Who You Callin’ a Carpetbagger!

Have you ever wondered how we got from the end of slavery and an amendment declaring all citizens are equal to Jim Crow and segregation?

Yeah? Me too. Something’s missing there.

Follow along here, I’ve given it in chronological order, see if you can spot the unfamiliar part:

• The North wins the Civil War, and the Union is preserved.

• The Confederacy dissolves and slavery is abolished everywhere in the US.

• “Black Codes” that dictate virtually every aspect of black people’s lives are passed across the South. They look strikingly similar to what was known in the antebellum as “slave codes.”

• The 14th Amendment is ratified declaring formerly enslaved persons citizens with “equal protection under the laws.”

• Word finally makes it to the farthest stretch, and Juneteenth celebrations begin.

Sing it with me, fellow fans of Sesame Street, “one of these things is not like the others…”

Yeah, it’s the Black Codes, which started immediately after the Confederacy surrendered.

Like, immediately.

Yet, the Black Codes don’t show up in our classrooms, or collective knowledge, until much later, when we get to desegregation and talk about what they morphed into, Jim Crow laws.

But wait a second.

If the Civil War ended slavery for good, and the 14th Amendment emphasized everyone’s equality, why was the country still segregated and unequal one-hundred years later?

How did the South get away with this? Doesn’t the victor declare the rules moving forward?

To explain this, I think I’ve gotta say it.

Here we go.

The South was a sore loser and didn’t readily go along with the new rules.

I know, that’s still a big secret to some, but there, I said it.

The Union was none too pleased, so they sent people down there to try to enforce these new seriously-everybody-gets-human-rights-now laws.

These travelers were given a colorful moniker by the South, carpetbaggers.

Library of Congress (and yes, there’s even a song)

Growing up in the South, I learned a carpetbagger (from my textbook nonetheless) was someone who came from out of town and tried to get elected to shift the political landscape.

I heard from my elders they were opportunists who didn’t know anything about the way things worked in the places they were moving but still wanted to be in charge.

I learned they were a strain on the local economy, showing up with only the clothes they could carry in a carpetbag (aka suitcase) and expected the new town to not only take care of them, but put them in office!

I learned the poor, burnt to the ground, defeated South was inundated with these snakes, who wanted to take advantage and strike fame and fortune overnight.

But really, who were these carpetbagging, parasitic, opportunists and what were they actually coming to do?

What history (and oh so many textbooks) has comfortably come to call “carpetbaggers,” were the first brave souls that moved their lives from the North to the South to try to get some traction on the whole slavery-is-abolished-now bit in light of these Black Codes during Reconstruction. They saw the South not honoring the federal laws. Hard. So, they did something about it.

They knew their lives would be in danger.

They knew they would not be welcomed in their new hometowns.

They knew the road ahead was long and dangerous, but they also knew nothing would change if they didn’t.

Some northerners did get themselves into elected positions at the state and local levels.

Just looking at Louisiana, two of their Reconstruction era governors, three US senators, and ten congressmen in the House, including the Speaker, were carpetbaggers. In New Orleans, the Custom House, Mint, Post Office, Land Office, IRS, and Fifth Circuit Court were controlled by carpetbaggers during Reconstruction.

But when we say “carpetbaggers,” we’re also talking about teachers, physicians, businesspeople, lawyers, and newspaper editors that set out on the first civil rights missions echoed by the Freedom Riders a century later. The majority of these carpetbaggers were Union veterans, relocating their lives to help enforce what they had already won.

Slight tangent here.

Suppose you were a white southerner, and you accepted the Confederacy lost and you supported these northerners and the changes they were trying to make in your community. Maybe you thought plantations were outdated and you were eager to see new railroads, factories and tractors near your home. The South had a name for you too: scalawag. A pejorative term still in our vernacular today.

Alright, back on track.

We’ve got some very unwelcome “carpetbaggers” moving to the South and starting to get some traction. Life is gradually getting better for recently emancipated citizens. So how do we get from Reconstruction slowly starting to work to Jim Crow laws?

To answer that, you’ve got to know something about the presidential election that ended Reconstruction.

Ok, it’s 1876, and there’s a hotly contested presidential election between Samuel Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes.

Election day comes and goes and still, no clear winner.

Three states are the holdouts: South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana.

All three argue that fraud, intimidation and violence in various districts invalidated the votes.

Both candidates declare victory in all three states.

While the Senate is sorting it out in a full-on circus with filibusters galore, Hayes quietly makes some concessions to the three states in question. Among those concessions, pull all of the federal troops (a bunch of veteran carpetbaggers) enforcing these equality laws out of the South.

When all the votes are counted again, Hayes came out with 185 electoral votes to Tilden’s 184 and was declared the victor two days before inauguration day.

Leslie’s Weekly

From there the South, which had promised Hayes they would uphold fair voting laws and civil rights for recently emancipated peoples if he just got rid of these carpetbaggers, changed course pretty quickly.

With Reconstruction in the rearview mirror, Southern states formalized their Black Codes into Jim Crow laws, and those suckers stuck until the 1960s.

So, there you have it. Sore losers, educational omissions, and a thirst for executive power took us from the good place we all learned about in school after the Civil War to the nadir of white supremacy that brought about the next civil rights push four-score years later.