Carpetbagger Definition

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Carpetbagger definition.

Someone who tries to be elected as a politician in a place away from their home because they. Carpetbagger is a term from the united states political history. The term carpetbagger used exclusively as a pejorative term originated from the carpet bags a form of cheap luggage made from carpet fabric which many of these newcomers carried. A carpetbagger was a northerner who moved to the south after the american civil war.

A northerner who went to the south after the civil war and became active in republican politics especially so as to profiteer from the unsettled social and political conditions of the area during reconstruction. They were called carpetbaggers to imply that they were such poor transient characters that they merely moved south carrying all their possessions in a carpet bag. White southerners feared they would loot the defeated south. Carpetbagger definition is a northerner in the south after the american civil war usually seeking private gain under the reconstruction governments.

After the civil war the carpetbaggers from the north tried to take over the south opportunist self seeker a person who places expediency above principle based on wordnet 3 0 farlex clipart collection. Carpetbagger an outsider who seeks power or success presumptuously. In the post us civil war south carpetbaggers were northerners who moved to the south to take advantage of the unstable social financial and political climate. A politician who takes up residence in a place and runs for office without having strong ties to the area.

The term came to be associated with opportunism and exploitation by outsiders. Carpetbagger in the united states a derogatory term for an individual from the north who relocated to the south during the reconstruction period 1865 77 following the american civil war.