Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-02-10
UNION AND AMERICAN.
THE BRIDES DREAM
TINE "CARPET BAGGEI..' >

TINE GARRETT DAGGER"
The writer who first applied tn
term carpet baggers" to a certain
class of adyenturers in the South
hit upon one of the happiest de
scriptive epithets, says the Bait
more Gazette, that has been latell
introduced into the journalistic vo
cabulary. That its force as an ex
preston Of reproach and contemp
is keenly felt is shown by the earn
est and repeated endeavors of sun
dry Radical papers to misconstrut
its meaning. We are told thai
scarcely one-half of the municipal
officers Of all the leading cities OF
the North were born in the towns
where they now reside, and are,
therefore, 'earpet-baggers," that
most Of the members of the Legis-
latf,res of the Western States emf.
grated from the Atlantic seaboard,
and are "carpet- baggers," and that
a large number of the wealthiest,
most energetic and most respected
citizens of the South originally
went there from New England with
out a dollar in their pockets, and
are also carpet baggers" But
this attempt to get the genuine
carpet Dagger" into good compa-
ny by dragging honored and up
right men down to his level
is too shallow a trick to
deceive any one. When the
men of the North emigrated to the
West and South before the late war
the "carpet-bagger" was an I'M
known species. He is the result of
the war. He was engendered amid
the decentralization produced by the
war, and in this respect is akin to
theloathsome maggots that are born
of corruption. He has no claim to
associate himself with the Northern
men who have sought new homes in
the hope of finding fame or fortune
through the honest exercise of their
intelligence and enterprise Such
men, whether bringing capital or
carrying all their worldly goods
upon their backs, have met and will
still meet with q welcome in the
South, and it is an insult to them
and to the common sense of the pub
lie to suggest that they stand in the
same category with the shifty knaves
and providers who are so APPLY de-
scribed as carpet aggers." These
latter are composed of the mscru-
pulouS creatures who were residing
in the South when the war broke
out, and who, having shouted lusti-
ly for the Confederate cause for
years, because suddenly intensely
loyal in presence of the Federal
armies and Of the jackals who
Travelled from the North in the
wake Of those armies. AS a gen
eral rule, they are people who never
had much character to boast of, and
provided they can obtain place and
plumber, they are Indifferent rs to
whether they succeed by fair or
fraudulent means. They remain in
the South solely because " loyalty"
pays better there than in the more
crowded markets of the North. Few
of them calculate upon residing per
manently in the South, and many of
them are even still legal voters in
the Northern and Western States.
They have no sympathies in com
mon with the people of the South,
and are merely so many political
wreckers. These are the people who
have now crawled into power in the
Southern States. They have be
come the rulers and the judges over
that wlole section of the land, and
they appear before Congressional
committees to insist, in the name Of
the Southern people, that the best
and ablest men of the white race
shall still be kept DISTINGUISHED.
These are the men who are recog-
Snized as carpet baggers, and
nothing that the Radical papers may
say can relieve them from the scOrn
and detestatiOn IN which they are
Justly held by all honest and fair
minded people Throughout the civ
ilized world.