Carpet Baggers And Scalawags

A temporary political vacuum existed in the postwar south.

Carpet baggers and scalawags.

Scalawags were white southerners who supported the republican party carpetbaggers were recent arrivals in the region from the north and freedmen were freed slaves. 15 were nominated or elected to congress 48 compared to 11 carpetbaggers and 5 blacks. However fewer scalawags won nominations to federal offices. 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.

Artz edited by david h. And seven scalawags were members of the 1875 constitutional convention 58 of the minuscule. Republican governments filled the void and were able to retain control by depending upon the votes of the newly enfranchised blacks. Confederate military and political leaders were temporarily prohibited from participating in the political process.

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. Southern dissenters in the civil war and reconstruction. Louisiana state university press 2003. Pinkney and theodore ropp pp.

Following the american civil war if someone called you a carpetbagger or scalawag it wasn t meant as a compliment. Oxford university press 1988.