Carpet Baggers And Scalawags

Artz edited by david h.

Carpet baggers and scalawags.

Although carpetbagger and scalawag were originally terms of opprobrium they are now commonly used in the scholarly literature to refer to these classes of people. Oxford university press 1988. Southern dissenters in the civil war and reconstruction. The term carpetbagger was used by opponents of reconstruction the period.

A temporary political vacuum existed in the postwar south. Following the american civil war if someone called you a carpetbagger or scalawag it wasn t meant as a compliment. 48 scalawags were members of the 1867 constitutional convention 49 5 of the republican membership. Pinkney and theodore ropp pp.

15 were nominated or elected to congress 48 compared to 11 carpetbaggers and 5 blacks. Carpetbaggers reconsidered in a festschrift for frederick b. Republican governments filled the void and were able to retain control by depending upon the votes of the newly enfranchised blacks. Scalawags were white southerners who supported the republican party carpetbaggers were recent arrivals in the region from the north and freedmen were freed slaves.

Confederate military and political leaders were temporarily prohibited from participating in the political process. Louisiana state university press 2003.