Define Carpetbaggers And Scalawags

The term is now used in the united states to refer to a parachute candidate that is an outsider who runs.

Define carpetbaggers and scalawags.

The term is a derogatory epithet yet it is used by many historians anyway as in wiggins 1991 baggett 2003 rubin 2006 and wetta 2012. During the reconstruction period 1865 77 to denote a northerner who moved to the south. The term came to be associated with opportunism and exploitation by outsiders. Most southwestern scalawags were douglas democrats in 1860 while most upper south and southeastern scalawags were whigs who supported the constitutional union candidacy of john bell bust times inevitably recall repressed myths of gallant cavalry laid low by northern treachery and an economy ravaged by carpetbaggers and scalawags.

Carpetbagger derogatory term originally used in the u s. Collins english dictionary complete unabridged 2012 digital edition william collins sons co. Terms in this set 5 define carpetbagger. Origins of the term.

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. Meanwhile white southerners who supported reconstruction era republicans were called scalawags by their political enemies who considered them traitors to the south and just as bad if not worse. A traveler who arrives to a new region with only a satchel or carpetbag of possessions and who attempts to gain control over his new surroundings often against the will of the. It was applied to politicians and financial adventurers whom southerners accused of coming south to use the newly enfranchised freedmen to obtain office or profit.

Many carpetbaggers were said to have moved south for their own financial and political gains. Scalawags were white southerners who cooperated politically with black freedmen and northern newcomers. The word scalawag originally referring to low grade farm animals was adopted by their opponents to refer to southern whites who formed a republican coalition with black freedmen and northern newcomers called carpetbaggers to. The term carpetbaggers refers to northerners who moved to the south after the civil war during reconstruction.