Buckley’s views were a far cry from traditional conservatism, which called for stability, gradual change, and common-sense-based legislation. His worldview was based on an ideology that looked much like that of James Henry Hammond and his fellow slaveholders a century earlier. Buckley insisted that the government must be limited solely to protecting life, liberty, and property. Only if individuals were allowed to organize their lives as they saw fit would they be able to advance the cause of freedom and spread prosperity spread across the nation. This was precisely the argument slaveholding
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