Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement (review)

Since the movement’s mid-century beginnings, intraconservative quarrels have featured a substantial introspective component. “New conservatism” in the 1950s, Goldwaterism in the 1960s, the “New Right” in the 1970s, the “conservative crack-up” under Reagan in the 1980s, and the Republican Revolution of the 1990s all prompted boisterous rows over the meaning of conservatism. Their latest once-a-decade quarrel is intensified by a “conservative” president doing controversial work, such as fighting a war, while flying the movement’s banner. Many conservatives hope that, at the very least, the membership guidelines can be updated. Andrew Sullivan’s The Conservative Soul, Bruce Bartlett’s Impostor, Pat Buchanan’s Where the Right Went Wrong, and Richard Viguerie’s Conservatives Betrayed are a few among many recent books advocating a back-to-basics program for conservatism. None of these writers defend George W. Bush. But none of these writers agree on who else should be shown the door, either.

Peter Schweizer and Wynton C. Hall’s Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement, a slim collection of 13 speeches from 1948 to 2004, arrives during this contest over conservatism. The book’s value in this climate is that it helps portray “the movement in its own words” and shows the “trajectory of conservative rhetoric through time” (2). The inclusion of such notable speeches as Barry Goldwater’s “Extremism in the Defense of Liberty is No Vice,” Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire,” and George W. Bush’s “Our Mission and Our Moment,” demonstrates, contra Buchanan and others, that “no one ‘brand’ of conservatism” has ever existed in the United States. Whittaker Chambers’s “I Broke Away from the Communist Party” evinces conservatism’s historic anti-communism. Clare Boothe Luce’s “Is the New Morality Destroying America?” exemplifies its traditionalist impulse. Reagan’s “The First Inaugural” summarizes its commitment to limited government. Charles Krauthammer’s “A Unipolar World” is a sample of the neoconservative inclination to universalize democracy that has divided conservatives recently. Each speech is preceded by a short summary of the speaker’s life, achievements, and where possible, its importance to conservatism.

Two questions are most appropriate when considering a book that collects the “landmark” ideas, speeches, or photographs of a social movement. First, among the possible options, have the editors selected the right ones? Second, does the choice of an exclusive medium yield more nuanced insights than could have been generated with a broader focus? In other words, does the choice of speeches omit vehicles that held greater rhetorical force within the movement?

Considering the first question, Landmark Speeches is a curious collection. First, there are obvious omissions. After losing the nomination to Nixon (an act still reviled as the “Compact of Fifth Avenue”), for example, Goldwater famously demanded of his followers at the 1960 Republican National Convention, “Let’s grow up conservatives. If we want to take this party back . . . let’s get to work.” The “Let’s Grow Up” speech is remembered by many conservatives as a defining moment in early conservatism, and yet this speech is not featured. Second, some arguable inclusions compound questions about other exclusions. For instance, few conservatives reach back for the language of Everett Dirksen, whose “The Time Has Come” was instrumental to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. However, many conservatives reach for Goldwater and William F. Buckley, both of whom opposed the bill. Dirksen’s inclusion coupled with the omission of contrary voices on civil rights, such as George Wallace, raises antennas. When added to the exclusion of other historic and controversial speeches, such as Joseph McCarthy’s “Enemies from Within” in Wheeling, West Virginia, and Pat Buchanan’s “Culture War” address, the “rich rhetorical tradition” of American conservatism becomes less so (7). Schweizer and Hall risk producing a cleansed conservatism rather than conservatism as it was.

Third, the editors miss opportunities to explain what makes these speeches landmark speeches. For instance, before...