Hard-working, soft-spoken, and always the consummate gentleman, Jim Buckley will continue to inspire those of us who had the honor to work for him.
Jim Buckley lived life to its fullest as a faith-driven Roman Catholic World War II combat veteran who was passionately committed to the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He was especially committed to the final article of the latter, the Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
In his 2006 book Gleanings From An Unplanned Life, Jim Buckley explains the principle underlying the Tenth Amendment: “The ancient ‘Rule of Subsidiarity’ . . . holds that political authority should be assigned to the lowest level that is capable of exercising it.”
President Ronald Reagan appointed Jim Buckley to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in December 1985. As a judge, Jim Buckley always led by example, and never seemed fazed.
The day after control of the U.S. Senate shifted to the Democrats in 1987, in the midst of the “Reagan Revolution,” Judge Buckley entered his chambers first thing in the morning, as usual perusing the headlines of his Wall Street Journal. When he looked up to see his three judicial clerks huddled together and obviously looking for leadership guidance in light of the impending political turmoil for the president who appointed him to the bench, Judge Buckley calmly looked up and said to his clerks, “Gentlemen, sometimes you just need to trust in the Lord.”
We should all heed Jim Buckley’s sage advice to trust in the Lord. We should also pray that the same Lord bless us with more American leaders like Jim Buckley.
Joseph E. Schmitz clerked for Judge Buckley from 1986 to 1987, and later served as Inspector General of the Department of Defense from 2002 to 2005. He graduated with distinction from the U.S. Naval Academy, is a graduate of Stanford Law School, and is author of The Inspector General Handbook: Fraud, Waste, Abuse, and Other Constitutional ‘Enemies, Foreign and Domestic.’