New Orleans Republican., 1877-05-19
The Carvet-BawRer.


The carpet-bagger has long been like |
nightmare to the so-called Liberal news |
papers, the New York Tribune the Spring |
feld Republican, and others who follow
their lead. If liberal in nothing else, they |
have been exceedingly so in misrepresen-
tation of those whom they designate by
this term. The carpet-bsggeT is pro-
duetion of the peculiar civilization of the
South. He does not exist in the North, or
in the West The Southern born citizen
may remove to the North, the man of the
East to the West, the Western man to the
East, the Pennsylvanian to Maine-how-
ever he changes his residence, his busi-
ness, or his politics., the new conner is
simply received as a member of the COM
munity. He is allowed to find his level,
to express his sentiments and to indulge
his aspirations, without reference to his
nativity or the section from which it
pleased or suited him TO remove. The
Southern man who comes to Ohio becomes
citizen, and full member of the COM
munity, according to our ideas and modes
of life But the Ohio man who removes
to the South is at once carpet-bagger.
The roll of Ohios sons WHO have made
their home in the South includes the
names of men of all classes-some who
had achieved distinction in civil life and
enjoyed popularity among their fellow
citizens some who earned honorable
names for themselves with their swords
in the war, some of good standing in the
learned professions. They are not differ
ent from an equal number of the citizens
of Ohio whom they left behind them.
Had they gone to any Northern or West
ern State, they would simply have become
and have been considered active citizens.
But they went South, and are carpet-bag-
gers. And they became SO because they
came in contact with totally different
state of civilization from that which pre-
walls in the North. Their ideas of human
rights, of the dignity of labor, of meri-
toriousness in individual effort and devel-
opment, were those of the Northern COM
munities. They carried them to regions
where two hundred years of slavery had
ingrained the ideas of caste into the minds
of both the whites,and the blacks; ideas
which remain as fundamental conditions
in all the relations of life, and which the
sudden liberation of the blacks not only
did not change or modify, but tended to
intensity.
The Northern man who settled in the
South rarely did so with any intention of
engaging in political affairs. He was
tempted by the climate, by the cheapness
of land, the price of cotton and the many
business advantages that appeared to in
vite him. He heard and read much of
the prostration of the South, of her need
of an infusion of new life and capital, of
her sparse population, her wonderful but
undeveloped mineral deposits, and he ex-
pected to increase his usefulness and his
value to his fellow-men, and to promote
his own welfare and prosperity by remov-
ing thither. He naturally took with him
the habits and ideas in which he had been
educated, ideas which we are wont to
point to with pride as the creators of
prosperity in the States of the North and
West. That he would be missionary Of
Northern ideas was certain, and that his
mission would fail, as it has failed, was
inevitable, because those ideas can not be
ingrafted upon Southern civilization, re-
presenting as it does a long growth under
its peculiar system of labor and conse-
quent habits of thought and life.
To be successful in such work the labor
er must be in and OF his time and sur
roundings. The man who is in advance
of both may be of the greatest of the
worlds benefactors, but he will not be
appreciated. And the carpet-bagger was
treated as q public enemy in the South
because he represented civilization far
in advance of and widely different from
that he found there.
We are reminded of an occurrence at
the centennial which fully illustrates the
whole matter. Some New England peo-
pie erected there model of log house,
with the furniture and interior appoint
ments, such as were common in the North
in the last century. 1t was great Curl
osity, and was daily visited by thousands.
One day a party of people from North
, Carolina and Virginia stood for quite a
while looking with seeming wonder at the
, house and the crowds pouring through it.
AT last q gentlemen stepped from the
group to q policeman and asked him
what was the object of that cabin, why il
was there, and what was its attraction.
The policeman explained that it was to
show how our forefathers lived over 3
hundred years ago The answer came tc
him as revelation in many senses. He
and his neighbors had been puzzling
themselves to tell why millions of people
were focking with curiosity to see an OBJ
iect that corresponded in almost all re
spects with their own daily home sur,
! | roundings. But it was plain in a minute
The humble cabin and its primite ap
! pointments represented q condition q
! human life and human thought from
which Northern enterprise and Northeri
, thrift had gone forward until its begin
Z nigs seemed far back in antiquity; bu
J that antiquity was present time to the
, Southern visitors
The ideas Of the people in the two sec
I tons have diverged even more widel!
than their surroundings and habits Of life
and the Northern emigrants who wen
! South expecting to settle and live there a
i they did in the North, simply attemptel
4 to turn the hands of time in the Soutl
i forward hundred years. They were no
4 Homogeneous with the Southern people
Z They were carpet-baggers. They faile
. in all they attempted, leaving only
! warning to all other Northern men of th
: folly Of accepting Southern invitations :
emigrate thifher, unless they are prepare
to leave behind them the principles an
the opinions which have been growing
Z the Northern mind for 6 hundred year
Cleveland Leader.