Editing Carpetbagger (section)

== Prominent examples in state politics==
===Mississippi===
Union General [[Adelbert Ames]], a native of Maine, was appointed military governor and later was elected as Republican governor of Mississippi during the [[Reconstruction era (United States)|Reconstruction era]]. Ames tried unsuccessfully to ensure equal rights for black Mississippians. His political battles with the Southerners and African Americans ripped apart his party.<ref>Garner (1902); Harris (1979)</ref>

The "Black and Tan" (biracial) constitutional convention in Mississippi in 1868 included 30 white Southerners, 17 Southern freedmen and 24 non-southerners, nearly all of whom were veterans of the Union Army. They included four men who had lived in the South before the war, two of whom had served in the [[Confederate States Army]]. Among the more prominent were Gen. [[Beroth B. Eggleston]], a native of New York; Col. A.T. Morgan, of the Second Wisconsin Volunteers; Gen. W.S. Barry, former commander of a Colored regiment raised in Kentucky; an Illinois general and lawyer who graduated from Knox College; Maj. W.H. Gibbs, of the Fifteenth Illinois infantry; Judge W. B. Cunningham, of Pennsylvania; and Cap. E.J. Castello, of the Seventh Missouri infantry. They were among the founders of the Republican party in Mississippi.{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}}

They were prominent in the politics of the state until 1875, but nearly all left Mississippi in 1875 to 1876 under pressure from the [[Red Shirts (Southern United States)|Red Shirts]] and [[White Liners]]. These white [[paramilitary organizations]], described as "the military arm of the Democratic Party", worked openly to violently overthrow Republican rule, using intimidation and assassination to turn Republicans out of office and suppress freedmen's voting.<ref>George C. Rable, ''But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction'', Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1984, p.132</ref><ref>Nicholas Lemann, ''Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War'', New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, paperback, 2007, pp.80–87</ref><ref>Garner 187–88</ref> Mississippi Representative [[Wiley P. Harris]], a Democrat, stated in 1875:
<blockquote>If any two hundred Southern men backed by a Federal administration should go to Indianapolis, turn out the Indiana people, take possession of all the seats of power, honor, and profit, denounce the people at large as assassins and barbarians, introduce corruption in all the branches of the public administration, make government a curse instead of a blessing, league with the most ignorant class of society to make war on the enlightened, intelligent, and virtuous, what kind of social relations would such a state of things beget.<ref>{{cite book | last = Mayes | first = Edward | title = Lucius Q.C. Lamar: His Life, Times, and Speeches. 1825-1893 | publisher = Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South | year = 1896 | url = https://archive.org/details/cu31924030911923 | page = [https://archive.org/details/cu31924030911923/page/n167 149]}}</ref></blockquote>

[[Albert T. Morgan]], the Republican sheriff of Yazoo, Mississippi, received a brief flurry of national attention when insurgent white Democrats took over the county government and forced him to flee. He later wrote ''Yazoo; Or, on the Picket Line of Freedom in the South'' (1884).{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}}

On November 6, 1875, [[Hiram Rhodes Revels|Hiram Revels]], a Mississippi Republican and the first African American U.S. Senator, wrote a letter to U.S. President [[Ulysses S. Grant]] that was widely reprinted. Revels denounced Ames and Northerners for manipulating the Black vote for personal benefit, and for keeping alive wartime hatreds:

{{blockquote|Since reconstruction, the masses of my people have been, as it were, enslaved in mind by unprincipled adventurers, who, caring nothing for country, were willing to stoop to anything no matter how infamous, to secure power to themselves, and perpetuate it...My people have been told by these schemers, when men have been placed on the ticket who were notoriously corrupt and dishonest, that they must vote for them; that the salvation of the party depended upon it; that the man who scratched a ticket was not a Republican. This is only one of the many means these unprincipled demagogues have devised to perpetuate the intellectual bondage of my people...The bitterness and hate created by the late civil strife has, in my opinion, been obliterated in this state, except perhaps in some localities, and would have long since been entirely obliterated, were it not for some unprincipled men who would keep alive the bitterness of the past, and inculcate a hatred between the races, in order that they may aggrandize themselves by office, and its emoluments, to control my people, the effect of which is to degrade them.<ref>Full text in Garner, pp. 399–400.</ref>}}

[[Elza Jeffords]], a lawyer from Portsmouth, Ohio who fought with the [[Army of the Tennessee]], remained in Mississippi after the conclusion of the Civil War. He was the last Republican to represent that state in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 1883 to 1885. He died in Vicksburg, Mississippi 16 days after he left Congress. The next Republican congressman from the state was not elected until 80 years later in 1964: [[Prentiss Walker]] of Mize, Mississippi, who served a single term from 1965 to 1967.{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}}

===North Carolina===
Corruption was a charge made by Democrats in North Carolina against the Republicans, notes the historian Paul Escott, "because its truth was apparent."<ref name="Escott 160">Escott 160</ref> The historians [[Eric Foner]] and [[W.E.B. Du Bois]] have noted that Democrats as well as Republicans received bribes and participated in decisions about the railroads.<ref name="Foner, 1988, pp. 387">Foner, 1988, pp. 387</ref> General [[Milton S. Littlefield]] was dubbed the "Prince of Carpetbaggers", and bought votes in the legislature "to support grandiose and fraudulent railroad schemes". Escott concludes that some Democrats were involved, but Republicans "bore the main responsibility for the issue of $28 million in state bonds for railroads and the accompanying corruption. This sum, enormous for the time, aroused great concern." Foner says Littlefield disbursed $200,000 (bribes) to win support in the legislature for state money for his railroads, and Democrats as well as Republicans were guilty of taking the bribes and making the decisions on the railroad.<ref name="Foner, 1988, pp. 387"/> North Carolina Democrats condemned the legislature's "depraved villains, who take bribes every day"; one local Republican officeholder complained, "I deeply regret the course of some of our friends in the Legislature as well as out of it in regard to financial matters, it is very embarrassing indeed."<ref name="Escott 160"/>

Escott notes that extravagance and corruption increased taxes and the costs of government in a state that had always favored low expenditure. The context was that a planter elite kept taxes low because it benefited them. They used their money toward private ends rather than public investment. None of the states had established public school systems before the Reconstruction state legislatures created them, and they had systematically underinvested in infrastructure such as roads and railroads. Planters whose properties occupied prime riverfront locations relied on river transportation, but smaller farmers in the backcountry suffered.<ref name="Escott 160"/>

Escott claimed "Some money went to very worthy causes—the 1869 legislature, for example, passed a school law that began the rebuilding and expansion of the state's public schools. But far too much was wrongly or unwisely spent" to aid the Republican Party leadership. A Republican county commissioner in Alamance eloquently denounced the situation: "Men are placed in power who instead of carrying out their duties...form a kind of school for to graduate Rascals. Yes if you will give them a few Dollars they will liern you for an accomplished Rascal. This is in reference to the taxes that are rung from the labouring class of people. Without a speedy reformation I will have to resign my post."<ref name="Escott 160"/>

[[Albion W. Tourgée]], formerly of Ohio and a friend of President [[James A. Garfield]], moved to North Carolina, where he practiced as a lawyer and was appointed a judge. He once opined that "Jesus Christ was a carpetbagger."<ref>Elliott, Mark, ''Color-Blind Justice: Albion Tourgée and the Quest for Racial Equality from the Civil War to Plessy V. Ferguson'', Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 119</ref> Tourgée later wrote ''A Fool's Errand'', a largely autobiographical novel about an idealistic carpetbagger persecuted by the [[Ku Klux Klan]] in North Carolina.<ref>Hill, Christopher, "Summary" of a ''Fool's Errand'', http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/tourgee/summary.html</ref>

===South Carolina===
A politician in South Carolina who was called a carpetbagger was [[Daniel Henry Chamberlain]], a New Englander who had served as an officer of a predominantly black regiment of the [[United States Colored Troops]]. He was appointed South Carolina's attorney general from 1868 to 1872 and elected Republican governor from 1874 to 1877. As a result of the national [[Compromise of 1877]], Chamberlain lost his office. He was narrowly re-elected in a campaign marked by egregious voter fraud and violence against freedmen by Democratic [[Red Shirts (Southern United States)|Red Shirts]], who succeeded in suppressing the black vote in some majority-black counties.<ref>Nicholas Lemann, ''Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War'', New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, paperback, 2007</ref> While serving in South Carolina, Chamberlain was a strong supporter of Negro rights.{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}}

Some historians of the early 1800s, who belonged to the [[Dunning School]] that believed that the Reconstruction era was fatally flawed, claimed that Chamberlain later was influenced by [[Social Darwinism]] to become a white supremacist. They also wrote that he supported [[states' rights]] and laissez-faire in the economy. They portrayed "liberty" in 1896 as the right to rise above the rising tide of equality. Chamberlain was said to justify white supremacy by arguing that, in evolutionary terms, the Negro obviously belonged to an inferior social order.<ref name="Simkins and Woody. 1932">Simkins and Woody. (1932)</ref>

[[Charles Woodward Stearns]], also from Massachusetts, wrote an account of his experience in South Carolina: ''The Black Man of the South, and the Rebels: Or, the Characteristics of the Former and the Recent Outrages of the Latter'' (1873).{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}}

[[Francis Lewis Cardozo]], a black minister from New Haven, Connecticut, served as a delegate to South Carolina's 1868 Constitutional Convention. He made eloquent speeches advocating that the plantations be broken up and distributed among the freedmen. They wanted their own land to farm and believed they had already paid for land by their years of uncompensated labor and the trials of slavery.<ref name="Simkins and Woody. 1932"/>

===Louisiana===
[[Henry C. Warmoth]] was the Republican governor of Louisiana from 1868 to 1874. As governor, Warmoth was plagued by accusations of corruption, which continued to be a matter of controversy long after his death. He was accused of using his position as governor to trade in state bonds for his personal benefit. In addition, the newspaper company which he owned received a contract from the state government. Warmoth supported the [[suffrage|franchise]] for freedmen.<ref name="Foner 1968">Foner (1968)</ref>

Warmoth struggled to lead the state during the years when the [[White League]], a white Democratic terrorist organization, conducted an open campaign of violence and intimidation against Republicans, including freedmen, with the goals of regaining Democratic power and white supremacy. They pushed Republicans from political positions, were responsible for the [[Coushatta Massacre]], disrupted Republican organizing, and preceded elections with such intimidation and violence that black voting was sharply reduced. Warmoth stayed in Louisiana after Reconstruction, as white Democrats regained political control of the state. He died in 1931 at age 89.<ref name="Foner 1968"/>

[[George Luke Smith]], a New Hampshire native, served briefly in the U.S. House from [[Louisiana's 4th congressional district]] but was unseated in 1874 by the Democrat [[William M. Levy]]. He then left [[Shreveport, Louisiana|Shreveport]] for Hot Springs, Arkansas.<ref>"George Luke Smith", ''[[Biographical Directory of the United States Congress]]''</ref>

[[File:Kkk-carpetbagger-cartoon.jpg|thumb|350px|A cartoon threatening that the KKK will lynch scalawags (left) and carpetbaggers (right) on March 4, 1869, the day [[Horatio Seymour]], a Democrat, will supposedly become president. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, ''Independent Monitor'', September 1, 1868. The cartoonist had actual local politicians in mind. A full-scale scholarly history analyzes the cartoonː Guy W. Hubbs, ''Searching for Freedom after the Civil War: Klansman, Carpetbagger, Scalawag, and Freedman'' (2015) [https://www.amazon.com/Searching-Freedom-after-Civil-War/dp/0817318607/ excerpt].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hubbs |first1=Guy |title=Searching for Freedom after the Civil War: Klansman, Carpetbagger, Scalawag, and Freedman |date=May 15, 2015 |publisher=[[University of Alabama Press]] |location=Tuscaloosa |isbn=9780817318604 |page=cover |edition=First |url=https://www.uapress.ua.edu/9780817318604/searching-for-freedom-after-the-civil-war/ |access-date=18 May 2024}}</ref>]]

===Alabama===
[[George E. Spencer]] was a prominent Republican U.S. Senator. His 1872 reelection campaign in Alabama opened him to allegations of "political betrayal of colleagues; manipulation of Federal patronage; embezzlement of public funds; purchase of votes; and intimidation of voters by the presence of Federal troops." He was a major speculator in a distressed financial paper.<ref>Woolfolk (1966); Foner (1968) p 295</ref>

===Georgia===
[[Tunis Campbell Sr.|Tunis Campbell]], a black New York businessman, was hired in 1863 by Secretary of War [[Edwin M. Stanton]] to help former slaves in Port Royal, South Carolina. When the Civil War ended, Campbell was assigned to the Sea Islands of Georgia, where he engaged in an apparently successful land reform program for the benefit of the freedmen. He eventually became vice-chair of the Georgia Republican Party, a state senator and the head of an African-American militia which he hoped to use against the [[Ku Klux Klan]].<ref name="Foner 1968"/>

===Arkansas===
The "[[Brooks–Baxter War]]" was a factional dispute, 1872–74 that culminated in an armed confrontation in 1874 between factions of the [[Arkansas Republican Party]] over the disputed 1872 election for governor. The victor in the end was the "Minstrel" faction led by carpetbagger [[Elisha Baxter]] over the "Brindle Tail" faction led by Joseph Brooks, which included most of the scalawags. The dispute weakened both factions and the entire Republican Party, enabling the sweeping Democratic victory in the 1874 state elections.<ref>[[Earl F. Woodward]], "The Brooks and Baxter War in Arkansas, 1872–1874", ''Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' (1971) 30#4 pp. 315-336 {{JSTOR|40038083}}</ref>

====William Furbush====
[[William Hines Furbush]], born a mixed-race slave in Carroll County, Kentucky in 1839 received part of his education in Ohio. He migrated to Helena, Arkansas in 1862. After returning to Ohio in February 1865, he joined the Forty-second Colored Infantry.

After the war, Furbush migrated to [[Liberia]] through the [[American Colonization Society]], where he continued to work as a photographer. He returned to Ohio after 18 months and moved back to Arkansas by 1870. Furbush was elected to two terms in the Arkansas House of Representatives, 1873–74 (from an African-American majority district in the Arkansas Delta, made up of Phillips and Monroe counties.) He served in 1879–80 from the newly established Lee County.<ref>Eric Foner ''Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders during Reconstruction'' (1993) p. 79</ref><ref>Blake Wintory, "William Hines Furbush: An African American, Carpetbagger, Republican, Fusionist and Democrat." ''Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' 63 (Summer 2004): 107–165. {{JSTOR|40024078}}</ref><ref>Blake J. Wintory, "African-American Legislators in the Arkansas General Assembly, 1868–1893." ''Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' (2006): 385-434. {{JSTOR|40028092}}</ref>

In 1873, the state passed a civil rights law. Furbush and three other black leaders, including the bill's primary sponsor, state senator [[Richard A. Dawson]], sued a barkeeper in Little Rock, Arkansas for refusing to serve their group. The suit resulted in the only successful Reconstruction prosecution under the state's civil rights law. In the legislature, Furbush worked to create Lee County, Arkansasfrom portions of Phillips County, Crittenden County, Monroe County, and St. Francis County in eastern Arkansas, which had a black-majority population.{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}}

Following the end of his 1873 legislative term, Furbush was appointed as county sheriff by Republican Governor [[Elisha Baxter]]. Furbush twice won re-election as sheriff, serving from 1873 to 1878. During his term, he adopted a policy of "fusion", a [[post-Reconstruction era|post-Reconstruction]] power-sharing compromise between Populist Democrats and Republicans. Furbush originally was elected as a Republican, but he switched to the Democratic Party at the end of his time as sheriff. Democrats held most of the economic power and cooperating with them could make his future.<ref name="akenc"/>

In 1878, Furbush was elected again to the Arkansas House. His election is notable because he was elected as a black Democrat during a campaign season notorious for white intimidation of black and Republican voters in black-majority eastern Arkansas. He was the first-known black Democrat elected to the Arkansas General Assembly.<ref name="akenc"/>

In March 1879, Furbush left Arkansas for Colorado.<ref name="akenc">"William Hines Furbush (1839–1902)" in [http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=15 ''The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture'' (2010)]</ref> He returned to Arkansas in 1888, setting up practice as a lawyer. In 1889, he co-founded the African American newspaper ''National Democrat.'' He left the state in the 1890s after it disenfranchised black voters. Furbush died in Indiana in 1902 at a veterans' home.<ref name="akenc"/>

===Texas===
Carpetbaggers were least numerous in Texas. Republicans controlled the state government from 1867 to January 1874. Only one state official and one justice of the state supreme court were Northerners. About 13% to 21% of district court judges were Northerners, along with about 10% of the delegates who wrote the Reconstruction constitution of 1869. Of the 142 men who served in the 12th Legislature, some 12 to 29 were from the North. At the county level, Northerners made up about 10% of the commissioners, county judges and sheriffs.<ref name="Campbell 1994">Campbell (1994)</ref>

[[George Ruby|George Thompson Ruby]], an African American from New York City, who grew up in Portland, Maine, worked as a teacher in New Orleans from 1864 until 1866 when he migrated to Texas. There he was assigned to Galveston, Texas as an agent and teacher for the [[Freedmen's Bureau]]. Active in the Republican Party and elected as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1868–1869, Ruby was later elected as a Texas state senator and had wide influence. He supported construction of railroads to support Galveston business. He was instrumental in organizing African-American dockworkers into the Labor Union of Colored Men, to gain them jobs at the docks after 1870. When Democrats regained control of the state government in 1874, Ruby returned to New Orleans, working in journalism. He also became a leader of the [[Exoduster]] movement. Blacks from the Deep South migrated to homestead in Kansas in order to escape white supremacist violence and the oppression of segregation.<ref name="Campbell 1994"/>