Lilburn W. Boggs
Lilburn Williams Boggs (December 14, 1796 – March 14, 1860) was the sixth Governor of Missouri from 1836 to 1840. He is now most widely remembered for Missouri Executive Order 44, known by Mormons as the "Extermination Order" in which members of the faith were given a choice between a long cold Bataan Death March in the middle of winter, or a nice warm bullet lodged in their abdomens. This made him infamous to Mormons, and a folk hero to Californians who oppose Proposition 8. Boggs was also a key player in the Honey War of 1837.
Early life[edit | edit source]
Christened with the name Dweezil Moon-Unit Boggs, the future governor had a terrible time with bullies while growing up. His constant anger over his name meant that he had no friends, and when he had free time (which wasn't much because he lived in a time when people had to do actual work instead of sitting on their butts playing Gameboy all day) he developed a fascination for fire and gunpowder. After he burned down the barn at age 9, everyone started calling him Lil' Burn, which he changed his name to at age 18. He chose Williams for a middle name so that he could have at least one normal name.
Political career[edit | edit source]
Boggs started out as a clerk, but after he got canned for lying to his boss, he entered politics. He served as a Missouri state senator in 1825 to 1832; as lieutenant governor from 1832 to 1836; governor from 1836 to 1841; and again as state senator from 1842 to 1846. He was a most definitely a Democrat, and is a favorite of President Obama, who had all paintings and photographs of former Republican Presidents removed from the White House and replaced with portraits of Boggs.
Boggs initially was planning on running for governor on a Jewish extermination platform, but when he couldn't find any in Missouri, he switched to a Mormon extermination platform, which went over really well with the Adulterers, Criminals, and Lesbians Union (ACLU) who's members made up the majority of the state population at that time.
KILL ALL THE STINKING MORMONS[edit | edit source]
By 1839, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who had been treated poorly in New York, had thought they had at last found some peace in Missouri, and had taken a large tract of nasty swamp land turned it into a beautiful city named Nauvoo. Nauvoo had population of about 12,000 at the time, nearly the population of Chicago. People who visited the city drooled over it's lush beautiful lawns, tidy flower gardens, and white picket fences, which were a stark contrast to the dung that passed for cities in the rest of the state.
Members of the ACLU visited the city and decided that the rich Mormons needed to fork over some welfare to the rest of the state population, and decided to do this by kicking out all the Mormons and reclassifying the city as an urban housing project run by the state. All the lazy butts who felt that the government owed them something but weren't willing to work for themselves formed the "Occupy Nauvoo" movement and decided to take over the place.
Governor Boggs was more than happy to pander to these people, and issued Order 44. In part, it stated:
- "by their open and avowed defiance of the laws, and of having made war upon the people of this State ... the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description."
This order was later translated into German and used by Hitler to the joy of Nazis everywhere. Hitler obviously replaced the word Mormons with Jews.
Three days after the order, a state militia unit participated in the Haan's Mill Turkey Shoot, and local county fairs all over the state advertised several new state-sponsored events, including:
- Who can put the most bullets into a 12 year old Mormon girl before she dies?
- Breaking the world record for number of Mormons in a burning shed!
- Special edition of Will it Blend? using Mormons!
- Mormon catapults!
- Prizes for the tallest bamboo shoot grown through a Mormon!
As a result of the festivities, Mormons abandoned their city and crossed the a frozen Mississippi River on their way to Illinois. When Amnesty International asked about the event, photographs of the event were doctored and the event was billed as an ice skating party put on by the Mormons as they bid a fond farewell to the state.
Three weeks later the city of Nauvoo was a trash heap.
The extermination order remained in place for an additional 137 years until June 25, 1976, during which time it was legal to shoot Mormons on sight. Atheists across the nation were reportedly devastated when the order was repealed.
The Honey War[edit | edit source]
The Honey War was a mostly bloodless dispute in the 1830s between Iowa (first as a part of Wisconsin Territory, then Iowa Territory) and Missouri over their "Honeys". It began when Boggs, while drunk bragged to the Governor of the Wisconsin Territory that the honeys in Missouri were way hotter than the honeys in Wisconsin, and cited as an example the two men's wives. Word of this got to the Wisconsin press, which caused outrage in the territory. Citizens of Wisconsin retaliated by producing and distributing filers depicting the "average" honey from Missouri. This enraged Missouri farmers who traveled to the boarder with wagon loads of dung which they threw at passing cheese heads. Wisconsin farmers retaliated with rocks, and the conflict would have escalated to skirmishes on the border, but the farmers all had to get back to their crops for harvest.