AmericanRhetoric.com

Barry Goldwater

Speech Accepting the Republican Presidential
Nomination

 

delivered
16
July
1964, San
Francisco

AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED:
Text
version below
transcribed
directly
from
audio

My good friend and great Republican, Dick Nixon, and your charming wife, Pat. my running
mate,
that wonderful Republican who has served us so well for so long, Bill Miller and his wife,
Stephanie. to
Thurston Morton who's done such
a commendable job in chairmaning this
Convention. to Mr.
Herbert
Hoover, who I
hope is watching. and to
that that
great
American and his wife, General and Mrs. Eisenhower. to
my own wife, my family, and to all of
my fellow Republicans here assembled, and Americans across this great Nation.

From this moment, united and determined, we will go forward together, dedicated to
the
ultimate and undeniable greatness of the whole man. Together we will win.

I accept your nomination with a deep sense of humility. I accept, too, the responsibility that
goes with it, and I seek your continued help and your continued guidance. My fellow
Republicans, our cause is too great for any man
to feel worthy of it. Our task would be too
great
for any man, did he not
have with him the hearts and the hands of this great Republican
Party, and I promise you
tonight
that every fiber of my being is consecrated to our cause. that
nothing shall be lacking from the struggle that can be brought to
it by enthusiasm, by
devotion, and plain
hard work.

In
this world no person, no Party can guarantee
anything, but what we can do and what we
shall do is to deserve victory, and victory will be ours.

The good Lord raised this mighty Republic to be
a home for the brave and to flourish as the
land of the free not
to stagnate in the swampland of collectivism, not
to cringe before the
bullying of communism.

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Now, my fellow Americans, the tide has been running against
freedom. Our people have
followed false prophets. We must, and we shall, return to
proven ways not
because they
are old, but because they are true. We must, and we shall, set the tides running again in the
cause of freedom. And this party, with
its every action, every word, every breath, and every
heartbeat, has but a single resolve, and that
is freedom made orderly for this Nation by our
constitutional government. freedom under a government
limited by the laws of nature and of
nature's God. freedom balanced so that order lacking liberty [sic] will not become the slavery
of the prison shell [cell]. balanced so
that liberty lacking order will
not
become the license of
the mob and of the jungle.

Now, we Americans understand freedom. We have earned it. we have lived for it, and we
have died for it. This Nation and its people are freedom's model in a searching world.
We can
be freedom's missionaries in a doubting world.
But, ladies and gentlemen, first we must renew
freedom's mission in our own hearts and in our own homes.

During four futile years, the administration which we shall replace has distorted and lost
that
vision. It has talked and talked and talked and talked the words of freedom, but
it has failed
and failed and failed in the works of freedom.

Now, failures cement
the wall of shame in Berlin. Failures blot
the sands of shame at
the Bay
of Pigs. Failures mark the slow death of freedom in Laos. Failures infest the jungles of
Vietnam. And failures haunt the houses of our once great alliances and undermine the
greatest bulwark ever erected by free nations the
NATO community. Failures proclaim lost
leadership, obscure purpose, weakening will, and the risk of inciting our sworn enemies to
new aggressions and to
new
excesses.

And because of this administration we are tonight a world divided. we are a Nation becalmed.
We have lost
the brisk pace of diversity and the
genius of individual creativity. We are
plodding along at a pace set by centralized planning, red tape, rules without responsibility,
and regimentation without recourse.

Rather than
useful jobs in our country, our people have been offered bureaucratic "make
work". rather than moral
leadership,
they have
been given bread and circuses. They have
been given spectacles, and,
yes, they've even
been given
scandals.

Tonight, there is violence in our streets, corruption in our highest offices, aimlessness
amongst our youth, anxiety among our elders, and there's a virtual despair among the many
who look beyond material success for the inner meaning of their lives. And where examples of
morality should be set, the opposite is seen. Small
men, seeking great wealth or power, have
too often and too long turned even
the highest
levels of public service into
mere personal
opportunity.

Now, certainly, simple honesty is not
too much to demand of men in government. We find it
in
most. Republicans demand it from everyone.
They demand it from everyone no
matter how
exalted or protected his position
might be.

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Now the growing menace in our country tonight, to personal safety, to life,
to
limb and
property, in homes, in churches, on the playgrounds, and places of business, particularly in
our great
cities, is the mounting concern, or should be, of every thoughtful citizen
in the
United States.

Security from domestic violence, no less than from foreign aggression, is the most elementary
and fundamental purpose of any government, and a government that cannot fulfill
this
purpose is one that cannot
long command the loyalty of its citizens.

History shows us it
demonstrates that
nothing, nothing prepares the way for tyranny more
than
the failure of public officials to
keep the streets safe from bullies and marauders.

Now, we Republicans see all
this as more, much more, than
the result of mere political
differences or mere political mistakes. We see this as the result of a fundamentally and
absolutely wrong view of man, his nature, and his destiny. Those who seek to
live your lives
for you, to
take your liberties in return for relieving you of yours, those who elevate the state
and downgrade the citizen
must see ultimately a world in which earthly power can be
substituted for Divine Will, and this Nation was founded upon
the rejection of that notion and
upon
the acceptance of God as the author of freedom.

Now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it
to do what
they regard as
good, are simply demanding the right
to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. They and
let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most
hellish tyrannies.
Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it
must be suspect and must be opposed.
Their mistaken course stems from false notions, ladies and gentlemen, of equality. Equality,
rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to
liberty and to the
emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been
so tragically in our
time, it leads first
to conformity and then to despotism.

Fellow Republicans, it
is the cause of Republicanism to
resist concentrations of power, private
or public, which enforce such conformity and inflict such despotism. It is the cause of
Republicanism to
ensure that power remains in the hands of the people.
And, so
help us God,
that
is exactly what a Republican President will
do with
the help of a Republican Congress.

It
is further the cause of Republicanism to restore a clear understanding of the tyranny of man
over man
in the world at
large. It is our cause to dispel
the foggy thinking which avoids hard
decisions in the delusion
that a world of conflict
will somehow
mysteriously resolve itself into a
world of harmony, if we just don't rock the boat or irritate the forces of aggression
and
this
is hogwash.

It
is further the cause of Republicanism to remind ourselves, and the world,
that only the
strong can remain free, that only the strong can keep the peace.

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Now, I needn't remind you, or my fellow
Americans regardless of party, that Republicans have
shouldered this hard responsibility and marched in this cause before. It was Republican
leadership under Dwight
Eisenhower that kept
the peace, and passed along to
this
administration
the mightiest arsenal for defense the world has ever known. And I
needn't
remind you that it was the strength and the [un]believable will of the Eisenhower years that
kept the peace by using our strength, by using it
in
the Formosa Straits and in Lebanon and
by showing it
courageously at all times.

It was during those Republican years that
the thrust of Communist
imperialism was blunted. It
was during those years of Republican
leadership that this world moved closer, not to war, but
closer to peace,
than at any other time in
the last
three decades.

And I
needn't remind you but
I will that
it's been during Democratic years that our
strength to deter war has stood still, and even gone into a planned decline.
It has been during
Democratic years that we have weakly stumbled into
conflict, timidly refusing to draw our own
lines against aggression, deceitfully refusing to tell even our people of our full participation,
and tragically, letting our finest men die on battlefields,
unmarked by purpose, unmarked by
pride or the prospect of victory.

Yesterday, it was Korea. Tonight, it is Vietnam.
Make no
bones of this. Don't try to sweep this
under the rug.
We are at war in Vietnam. And yet
the President, who is the CommanderinChief
of our forces, refuses to say refuses
to
say, mind you, whether or not the objective
over there is victory. And his Secretary of Defense continues to
mislead and misinform the
American people, and enough of it has gone by.

And I
needn't remind you but
I will it
has been during Democratic years that a billion
persons were cast
into Communist captivity and their fate cynically sealed.

Today in our beloved country we have an administration which seems eager to deal with
communism in
every coin known from
gold to wheat, from consulates to confidences, and
even human
freedom itself.

Now the Republican cause demands that we brand communism as the principal disturber of
peace in the world today. Indeed, we should brand it as the only significant disturber of the
peace, and we must make clear that until
its goals of conquest are absolutely renounced and
its relations with all
nations tempered,
communism and the governments it now controls are
enemies of every man on earth who is or wants to be free.

Now, we here in America can keep the peace only if we remain
vigilant and only if we remain
strong. Only if we keep our eyes open and keep our guard
up can we prevent war. And I want
to make this abundantly clear: I don't intend to
let peace or freedom be torn from our grasp
because of lack of strength or lack of will and
that
I promise you, Americans.

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I believe that we must
look beyond the defense of freedom today to its extension
tomorrow. I
believe that the communism which boasts it will bury us will, instead, give way to
the forces of
freedom. And I can see in the distant and yet recognizable future the outlines of a world
worthy of our dedication, our every risk, our every effort, our every sacrifice along the way.
Yes, a world that will
redeem the suffering of those who will be liberated from tyranny. I
can
see and
I
suggest that all
thoughtful
men must
contemplate the
flowering of an
Atlantic
civilization, the whole of Europe reunified and freed, trading openly across its borders,
communicating openly across the world.

Now, this is a goal far, far more meaningful
than a moon
shot.

It's a truly inspiring goal for all
free men
to set
for themselves during the latter half of the
twentieth
century.

I can also see and
all free men must
thrill to
the
events of this Atlantic civilization joined
by its great ocean
highway to
the United States. What a destiny! What a destiny can be ours
to stand as a great central pillar linking Europe,
the Americas, and the venerable and vital
peoples and cultures of the Pacific. I
can see a day when all the Americas, North and South,
will be linked in a mighty system, a system in which
the errors and misunderstandings of the
past will be submerged one by one in a rising tide of prosperity and interdependence. We
know
that
the misunderstandings of centuries are not to
be wiped away in a day or wiped
away in an
hour. But we pledge,
we pledge that human sympathy what
our neighbors to
the South
call an attitude of "simpatico" no
less than enlightened self'interest
will be our
guide.

And I
can see this Atlantic civilization galvanizing and guiding emergent
nations everywhere.

Now I know this freedom is not
the fruit of every soil. I know that our own freedom was
achieved through
centuries, by unremitting efforts of brave and wise men. And I know
that
the road to freedom is a long and a challenging road. And I know also
that some men
may
walk away from it, that
some men resist challenge, accepting the false security of
governmental paternalism.

And I pledge that
the America I envision
in
the
years ahead will extend its hand in health, in
teaching and in cultivation, so that all new nations will be at least encouraged encouraged!
to
go our way, so
that
they will
not wander down the dark alleys of tyranny or the deadend
streets of collectivism.

My fellow Republicans, we do
no man a service by hiding freedom's light
under a bushel of
mistaken
humility.

I seek an
America proud of its past, proud of its ways, proud of its dreams, and determined
actively to proclaim them. But our example to the world must, like charity, begin at home. In
our vision of a good and decent
future, free and peaceful, there must be room, room for
deliberation of the energy and the talent of the individual. otherwise our vision is blind at
the
outset.

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We must assure a society here which, while never abandoning the needy or forsaking the
helpless, nurtures incentives and opportunities for the creative and the productive. We must
know
the whole good is the product of many single contributions.

And I
cherish a day when our children once again will restore as heroes the sort of men and
women who, unafraid and undaunted, pursue the truth, strive to cure disease, subdue and
make fruitful our natural environment and produce the inventive engines of production,
science, and technology.

This Nation, whose creative people have enhanced this entire span of history, should again
thrive upon
the greatness of all those things which we, we as individual citizens, can and
should do. And during Republican years, this again will be a nation of men and women, of
families proud of their role, jealous of their responsibilities, unlimited in
their aspirations a
Nation where all who can will
be selfreliant.

We Republicans see in our constitutional
form of government the great framework which
assures the orderly but dynamic fulfillment of the whole man, and we see the whole man as
the great reason for instituting orderly government in the first place.

We see in private property and in
economy based upon and fostering private property, the
one way to
make government a durable ally of the whole man, rather than
his determined
enemy. We see in
the sanctity of private property the only durable foundation
for
constitutional government
in a free society. And beyond that, we see,
in cherished diversity of
ways, diversity of thoughts, of motives and accomplishments. We don't seek to
lead anyone's
life for him. We only seek only
seek to secure his rights, guarantee him opportunity guarantee
him opportunity to strive, with government performing only those needed and
constitutionally sanctioned tasks which cannot otherwise be performed.

We Republicans seek a government
that attends to
its inherent responsibilities of maintaining
a stable monetary and fiscal
climate, encouraging a free and a competitive economy and
enforcing law and order. Thus, do we seek inventiveness, diversity, and creative difference
within a stable order, for we Republicans define government's role where needed at many,
many levels preferably,
though, the one closest
to the people involved.

Our towns and our cities, then our counties, then our states, then our regional compacts and
only then, the national government. That, let
me remind you, is the ladder of liberty, built
by decentralized power. On
it also we must
have balance between the branches of
government at every level.

Balance, diversity, creative difference: These are the elements of the Republican equation.
Republicans agree heartily to disagree on many, many of their applications, but we have
never disagreed on the basic fundamental
issues of why you and I are Republicans.

This is a Party. This Republican Party is a Party for free men, not
for blind followers, and not
for conformists.

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In
fact, in
1858 Abraham Lincoln said this of the Republican party and
I quote him, because
he probably could have said it during the last week or so: "It was composed of strange,
discordant, and even
hostile elements" end
of the quote in
1858. Yet all of these
elements agreed on one paramount objective: To arrest the progress of slavery, and place it
in the course of ultimate extinction.

Today, as then, but
more urgently and more broadly than then, the task of preserving and
enlarging freedom at home and of safeguarding
it from the forces of tyranny abroad is great
enough
to
challenge all our resources and to require all our strength.

Anyone who joins us in all sincerity, we welcome. Those who do not care for our cause, we
don't expect
to enter our ranks in any case.
And let our Republicanism, so focused and so
dedicated,
not be made fuzzy and futile by unthinking and stupid labels.

I would remind you that extremism in
the defense of liberty is no vice.

And let
me remind you also that moderation
in the pursuit of justice is no
virtue.

Why the beauty of the very system we Republicans are pledged to restore and revitalize,
the
beauty of this Federal system of ours is in its reconciliation of diversity with
unity. We must
not
see malice in honest differences of opinion, and no matter how great, so
long as they are
not
inconsistent with the pledges we have given to each other in and through our Constitution.

Our Republican cause is not
to level out
the world or make its people conform in computer
regimented sameness. Our Republican cause is to free our people and light
the way for liberty
throughout the world.

Ours is a very human
cause for very humane goals.

This Party, its good people, and its unquenchable devotion to
freedom, will not fulfill
the
purposes of this campaign, which we launch here and now, until our cause has won the day,
inspired the world, and shown the way to a tomorrow worthy of all our yesteryears.

I repeat, I accept your nomination with
humbleness, with pride, and you and I are going to
fight for the goodness of our land.

Thank you.

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