.

Interrupting his vacation on Martha's Vineyard, just across the Nantucket Sound from Hyannis Port, Obama said that "even though we knew this day was coming for some time now, we awaited it with no small amount of dread."

A healthy Kennedy would have been a valuable ally to Obama today. He was renowned for his legislative skills and just a year ago described bringing health coverage to the 47 million uninsured Americans as "the cause of my life."

But there was also praise from political rivals.

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch lamented the loss of a "treasured friend."

This "giant of a man," he said, "with all his ideological verbosity and idealism, was a rare person who at times could put aside differences and look for common solutions."

World leaders also lauded Kennedy as "a great American" and paid tribute to his campaigning for peace and social welfare.

"He is admired around the world as the senator of senators," Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.

Irish leaders called Kennedy a "great friend" and trumpeted his role in helping Catholics and Protestants to achieve peace in Northern Ireland.

Kennedy died just two weeks after his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, passed away at the age of 88. Gravely ill, the US senator did not attend the funeral.

AFP

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