Carpet Baggers And Scalawags

Southern dissenters in the civil war and reconstruction.

Carpet baggers and scalawags.

During and immediately after the civil war many northerners headed to the southern states driven by hopes of economic gain a desire to work on behalf of the newly. 48 scalawags were members of the 1867 constitutional convention 49 5 of the republican membership. Confederate military and political leaders were temporarily prohibited from participating in the political process. Republican governments filled the void and were able to retain control by depending upon the votes of the newly enfranchised blacks.

However fewer scalawags won nominations to federal offices. 15 were nominated or elected to congress 48 compared to 11 carpetbaggers and 5 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. Oxford university press 1988.

Artz edited by david h. Following the american civil war if someone called you a carpetbagger or scalawag it wasn t meant as a compliment. 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. A temporary political vacuum existed in the postwar south.

Louisiana state university press 2003. Pinkney and theodore ropp pp.