New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-09-26
From the New York Independent
The Carpet. Baggers,' and estate
Rights
By PROFESSOR TAYLER LEWIS, LID.

]
BY PROFESSOR TAYLER LEWIS, LID.
The political significance of the name car
pet-bagger comes from its close connection
with that extreme doctrine of Estate rights
| which has cost us so much. 1t is character
istic of those who give the name and are most
| fond of using ii rather than OF the men to
whom it is applied. On the merits or de-
merits of the persons in the Southern states
who are so-called by way of reproach we need
not dwell. There is great reason To believe
| that many have been the victims of much
| false accusation. On close examination, the
charges made against them, as in the case OF
the late Gov. Bullock, of Georgia, turn out to
be, in great measure, unreal; i'll others,
immensely exaggerated in almost all, rem
dered suspicious by the observation-disclosures of
their accusers, giving false coloring to every
report. All this is greatly aided by the pc
cuiiarities of their position. They are in the
midst of enemies. They are connected with
| the remembrance of a cause most intensely
hated. Their very presence is deemed an
oflcnse to Southern society. They have been
naturally and necessarily prominent in the
work of reconstruction, especially during that
period when il would have been political
madness to trust the government of those
| States in the hands Of the rebellious element.
cratic vituperation in the North. This has
arisen from their unavoidable connection
with that new class of voters at the South
whom the Democratic party hates, more in
tensely, perhaps, than do the old slavehold-
ers themselves. Republican editors, too, with
spurious candor and selfish affectation of
independence, have joined in the clamor
against these defenscless men. Such has
especially been the course of the New York
Tribune. 1t was deemed essential, doubtless,
to the heartless cutlery it has for years been
keeping up in respect to amnesty, and the
view expressed, even during the war, and
much more clearly since, that this most afro
cious rebellion was merely political differ
ence-a right of separation, in fact, if the
South chose to exercise it-inyolving vital
question of right and wrong. Though five
hundred thousand lives had been sacrificed,
there was no guilt anywhere or, if there had
been any slight blame to be imputed, ii at
tached as much to one side rs the other.
This might seem to have been view hon
estly maintained, (after some senses of the
word honestly and only showing a numbness
of the moral sense of truth and justice. But
later events may fairly lead us to modify that
opinion. We would not be uncharitable to
one whom We have long wished to hold in
respect; but it certainly looks now as though
this Tribune talk of carpet-baggers had been
part of a deliberate calculation made one or
two years ago, and directly looking to its edi-
tors present position.
1t should be remembered, too that those
unsparing attacks have been made, for the
most part, against men who had little or no
means of defense. Few in numbers as they
were and surrounded by mrelenting foes,
their own means and those Of the ill-treated
race who naturally looked to them as friends
were insufficient to maintain newspaper
press that might at all cope with the numer-
Gus papers of their rich and socially powerful
adversaries. To this should be added the
fact, however we may account for it, that the
Geographic agents at the South seemed al
ways to be hostile to them; and, hence,
those first reports whichever give the most
permanent coloring to opinion were, in most
cases, unfavorable. The desire to stand well
with what called itself the elite of Southern
society may have had an influence here; but
at all events, the combined effects Of all
these causes gave these Southern settlers a
position of extreme difficulty, which we at the
North could not easily appreciate. The
writer claims to have given a careful atten-
ton to the subject. as national concern,
and the result has been a strong conviction
that this class of men have had hard meas
IRE dealt out to them by enemies at the South,
and by ignorant or malicious writer's in other
sections of our land. The gross injustice
assumes still worse aspect when we call to
mind that many of them were members of
our brave armies, who were sent there to
subdue rebellion. Judge them by the laws
of chivalry, and it may be said, in the bold
language of Senator Ames, of Mississippi,
that Sc their swords have given them title"
Yes, better title than that of those who
can only claim to hold their lands through
the money Of the nation they sought to de-
stroy. We Will not allow that Mr.. Greeley
is more Christian and more tender than those
who take different view of this matter. In
his lack Of moral perception, he seems to
forget that right and truth arc above all, and
that amnesty must be subordinate to that
great constitutional aim, the establishment Of
justice"
1t should never be forgotten that the title
of the "carpet-baggerr," if any will abusively
United States. The men who are most fond
of using this opprobious name are those who
advocate the extreme doctrine of Estate
rights" The suggested ideas are identical.
They grow from the same root. The insult
ing epithet comes from the narrow idea that
the people of one State have no right in
another, except as conceded to them by the
latter. They are foreigners there until soci-
ally acknowledged. They are treated worse
than the transatlantic foreigner. No man
calls Carl SchurZ a /" carpet-bagger :" and
yet citizen of the United States, having by
the Constitution-to say nothing of the other
title referred to-a right to all the ''privi-
leges and immunities Of citizenship in every
State" is reviled as an alien. He has no
business there, it is contemporary said. 1t
is the same doctrine which even the war has
failed to beat out Of the Southern or the
Northern Democratic mind. The very term
carpet-bagger shows that the great issue
is not yet settled, as it ought to be. 1t brin e
up again the pivotal question on which, more
than slavery itself, the whole controversy
turned: Are we league of States, or are
we nation. Whatever may be said in re-
| spect to other matters of local or general
government, or of exclusive or concurrent
Jurisdiction, this question Of citizenship de-
mands for its settlement the unchallenged
predominance of the one principle or the
other. 1t seemed to DO put at rest by See.
II, Article w, of tho old Constitution but
Democratic rule, as we all know, made that
clause for long time mere dead letter. If
we are league of States, then there is no
national citizenship. Whilst preserving the
outward relations of such an alliance, each
portion of the league determines for itself
who shall be its citizens, and what rights as
such thew shall pOssess IF wa arc q nation