Carpetbagger

In the history of the United States, a carpetbagger was a Northerner who moved to the South after the American Civil War, during the Reconstruction era (1863–1877). Many white Southerners denounced them fearing they would loot and plunder the defeated South and be politically allied with the Radical Republicans. Sixty men from the North, including educated free people of color and slaves who had escaped to the North and returned South after the war, were elected as Republicans to Congress. The majority of Republican governors in the South during Reconstruction were from the North. Historian Eric Foner argues:

... most carpetbaggers probably combine the desire for personal gain with a commitment to taking part in an effort "to substitute the civilization of freedom for that of slavery". ... Carpetbaggers generally supported measures aimed at democratizing and modernizing the South – civil rights legislation, aid to economic development, the establishment of public school systems.

"Carpetbagger" was used by Southerners as a pejorative term, referring to the carpet bags (a form of cheap luggage made from carpet fabric) which many of these newcomers carried. The term came to be associated with opportunism and exploitation by outsiders. In the early 21st century in the US, the term is used to refer to a parachute candidate, that is, an outsider who runs for public office in an area where they do not have deep community ties, or have lived only for a short time.

In the United Kingdom at the end of the twentieth century, "carpetbagger" developed another meaning: in British English it refers to people who join a mutual organization, such as a building society, in order to force it to demutualize, that is, to convert into a . Such individuals are seeking personal financial gain through such actions.

Three groups comprised the Republican Party in the South after the Civil War, and conservative white Southerners referred to two with derogatory terms. "Scalawags" were white Southerners who supported the party, "carpetbaggers" were recent arrivals in the region from the North, and Freedmen were freed slaves. Although "carpetbagger" and "scalawag" were originally terms of opprobrium, in the early 21st century they are commonly used in the scholarly literature to refer to these classes of people. Politically, the carpetbaggers were usually dominant; they comprised the majority of Republican governors and congressmen. However, the Republican Party inside each state was increasingly torn between the more conservative scalawags on one side and the more Radical carpetbaggers with their black allies on the other. In most cases, the carpetbaggers won out, and many scalawags moved into the conservative or Democratic opposition.

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