Linn Boyd

Born to the wife of part-time delegate Abraham Boyd in Nashville, Tennessee, he was raised and educated to some minimal extent in Trigg County. In 1832, Boyd married Trigg County native Alice C. Bennett. In 1850, the widower married a widow from Pennsylvania, Anna L. Dixon.Kentucky bio

Boyd moved to Calloway County to farm in 1826. The next year he became Calloway County's delegate in the Kentucky House of Representatives, and served alongside his father (who represented Trigg County) in 1828–1829. In 1831 Boyd moved back to Trigg County and its voters elected him to represent them in the state House.

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In 1833, Boyd lost his first campaign for the United States House of Representatives. In 1835 he was elected to the House and served there until 1837, when a Whig landslide resulting from the Panic of 1837 cost him his seat.

Kentucky voters of the First Congressional District soon returned Boyd to the House, and he would serve from 1839 through 1855. He was a strong supporter of President Andrew Jackson. Boyd played a key role in maneuvering the annexation of Texas through Congress during the term of President John Tyler in 1845. Boyd was also important in getting the Compromise of 1850, chiefly credited to Henry Clay, passed through Congress. Largely though his prominence in shepherding the compromise to passage, Boyd was elected Speaker of the House in 1851 and held that office until 1855.

While in the House, he sufficiently impressed his colleague Charles S. Benton that he named his son, the future inventor and businessman Linn Boyd Benton, after him.{{cite journal|last1=Cost|first1=Patricia|title=Linn Boyd Benton, Morris Fuller Benton, and Typemaking at ATF|journal=Printing History|date=1994|volume=16|url=https://d3eb7xfyht02et.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/31-32-Cost-Benton1.pdf|access-date=17 December 2016}}

While still in Congress, Boyd declined a nomination for Governor of Kentucky in 1848 and was replaced by Lazarus W. Powell. In 1852, he moved to Paducah.

After leaving the House, he was mentioned as a candidate for Vice President of the United States at the 1856 Democratic National Convention but was never officially nominated; the eventual nominee was fellow Kentuckian John C. Breckinridge.

Kentucky voters elected Boyd the 16th Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky in 1859, but he died after less than four months in office. This became significant with the onset of the Civil War. Governor Beriah Magoffin, who supported slavery, secession, and states' rights, became increasingly unpopular and distrusted as he sought to keep Kentucky on a neutral course between the Union and the Confederate States of America. Unionists held a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly in the summer of 1861 and frequently overrode Magoffin's vetoes. By August 1862, Magoffin made it clear that he was willing to resign the governorship. However, due to Linn Boyd's death, the person next in line to become Governor of Kentucky was Speaker of the Senate John F. Fisk, whom Magoffin thought unacceptable. After Fisk resigned as Speaker and was replaced by James F. Robinson, Magoffin resigned. Thus, Robinson became governor, and Fisk was reinstalled as Speaker of the Senate.

Boyd died in Paducah on December 17, 1859. He was buried at Paducah's Oak Grove Cemetery. Oaklands, a spacious brick home he had built in Paducah in 1852, no longer exists except as a street name.

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• {{cite book |last=Perrin |first=William Henry |title=Counties of Christian and Trigg, Kentucky : historical and biographical |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924028845762 |publisher=F.A. Battey Publishing Company |year=1884 |page=art II, p. 29}}

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Category:1800 births

Category:1859 deaths

Category:Politicians from Nashville, Tennessee

Category:Speakers of the United States House of Representatives

Category:Jacksonian members of the United States House of Representatives from Kentucky

Category:Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Kentucky

Category:Lieutenant governors of Kentucky

Category:Members of the Kentucky House of Representatives

Category:Farmers from Kentucky

Category:19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives

Category:19th-century members of the Kentucky General Assembly