I’m Mr. Beat, and I’m running for governor of Kansas in 2018.
Here’s Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey. At one time, he was one of the most popular governors in the United States.
However, by the time he left office, his approval rating had dropped all the way down to 14%.
(Chris Christie clip)
Many in New Jersey say he is the worst governor in their state’s history.
But what about the worst governors in other states?
Based on my research, here are the 10 worst governors in American history that I could find.
Oh, and before we get into this list, I didn’t include the governors who are currently in office or recently got out of office.
What can I say? We are always biased to have hatred to more recent politicians.
#10 Edwin Edwards Governor of Louisiana from 1972 to 1980, 1984 to 1988, and 1992 to 1996, serving 16 years total in office, or 5,784 days, the sixth-longest amount of time in office for any governor since the Constitution.
Widely considered one of the most corrupt governors in American history, he actually got caught for racketeering, extortion, money laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy.
He went to federal prison for eight years.
He was unapologetic about receiving illegal campaign donations.
He was accused of obstruction of justice and bribery.
The only reason why Edwards is not higher up on my list is because is dedication to civil rights and protecting minorities and the poor.
#9 Joel Aldrich Matteson
Or MATTson. Both pronunciations are correct.
I'll call him Mattyson because that's more fun.
Oh Louisiana and Illinois. You both have a long history of electing corrupt and just, plain horrible governors.
And Matteson is one of them.
Governor of Illinois from 1853 to 1857, he actually had a few accomplishments during his tenure.
This was when Illinois began public education, and Matteson oversaw a strong economy and the reduction of the state’s debt.
However, after he got out of office people started to find out about his shadiness.
You see, while in office, Matteson had found essentially IOU money in the form of scrips to pay for the Illinois and Michigan Canal.
Even though scrips had already been cashed in, Matteson found out they could be used again due to poor record keeping.
So he took a bunch of them for himself and cashed them in later on.
They were like blank checks from the state. It was later estimated, that Matteson stole at least $5 million this way, adjusted for inflation.
He would have probably stolen more if it weren’t for getting caught.
So Matteson stole a bunch of taxpayer money.
Oh yeah, and Abraham Lincoln hated him, too, so there’s that.
#8 Peter Hardeman Burnett California’s first governor, and probably its worst.
He was also the first California governor to resign, in office for just 14 months, from late 1849 to early 1851.
He wanted the American West for whites only, supporting laws that banned blacks from living in Oregon when he lived up there and trying to get laws passed in California to ban blacks from living there after it became a state under his watch.
He was also outspokenly racist toward Native Americans and Chinese immigrants.
He pushed for heavy taxes on immigrants and for Indian removal.
Oh, and he wanted the death penalty for theft.
Peter, you were not a good start for California.
#7 George Wallace Yeah, you’ve probably heard of George Wallace,
he’s one of the most infamous in American history and ran for President several times.
He was even in Forrest Gump.
But if you want a great bio about him, I recommend this video by Connor Higgins.
He’s most infamously known for the “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever” and racist stuff of his tenure, in which he embraced the KKK and basically argued that blacks and whites being in the same room was one of the worst things ever.
He even freaking stood in front of a door to prevent black students from attending classes at the University of Alabama.
But here’s the thing...he lost his first race for governor because he criticized the KKK and spoke out for African Americans.
Later in life, after being paralyzed in an assassination attempt, he reversed his ways also by condemning his past racism.
This just makes me assume he said whatever the majority of people wanted to hear in his state to get elected.
George Wallace, were you racist or were you not?
Ok yeah I think he truly was, though.
He was so power hungry he got his wife elected after he couldn’t run for re-election due to term limit laws, and to do so, he hid her cancer diagnosis from her.
She ended up dying less than 200 days after she took office.
The bottom line is, George Wallace was as us vs. them as one could get.
He knew how to divide Americans not only in Alabama, but across the country.
Wallace would be higher up on this list if not for changing later in life, asking forgiveness from African Americans.
"I was wrong. Those days are over, and they ought to be over."
#6 Orval Faubus From one Southern racist governor to another, but at least this one has a cool name.
Faubus was governor or Arkansas from 1955 to 1967.
Now Faubus really just had one major decision that tainted his legacy
Similar to Wallace, he was more about his political power, starting out more moderate when it came to civil rights issues, then all of sudden taking a firm pro-segregation stance after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.
In 1957, he became internationally infamous in what is known as the Little Rock Crisis.
After the federal government ordered racial desegregation, he was like, “nope,” sending the Arkansas National Guard to stop African Americans from attending Little Rock Central High School.
President Eisenhower had to send in federal troops to escort them in.
And then at the end of the year, the school shut down.
What’s frustrating about Faubus is that he really didn’t seem that racist. He just stubbornly did the wrong thing fueled the hatred of blacks in the South.
And he never apologized for it, like Wallace did.
#5 Lilburn Boggs Governor of Missouri from 1836 to 1840
Boggs is best known for Missouri Executive Order 44, or as many Mormons call it, the “Extermination Order.”
It was a response to the growing violence during what became known as the 1838 Mormon War, a series of clashes between Mormons and those they threatened in northeast Missouri.
Governor Boggs issued the order to drive Mormons out of the state because of their “open and avowed defiance of the laws, and of having made war upon the people of this State.”
He also added, “The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace.”
Geez, dude. And yep, it worked. The Mormons fled to the town of Nauvoo, Illinois.
Other great stuff about Boggs.
He wasted a bunch of taxpayer money building a new capitol.
Oh, and he almost caused a war with Iowa Territory due to a border dispute.
Actually, it was known as a war. The Honey War. Awwww, what a sweet name for a war.
#4 Len Small Well, here we go. Another Illinois governor.
In office during the Roaring Twenties, from 1921 to 1929.
His corruption started long before he was governor, back when he was the Illinois Treasurer.
He was charged with embezzling over a million dollars through money laundering, by “misplacing” state funds into a fake bank.
He went to trial for it while he was governor, and despite there being pretty good evidence that he was guilty, got off scot-free.
Coincidentally, eight of the jurors who said he was not guilty in his trial later got cushy state jobs, and so did the brothers of the judge in that case.
Coincidence?
In 1925, when the Illinois Supreme Court said that yep, Small was guilty and he had to pay back that $1 million after all, Small fought back with a legal team and forced his own state employees to help pay for his defense.
Small pardoned or released more than 1000 convicted felons, including a dude who was convicted of kidnapping young girls and making them slaves in which they were forced to be prostitutes.
Also, Small released a bootlegger who later became the leader of one of the most powerful bootlegging gangs in Chicago.
Oh Lenny. I can’t make this stuff up, can I?
#3 Wilson Lumpkin Another great name, another bad governor.
He was in office for the lovely state of Georgia from 1831 to 1835.
He thought his biggest accomplishment, you know, something he was most proud of, was the removal of the peaceful Cherokee Indians from north Georgia.
Yep, he was proud of kicking the Cherokee off their land, which led to the Trail of Tears and eventual death of 4,000 people.
Wow, Wilson. Just wow. Did I mention he went against the Supreme Court by kicking them out?
Check out that decision, by the way, I have a video about that called Worcester v. Georgia.
He encouraged white settlers to take their land while they were still there.
And did I mention he was a big supporter of slavery? Of course he was.
And speaking of slavery...
For #2, it’s a tie.
In fact, 28 governors all tie for #2 on this list.
They are the 28 Southern governors who all agreed to secede from the Union and become leaders in the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.
Here are their names. I’m not going to read them off for you, but all of them declared allegiance to the Confederacy in the name of preserving the institution of slavery.
I’m not going to call them traitors, because they didn’t think they were traitors. But they were wrong, and in my opinion, they do not deserve to be honored.
And this last one will likely surprise you…
#1 Brigham Young
If you’re one of his 1,000 direct descendants, I’m pretty sure you are going to be offended by what I’m about to say.
And if you’re Mormon, well I talked trash about Boggs earlier so hopefully this evens out.
In case you didn’t know, Brigham Young was governor of the Territory of Utah from 1851 to 1858.
Governor? Dictator might be a better word. I mean, he had absolute power.
And there was no separation of church and state, it was a theocracy.
After he led his Mormon followers into what is now known as Utah, and before the Feds go involved, whatever he said went.
He argued slavery was a “divine institution.”
Yep, people forget Utah used to allow slavery. Ok, and obviously the polygamy thing.
He had 55 wives, for crying out loud.
After he couldn’t convert the local Native American population to the Church of Latter Day Saints, he basically ordered to kill them. Yep. Genocide. Ethnic cleansing.
And under his watch, the Mountain Meadows Massacre happened.
Just Google it. It’s horrific, and it caused him to step down as governor.
When the federal government came to challenge him during the Utah War, Young declared marital law and told his followers they may have to burn down their homes, hide in the woods, and conduct guerilla warfare to defend their way of life.
He maybe started out as a nice guy, but in the end I think the power corrupted him, as power tends to do.
So that’s it. I’m sure that last one surprised you, probably because you didn’t realize how horrible Brigham Young was or maybe you didn't realize he was a governor for a short while.
He does have tons of monuments out there celebrating him and even a university named after him that’s one of the biggest universities in the country.
Before I go, I want to point out that I was fairly out of my comfort zone when researching for this video
There are so many governors in American history.
that it's really hard to keep track of them. Plus, there's a lot of really bad ones
and a lot of governors that we don't know much about in the early years.
So if there are any governors that I did not include, that I totally missed
please let me know in the comments. I will not be offended.
Just let it all out.
I do have a list of honorable mentions.
Or should I say "DIShonorable mentions."
That I included in the description of this video.
They didn't quite make the cut.
But as far as I know, this is the only video out there
about the worst governors in American history.
And thank you to Ian for giving me the idea. This video is dedicated to him.
And to his mom. Thank you to you both for your support on Patreon. It means so much.
I'll be back with a new episode of Supreme Court Briefs next week.
Thank you for watching.
And there's just one more thing.
I'm really not running for Kansas governor in 2018. I just made that up.