Carpetbagger Definition

Someone who tries to be elected as a politician in a place away from their home because they.

Carpetbagger definition.

Carpetbagger an outsider who seeks power or success presumptuously. A carpetbagger was a northerner who moved to the south after the american civil war. 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. 2003 2012 princeton university farlex inc.

A politician who takes up residence in a place and runs for office without having strong ties to the area. In general the term carpetbagger refers to a traveler who arrives in a new region with only a satchel or carpetbag of possessions and who attempts to profit from or gain control over his new. 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.

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. Carpetbagger is a term from the united states political history. 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. 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.

This period is called the reconstruction era. The term came to be associated with opportunism and exploitation by outsiders.