carpetbagger

(noun)

A pejorative term for Northerners who moved to the South after the American Civil War, especially ones who went South to gain political influence or personal wealth. This term also can refer to someone perceived as intervening in the politics of an area without actually having a connection with the area.

Related Terms

(noun)

A pejorative term for a Northerner who moved to the South after the American Civil War, especially one who went South to gain political influence or personal wealth. This term also can refer to someone perceived as intervening in the politics of an area without actually having a connection to that area.

Related Terms

(noun)

This is a pejorative term for Northerners who moved to the South after the American Civil War, especially ones who went South to gain political influence or personal wealth. This term can also refer to someone perceived as intervening in the politics of an area without actually having a connection with the area.

Related Terms

Examples of carpetbagger in the following topics:

  • Carpetbaggers and Scalawags

    • In fact, carpetbaggers became a powerful political force during Reconstruction.
    • Many carpetbaggers moved to the South as social reformers.
    • Following the Civil War, carpetbaggers often bought plantations at fire-sale prices.
    • Like "carpetbagger," the term "scalawag" has a long history of use as a slur.
    • This political cartoon from 1872 depicts carpetbaggers in a negative light.

  • Partisan Politics

    • In the South, the Republicans won strong support from the freedmen (newly enfranchised African Americans), but the party was usually controlled by local whites ("scalawags") and opportunistic Yankees ("carpetbaggers").
    • By the mid-1870s, it was clear that Confederate nationalism was dead; all but the most ardent Republican "Stalwarts" agreed that the southern Republican coalition of African-American freedmen, scalawags, and carpetbaggers was helpless and hopeless.

  • Change in the Democratic Party

    • In several states, the more conservative "scalawags" fought for control with the more radical "carpetbaggers," and the Republican Party steadily lost support.
    • Meanwhile, freedmen were demanding a bigger share of the offices and patronage, squeezing out their carpetbagger allies.

  • Conservative Resurgence

    • Most white members of both the planter/business class and common farmer class of the South opposed black power, Carpetbaggers and military rule and sought white supremacy.

  • "Poor Whites"

    • Most, however, remained conservatives who politically opposed the carpetbaggers, freedmen, and scalawags who comprised the Republican Party in the South.

  • The Transformed South

    • Fleming accepted as necessary the disenfranchisement of African Americans because he thought their votes were bought and sold by carpetbaggers.

  • The Bourbons and the Redeemers

    • Redeemers were the southern wing of the Bourbon Democrats—the conservative, pro-business faction in the Democratic Party who sought to oust the Republican coalition of freedmen, carpetbaggers, and scalawags.

  • The Radical Record

    • Through elections in the South, ex-Confederate officeholders were gradually replaced with a coalition of freedmen, Southern whites (scalawags), and Northerners who had resettled in the South (carpetbaggers).