Carpetbaggers and Reconstruction
American Opportunism in the Post-Civil War Years
"Carpetbaggers" were the controversial northerners who moved to the south for political and business opportunities during the reconstruction period.
The reconstruction period which followed America’s devastating Civil War period of the 1860’s is one of the most often overlooked, yet exceedingly important era in the nation’s history, lasting for almost two decades, throughout the 1860's and 70's.
The nation had quite nearly just destroyed itself from the inside out in the bloodiest, costliest war the United States had fought up until this point. The southern lay in shambles, having given everything they had to the cause of the Confederacy, entire towns having been burned to the ground as Union Forces, under the command of General William Sherman, had proceeded to march through Georgia and the Carolinas (Sherman’s March to the Sea, it was called), leaving nothing but a wide swath of destruction in their wake. It had done a great deal to end the war and stop the bloodshed, but by Sherman's own estimate, the army had caused hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage along the way.
The south, where most of the fighting had taken place, lay devastated by the war, both financially and physically.
Reconstruction Begins
As soon as the war ended, in November of 1865, reconstruction began.
It was a complicated time, full of important political characters, healthy debate, corruption, greed and goodwill alike. The entire nation had changed forever, and it was during these decades that it was decided whether this change would be for better or for worse.
Enter the Carpetbaggers
After the war, one of the conditions of the surrender of the Confederacy was that thousands of ex-confederate politicians throughout the south were to step down from their places of privilege and power. This left many openings all over the land for new political prospects to come in and take over. Many who recognized this need and sought to fulfill it, mainly with their own selfish aspirations in mind, were citizens from the north, usually middle and even upper class, who looked at the south as almost a new frontier, full of land and opportunity.
These northerners moved to the south during the reconstruction period in droves, hoping to receive a position of power in the southern land, either for their own gain or for the genuine desire to see reconstruction move along; to satiate their abolitionist tendencies by keeping the peace amongst whites and the newly freed black citizens.
These peripatetic settlers were known throughout the nation as carpetbaggers. The name is said to have come from the fact that many of them carried all their belongings in carpetbags as sort of a cheap form of luggage.
As might be expected, the carpetbaggers during reconstruction didn't get the warmest welcome to those who were still holding onto pride in their southern cultures and lands, and didn't much appreciate the fact that northerners were coming in and exploiting the system, being offered positions as mayors, city councilmen and even congressmen. This resulted in a great deal of negative feelings between all of the different parties scheming for control of the south during reconstruction, and served to make what was already a complicated period even more so.
It is difficult to decide, looking back on the period, whether carpetbaggers caused more harm than good, or if they were in fact able to effect some change here and there in the south. Either way, they played an important part in the history of the south and in reconstruction, and their legacy remains to this day.
Modern Carpetbaggers
Today, the word Carpetbagger is still used as a derogatory term for anyone (mainly politicians) who moves from one place to another in search of political gain. Perhaps the most famous recent example of a modern carpetbagger is Hillary Clinton's famously successful 2000 run for senate in New York. These politicians are also known frequently as parachute candidates, as they seem to parachute in from foreign lands to lay claim to opportunity.
The term is also often used to describe companies who enter into war or disaster zones in order to capitalize on the government contracts and opportunities there. There have been several examples of this analogy being used in events of recent years.
Carpetbaggers, in the end, are rather controversial figures both in the past and present history of the United States, but it is a history that it is helpful to understand, because, as the famed Spanish-American polymath George Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”
References:
“The Origins of the Term Carpetbagger”
“American Experience: Reconstruction.”
