Abstract

Lilburn W. Boggs and the Case for Jacksonian Democracy Robert John Walker Department of Religion, BYU Masters of Religious Education Lilburn W. Boggs was lieutenant governor of Missouri from 1832 to 1836. He was governor of Missouri from 1836 to 1840. Political upheaval was the order of the day as Jacksonian democrats overthrew, through the power of the ballot box, the establishment of the patrician leadership in the United States. Issues of equity, slavery, religion, settlement of the West, and divisive sectionalism threatened the Union of the states. President Andrew Jackson was the representation of the common man and the enemy of the monied oligarchy that assumed the right to rule the common people. Jackson's leadership enabled a powerful change in party politics as he became the charismatic figurehead of the Jacksonian Democratic Party. Boggs was a protégé of Thomas Hart Bennett, the powerful ally of Jackson and leading senator from Missouri. Boggs, beginning as a young man, rode the coattails of Benton right into the governor's mansion in Columbia, Missouri. This thesis examines Boggs' life and political career to ascertain whether or not he was truly a Jackson man as he represented himself to be to the electorate.

Degree

College and Department

Religious Education; Church History and Doctrine

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