Notable Speeches

The late Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (a former U.S. Attorney General) once said,  "The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America."

In this address, current Attorney General Bill Barr argues that career federal prosecutors must not only be committed to even-handed justice, but they also must be accountable to the attorney general, the president, and ultimately to the voters.

He spoke at a Constitution Day event, on Sept. 16, 2020, at the Hillsdale College Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C.

For a text of this address (as prepared for delivery), go to https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/remarks-attorney-general-william-p-barr-hillsdale-college-constitution-day-event

Mr. Barr's remarks have been condensed slightly for this podcast.

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The battle against "political correctness" isn't new. In this 1999 address presented at Harvard Law School, actor and social activist Charlton Heston decried political correctness as a kind of "cultural war...in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain accepted thoughts and speech are mandated."

He called on his audience to not "let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism."

Mr. Heston also criticized the media company Time/Warner for its role in selling and promoting a recording titled "Cop Killer," which celebrated the ambushing and of murdering police officers.

Charlton Heston appeared in nearly 100 films over the course of a 60-year career. In 1959, he won the Academy Award for best actor for his performance in Ben-Hur. From 1998 to 2003, he served as president of the National Rifle Association.

Charlton Heston died in 2008 at age 84.

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Many Americans think the American Civil War was solely about slavery, but the cultural, political, and economic dynamics leading to war were multi-faceted.

In this address, Donald Livingston, founder of the Abbeville Institute, argues that the historical record undercuts oversimplified explanations and common mischaracterizations. 

Mr. Livingston also speculates that slavery in the Confederate states likely would have ended even if the South had won the war and become an independent nation.

Donald Livingston is the editor of Rethinking the American Union for the Twenty-First Century (Pelican Publishing Company, 2012). He is a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Atlanta's Emory University.

The Abbeville Institute is an organization of scholars that seeks to "preserve and present what is truly valuable in the Southern tradition." 

Mr. Livingston's remarks, condensed for this podcast, were recorded at an Abbeville Institute gathering for graduate students in 2015.

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Voddie Baucham, a native of Los Angeles, is a former pastor and church planter who is now Dean of Theology at African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia.

In this address, he warns of a "cultural Marxism" that is driving America by dividing people by race and other forms of identity. 

While acknowledging the deleterious impact of multi-generational national sins, Mr. Baucham argues that racial resentments can be overcome through the grace of God.

His remarks, recorded at a Founders Ministries conference in 2019, have been condensed for this podcast.

Voddie Baucham's books include The Ever-Loving Truth: Can Faith Thrive in a Post-Christian Culture? (B&H Books, 2004) and Expository Apologetics: Answering Objections with the Power of the Word (Crossway, 2015).

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In a Senate Floor address on July 30, 2020, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said he would not support any Supreme Court nominee who hasn't explicitly acknowledged that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided.

"How long before we ask our nominees to the Supreme Court of the United States to recognize Roe as the outrage that it is?" he said. "Roe is an illegitimate decision. It has no basis in the Constitution. None. It has no basis in the law."

A transcript of Sen. Hawley's remarks is at https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/07/69236/

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The Chinese Communist Party "seeks to...overthrow the rules-based international system and to make the world safe for dictatorship," U.S. Attorney General William Barr warned in this address delivered July 16, 2020.

"How the United States responds to this challenge...will determine whether the United States and its liberal democratic allies will continue to shape their own destiny or whether the CCP and its autocratic tributaries will control the future," he said.

Mr. Barr spoke at Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Mich.

A transcript of his address (as prepared for delivery) is at https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-china-policy-gerald-r-ford-presidential

His remarks have been abridged slightly for this podcast.

This bonus episode features an address by President Donald Trump at South Dakota's 2020 Mount Rushmore Fireworks Celebration.

Mr. Trump honored the four presidents whose images are presented on Mount Rushmore: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Citing the "radical ideology attacking our country," he said "the United States of America is the most just and exceptional nation ever to exist on Earth.... [O]ur country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and...these values have dramatically advanced the cause of peace and justice throughout the world."

A transcript of President Trump's remarks is at www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-south-dakotas-2020-mount-rushmore-fireworks-celebration-keystone-south-dakota/

One day after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its controversial decision in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County (and companion cases Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. EEOC and Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda), Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) denounced the decision during a speech on the Senate floor.

"If you can invoke textualism and originalism in order to reach such a decision...then textualism and originalism and all of those phrases don’t mean much," he said. "[This is] exactly the opposite of what we [legal conservatives] thought we were fighting for." 

A transcript of Sen. Hawley's June 16 remarks is at https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/06/65043/

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In the wake of protests that swept the nation following the death of George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) delivered this speech on the Senate floor.

"Until we heal this divide, we will never, ever have the kind of society we want," Mr. Rubio warned. "The only way forward is to treat each other with the empathy and respect required of a people who have decided to share a nation — and a future."

A transcript of his remarks is at https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/06/64688/

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On May 17, 1981, just six weeks after being shot and wounded by a would-be assassin, President Ronald Reagan delivered the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

"[I hope] that you will always be able to speak of an America that is strong and free," he told the graduates, "to find in your hearts an unbounded pride in this much-loved country, this once and future land, this bright and hopeful nation whose generous spirit and great ideals the world still honors."

You can read the full text of Mr. Reagan's remarks at https://ovalpike.com/text-ronald-reagans-notre-dame-commencement-address-from-1981/.

The Notable Speeches podcast will be on hiatus for the next several weeks. During that time, we hope you will listen to any episodes you've missed.

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