Today marks 100 years since the birth of William F. Buckley Jr. To note the occasion, we are publishing the following, which is adapted from a talk presented at Hillsdale College on April 8, 2025.
My subject tonight is a man who is considered by many to have been the most important public intellectual in the United States in the second half of the 20th century. For an entire generation, he was the preeminent champion of conservatism in the public arena and its first great ecumenical figure. He changed minds, he changed lives, and he labored successfully to change the direction of American politics.
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