John Temple Graves

John Temple Graves (November 9, 1856 – August 8, 1925) was an American newspaper editor who is best known for being the vice presidential nominee of the Independence Party in the presidential election of 1908.

Biography Graves was born in 1856 in Willington, South Carolina, to General James Porterfield Graves (1820–1914) and Katherine Floride Townes (1827–1858). He was related to the Calhoun family, a prominent family in 18th and 19th-century American politics, and was the great-grandnephew of John C. Calhoun, who served as Vice President of the United States from 1825 until 1832. Graves joined the Kappa Alpha Order in 1871 and achieved the rank of Knight Commander, KA's highest nation post, a decade later. In 1907, the order would hold a banquet in his honor.

He served as a presidential elector for Florida in 1884 and for Georgia in 1888.

In a speech in Chautauqua, New York, he denounced allowing African-Americans to vote: "This is a white man's government, and it will remain so forever, for God Almighty has stamped his seal and sign of sovereignty upon the Anglo-Saxon tribe."

In 1903, Graves made a statement defending lynching: "The problem of the hour is not how to prevent lynching in the South, but the larger question: How shall we destroy the crime which always has and always will provoke lynching? The answer which the mob returns to this vital question is already known. The mob answers it with the rope, the bullet, and sometimes, God save us! with the torch. And the mob is practical; its theory is effective to a large degree. The mob is today the sternest, the strongest, and the most effective restraint that the age holds for the control of rape."

Graves advocated for the deportation of African-Americans to the Pacific Islands, "some untaken and underdeveloped Western territory", or Africa. He stated that the Fifteenth Amendment was "the American mistake of the century". Black leaders claimed Graves was the most influential voice in support of the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot.

In the general election, the Independence Party ticket received 82,574 votes (0.55%), coming in fifth place. It performed best in Massachusetts, where it received 4.2% of the popular vote. Following the general election defeat, the Independence Party quickly faded away into obscurity although it fielded candidates in New York until 1914.

Later career Graves later rejoined the Democratic Party and spoke at the 1912 Democratic National Convention. He died in Washington, D.C., on August 8, 1925, at the age of 68.