William Manning Lowe

Carpetbagger was the epithet used to describe northerners who had relocated to the South after the Civil War; the name implied that these northerners had placed all of their possessions in a carpetbag and moved to the South for personal gain, such as obtaining public office. These northerners—most of whom were Radical Republicans eager to impart their views on the southern populace—enjoyed considerable political opportunities; the Fourteenth Amendment and the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 had restricted ex-Confederates, who were almost exclusively southern Democrats, from voting and holding political office.

On October 13, 1871, members of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, questioned Alabama lawyer and former Confederate colonel William Manning Lowe about the South’s opinion of carpetbaggers. In his testimony, excerpted in the following viewpoint...