WASHINGTON -- Aides wept Thursday as Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator ever, bade an emotional farewell, haunted by a criminal conviction which cost him his seat of 40 years.

Stevens, 85, who has fought a curmudgeonly one-man crusade on behalf of his remote state of Alaska, won a long standing ovation from colleagues who streamed into the chamber to witness a moment of US political history.

"Home is where the heart is, if that is true, I have two homes, one right here in this chamber and the other is in my beloved state of Alaska," Stevens said.

"I must leave one to return to the other," said Stevens, who made his Senate debut in 1968, and is a former World War II aviator.

"I don't have a rear-view mirror," said Stevens, who is affectionately known in Alaska as "Uncle Ted."

"I look only forward, I still see the day when I will remove the cloud that is surrounding me."

As he spoke, the veteran senator's family and aides wiped away tears as they sat in the public gallery.

Several old bull lawmakers, to whom Stevens had been close on both sides of the Senate, a notoriously clubby legislature, were seen wiping their eyes.

Stevens conceeded defeat to Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich on Wednesday after the final ballots were counted from the November 4 election.

The Democratic victory brought them to 58 seats in the Senate, just two short of the magic figure of 60 seats needed to thwart Republican filibuster obstruction tactics, with two races in Georgia and Minnesota, undecided.

Senators from both sides of the aisle on Thursday gave speeches praising Stevens.

Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell, said that no senator "in the history of the US Senate did more for his state than Senator Ted Stevens."

As he spoke, 91-year-old Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, shouted from his wheelchair "That's right, that's right."

Byrd argued that Stevens should be remembered for his political career, not his fall from grace.

"We all make mistakes, I have made more of them than I have hair follicles, but thank God, that we are judged in the next world by the good we do in this world," Byrd said.

"And Ted Stevens has done a lot of good ... Ted, I love you."

Stevens was found guilty of corruption one week before the November 4 election.

He was on trial in Washington for making false statements on mandatory financial disclosure forms he filed between 1999 and 2006 concerning gifts he received from an oil-services firm.

He has insisted he is innocent and vowed to appeal the conviction.