A carpetbagger refers to white Northern abolitionists who came to the South after the Civil War to build the Republican party in the South. They, freed slaves, and white Southerners who joined the Republican party (scalawags) after the war formed a Republican coalition that was able to win elections during Reconstruction, partly because Federal occupation forces enforced the 15th Amendment. As a result more than sixty Carpetbaggers plus a handful of blacks were elected as Republicans to Congress and hundreds to state positions. Carpetbaggers comprised most of the leadership of the black-majority Republican party and were a critical factor in Republican political success. No only that, but many worked in the Freedman's bureau, the program set up to enforce the political and economic changes that followed emancipation. White Southern Democrats saw them as race-traitors as well as political enemies and hated them with an intensity that goes far beyond today's political divisions.
After the Federal troops pulled out in 1877, the scalawags moved back to the Democratic party as Republican strength collapsed in most of the South. Republicans managed to elect governors in Tennessee in 1880 and Virginia in 1881, otherwise it was solidly Democratic in the 1880's. During the 1890's the rise of the Populists created opportunities for political alliance between poor white Populist farmers and Southern (black) Republicans that mimicked the alliance between Northern populists and Northern Democrats. A fusion ticket of this type captured the North Carolina governorship in 1896 (the year William Jennings Bryan ran on the national Democratic/Populist fusion ticket). A biracial coalition gained control of the city of Wilmington, which led North Carolina Democrats to mount and armed coup to seized control of the city back for the white planter class.
Fears of this sort of thing throughout the South led to a flurry of state constitution changes over 1890-1908 that deprived black people of their voting rights. To discourage biracial coalitions from forming ever again, all the Southern states passed "Jim Crow" laws that enforced a kind of apartheid that kept the races from mixing and so ensured the political dominance of the South planter class.
Over this same period a new generation of historians began to float the "Lost Cause" narrative about the Civil War that minimized or denied the central role of slavery. Today, Lost Cause enthusiasts are often called NeoConfederates. Galen appears to be one of these.
After the Federal troops pulled out in 1877, the scalawags moved back to the Democratic party as Republican strength collapsed in most of the South. Republicans managed to elect governors in Tennessee in 1880 and Virginia in 1881, otherwise it was solidly Democratic in the 1880's. During the 1890's the rise of the Populists created opportunities for political alliance between poor white Populist farmers and Southern (black) Republicans that mimicked the alliance between Northern populists and Northern Democrats. A fusion ticket of this type captured the North Carolina governorship in 1896 (the year William Jennings Bryan ran on the national Democratic/Populist fusion ticket). A biracial coalition gained control of the city of Wilmington, which led North Carolina Democrats to mount and armed coup to seized control of the city back for the white planter class.
Fears of this sort of thing throughout the South led to a flurry of state constitution changes over 1890-1908 that deprived black people of their voting rights. To discourage biracial coalitions from forming ever again, all the Southern states passed "Jim Crow" laws that enforced a kind of apartheid that kept the races from mixing and so ensured the political dominance of the South planter class.
Over this same period a new generation of historians began to float the "Lost Cause" narrative about the Civil War that minimized or denied the central role of slavery. Today, Lost Cause enthusiasts are often called NeoConfederates. Galen appears to be one of these.