Patriotic Utterances
July 18, 1896
Summary
The paper comments and reports on a recent anti-lynching speech by Reverend Thames.
Transcription
Rev. T. B. Thames delivered a most able and excellent address at Danville, Va., on July 4th, 1896. He enunciated great principles and stated unanswerable truths.
He said: "Who takes the law into his own hands strikes at your liberty and mine and the people's. Oh! It is not simply now and then a poor brute has his merited fate precipitated, that here and there a righteous cause finds violent manifestation, but that men seem to have forgotten and are being taught to forget law and order that are the pillars that uphold our temple of liberty and when they are removed the temple itself totters and falls.”
Could anything be grander than that?
And again:
“Lynch law, riot, unrestrained speech, disregard of law and disrespect for the authorities that lie, under the guise of liberty, make a coterie of demons unmatched among the haters and hinderers of human rights and liberty. Democracy must not mean anarchy nor liberty mean license, nor freedom of speech as giving the right to sow among our people the seed of every damnable, political and social heresy. Let democracy stand for the highest form of government - self control, liberty as freedom under restraint of law and freedom of speech as only the right to interpret the claims of truth and law and justice. And these apostles of anarchy and strife - let them be sent back to the hot beds of European discontent from which they came or whipped by the power of law into a becoming regard for our law and liberties. The democracy of the type of the French revolution and of Herr Most, let us repudiate and extirpate, but of the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian type let us forever cherish and maintain."
This is sound doctrine, and upon this platform all men regardless of race, creed or color can be safely invited to stand. Lynch-law mast go!
He said: "Who takes the law into his own hands strikes at your liberty and mine and the people's. Oh! It is not simply now and then a poor brute has his merited fate precipitated, that here and there a righteous cause finds violent manifestation, but that men seem to have forgotten and are being taught to forget law and order that are the pillars that uphold our temple of liberty and when they are removed the temple itself totters and falls.”
Could anything be grander than that?
And again:
“Lynch law, riot, unrestrained speech, disregard of law and disrespect for the authorities that lie, under the guise of liberty, make a coterie of demons unmatched among the haters and hinderers of human rights and liberty. Democracy must not mean anarchy nor liberty mean license, nor freedom of speech as giving the right to sow among our people the seed of every damnable, political and social heresy. Let democracy stand for the highest form of government - self control, liberty as freedom under restraint of law and freedom of speech as only the right to interpret the claims of truth and law and justice. And these apostles of anarchy and strife - let them be sent back to the hot beds of European discontent from which they came or whipped by the power of law into a becoming regard for our law and liberties. The democracy of the type of the French revolution and of Herr Most, let us repudiate and extirpate, but of the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian type let us forever cherish and maintain."
This is sound doctrine, and upon this platform all men regardless of race, creed or color can be safely invited to stand. Lynch-law mast go!
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Upper Left Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Liam Eynan
Citation
“Patriotic Utterances,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed February 19, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1639.