>> road to the white house rewind continues with barry goldwater accepting his party's nomination at the 1964 republican national convention in san francisco. the senator outlined his commitment to conservative values and trumpeted conservatism as a diverse and unifying ideology. he also touted himself is the better candidate to fight communism. he lost to president johnson in the general election earning less than 39% of the popular vote. this speech is just over 30 minutes and their coverage is courtesy -- our coverage is courtesy of nbc news. ♪

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>> my running mate, the wonderful republican who has served us so well for so long -- [applause] to mr. herbert hoover, who i am told is watching. [applause] the great american and his wife, general and mrs. eisenhower. to my wife, my family, and to

all of my fellow republicans 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. [cheers and applause] i accept your nomination with a deep sense of humility. [applause]

i accept the responsibility that goes with it and i seek your continued help and guidance. my fellow republicans, our bond is too great for any man to feel worthy of it. our task would be to great for any man did he not have with him the heart and the head of this great republican party. i promise you tonight that every fiber of my being is consecrated to our cause that nothing shall be lacking from the struggles that can be brought to us by enthusiasm, devotion, and hard work. in this world, no person, no party can guarantee anything. what we can do and what we shall do is to deserve victory and victory will be ours. [applause] the good lord raised this mighty republic to be a home for the brave and to flourish as the land of the free. [applause]

my fellow americans, the tide has been running against freedom. our people have followed false prophets. we must, and we shall, return to our proven ways, not because they are old, but because they are true. [applause] we must, and we shall, set the tides running again in the cause of freedom.

[applause] this party, with its every action, every word, every breath, and every heartbeat, has but a single resolve and that is freedom. [applause] 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 liberty lacking order will not become the likeness of the mob. [applause] we americans understand, we have earned it, we have lived for it, and we have died for it.

we can be freedom's visionaries. ladies and gentlemen, first, we must renew freedom's vision in our own hearts and in our own homes. [applause] during four futile years, the administration which we shall replace -- [applause] has distorted and lost the vision. it has talked and talked and talked the words of freedom, but it has failed and failed and failed in the works of freedom.

[applause] failure cements the wall of shame in berlin. failure brought the slow death of freedom in laos. failure comes to houses of our once great alliances. failures proclaim lost leadership, obscure our purpose, weakening will, and the risk of inciting new aggression. because of this administration, we are a world divided. we have lost the swift pace of diversity and the genius of individual creativity.

we are plodding along at a pace set by red tape, rules without responsibility. [applause] rather than useful jobs in our country, our people have been offered bureaucratic paperwork. rather than moral leadership, they have been given circuses. they have been given spectacles and even scandals.

tonight, there is violence in our streets, corruption in our highest offices, aimlessness amongst our youth, and there is despair among the many who look for the inner meaning of their lives. the examples of morality should be set, the opposite is being. small men seeking power have to often and too long turned to the highest levels of public service into mere personal opportunities. [applause]

certainly, simple honesty is not too much to demand of men in government. we find it in most. republicans demand it from everyone. [applause] they demanded from everyone, no matter how exalted or protected his position might be. [applause] the growing menace in our country tonight to personal safety, to life and limb and property, in homes and churches, on the playgrounds and places of business, is the mounting concern of every thoughtful citizen in the united states. [applause] security from domestic violence, no less than from foreign aggression, is the most elementary and fundamental purpose of any government.

it is a government that cannot fulfill this perfect purpose is one that cannot command the loyalty of its citizens. [applause] history shows us and demonstrate that nothing, nothing prepares the way for tyranny more than the failure of public officials to keep the streets safe from bullies. [applause] we republicans see all of this as more, much more, and the result of differences. we see this as the result of a fundamentally inept and absolutely wrong view of man, his nature, and destiny.

[applause] those who seek to live your lives for you, to take your liberties, those who elevate the state and downgrade the citizen must see a world in which earthly power can be substituted for divine will. [applause] this nation was founded upon the rejection of that notion and upon the acceptance of god as the author of freedom. [applause] 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. [applause] let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. [applause] absolute power does corrupt and those who seek it must be opposed. it stems from false notions of equality. equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of differences.

wrongly understood, it means first conformity and then to despotism. fellow republicans, it is the cause of republicanism to resist concentrations of power, private or public. such conformity can inflict such despotism. it is the cause of republicanism to ensure that power remains in the hands of the people.

[applause] and so help us god, that is exactly what a republican president will do. it is further the cause of republicanism to restore a clear understanding of the tyranny in the world at large. if we just don't rock the boat

or irritate the forces of aggression and this is hogwash. [cheers and applause] it is further the cause of republicanism to remind ourselves and the world that only the strong can remain free. [applause] i need not remind you that republicans have shouldered this hard responsibility and marched

in this cause before. republican leadership under dwight eisenhower kept the peace and passed along to this administration the mightiest parcel for defense the world has ever known. [applause] and i need not remind you that it was the strength and the believable will of the eisenhower years that kept the peace by using our strengths, by using it in lebanon, and by showing it courageously at all times. [applause] it was during those republican years that the thrust of communism and 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. [applause] and i need not remind you, but i will, that during democratic years, our strength to declare war has gone into a planned decline. planned decline. we have weekly stumbled into , deceitfully refusing to tell it even our own people of our covert participation and letting our finest men die on battlefields unmarked by

orpose, unmarked by pride the prospect of victory. yesterday, it was korea. tonight it is vietnam. this undero sweep the rug. we are at war in vietnam. and yet, the president, who is the commander-in-chief of our forces, refuses to say -- refuses to say whether or not the objective over there is victory. and his secretary of defense

continues to mislead and misinform the american people and a enough of this has gone by. and i needn't remind you, but i will -- it has been during democratic leaders that a billion persons were cast into communist captivity and their fates sealed. belovedoday in our country, we have an administration which seems eager everyl with communism in coin known, and even human freedom itself.

now the republican cause demands that we brand communism as the principal disturber of peace in the world today. branded asshould be the only significant disturber of the peace and we should make clear until its goals of conquest are absolutely renounced, communism and the government it now controls are enemies of every man on earth free. or wants to be

now, we here in america can keep the peace only if we remain remaint, and only if we strong. our guard up can we prevent war. and i want to make this a abundant we clear. i do not intend for peace it to be torn from our grasp because of strength or lacked of will and that, i promise it you americans. 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 unified and free, trading

openly across its borders, communicating openly across the world. this is a goal far, far more meaningful than a moonshot. it's a truly inspiring goal for all free men to set for themselves during the latter half of the twentieth century. 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 americans and the

-- 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 that attitude of "simpatico" -- no

less than enlightened self-interest will be our guide. i can see this atlantic civilization galvanizing and guiding emergent nations everywhere. i know this freedom is not the fruit of every soil. i know that our own freedom was achieved through centuries, by unremitting efforts by brave and wise men. i know that the road to freedom is a long and a challenging road. 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 to go our way,

so that they will not wander down the dark alleys of tyranny or to the dead-end 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 american 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 for deliberation of the energy and talent of the individual -- otherwise our vision is blind at the outset. we must assure a society here which, while never abandoning the needy or forsaking the helpless, nurtures incentives

and opportunity for the creative and the productive. we must know the whole good is the product of many single contributions. 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, as individual citizens, can and should do. 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 self-reliant. 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 do not seek to lead anyone's life for him. we seek only to secure his rights and to guarantee him opportunity --

[applause] 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 creativity within

a stable order, for we republicans define government's role where needed at many, many levels, preferably through the one closest to the people involved. our towns and our cities, then our counties, then our states, then our regional contacts, 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 republican equation. republicans agree, 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, a party for free men, not for blind followers, and not for conformists.

back 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 strained, discordant, and even hostile elements" 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 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 -- [applause] 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. thank you. thank you. thank you. and let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

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 unquestionable devotion to freedom, will not fulfill the purposes of this campaign which we launch here 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. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> the republican national convention begins tomorrow in cleveland. next on