Alexander White

Carpetbagger was the epithet that many southerners used to describe the northerners who had relocated to the former rebel territories after the Civil War, men whom they believed had moved to the South for personal gain and political opportunities. The word was derived from the idea that these northerners had placed all of their possessions in a carpetbag for the journey south. Many southerners particularly disliked carpetbaggers because most of these migrants were Radical Republicans.

However, some southerners, known derisively as scalawags for their support of Republicans and their reconstruction plans, sympathized with the carpetbaggers. One such man was Alexander White, a Republican representative from Alabama. In a statement before the House of Representatives in February 1875, White argues that both the North and the South have wrongly maligned the carpetbaggers. He states that most of these men were valiant...