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NOOKS AND CRANNIES

What is carpet bagging?

Jen, Hartlepool
  • Carpet-bagging refers to outsiders moving in to an area to take advantage of a situation which they believe will yield them gain of some nature. It stems from the time after the American Civil War when people migrated to the southern states to appropriate land or property which had been occupied by the Unionist forces, and was up for grabs. The luggage carried by these people was often made of carpet remnants stitched together, being a cheap strong material, hence carpet-bagging, or carpet-baggers.

    John Kohler, New York
  • A carpet bag is "an old-fashioned travelling bag made of carpeting" - maybe assaulting someone with such an item qualifies.

    Alex Houston, Coleshill UK
  • 'Carpetbaggers? was a pejorative term referring to northerners who went south by the thousands, carrying their personal goods in luggage fashioned from carpets, after the American Civil War. They went to seek political office (from which most southerners had been barred) or otherwise take advantage of the political and economic turmoil during Reconstruction, the military occupation of the former Confederacy. The term refers today to politicians who move to another state with the intention of seeking political office there, as Robert F. Kennedy did successfully in New York in 1964 to become a U.S. Senator, and as Hillary Rodham Clinton hopes to do now. James Buckley of Connecticut won the assassinated Kennedy?s New York Senate seat in 1970. When defeated in 1976 by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, another carpetbagger from Connecticut, Buckley returned to Connecticut, where he ran for the Senate in 1980, only to be accused of being a carpetbagger there. It is the Kennedy/Buckley/Moynihan seat that Clinton hopes to win. In the United States, Senators and Representatives must reside in the state from which they are elected, but there is no minimum time requirement. While Representatives almost always reside in the district from which they are elected, as candidates are selected locally and local politics looms large in Congressional elections, this is not a constitutional or legal requirement, and on the few occasions when it has become an issue (often because district lines have been redrawn, excluding a sitting Representative from his or her district), the candidate may be denounced by rivals as a carpetbagger.

    William V Dunlap, Hamden, Connecticut USA
  • And the redrawing of district lines for political advantage is ''gerrymandering,'' from Elbridge Gerry, 19th century Governor of Massachussetts.

    Scott McKinstry, NYC USA
  • Now a term applied to people who deposit money in Building Society accounts in the deliberate hope that the Building Society is taken over or taken public, resulting in rewards for depositers such as cash bonuses or shares.

    Dominic Allan, London UK
  • Carpet-bagging has also become the term used to describe Irish hurling and gaelic football players (despite drawing crowds of up to 80,000, they are all amateurs) who are invited to play for clubs in American cities with big Irish populations. Although they don't officially get "paid" (maybe some do - I'm not sure) they are well looked after: given jobs, accommodation and "expenses". Most play under false names because the Gaelic Athletic Association would suspend them from playing for their club and county upon their return home if they caught them. It's hardly the crime of the century but it does enable young players to see a bit of the world while earning a few quid and playing the game they enjoy. A lot of players go carpet-bagging once their county team has been eliminated from the All Ireland championship and their season is over. There was huge controversy several years ago when a top Galway player was suspended from an All Ireland hurling final (the equivalent of the American Superbowl or English FA Cup final) after being found carpet-bagging in America, playing under a false name.

    Barry Glendenning, London England
  • Being Southern I hate to admit it, but the Yankees got it right. We still get a lot of them here.

    Terry, Rutherfordton, NC USA
  • William Dunlap is entirely correct, save for one detail. Residency requirements in US senate elections vary from state to state, with New York having arguably the least stringent laws. That, combined with the plum of representing one of the biggest, most diverse and most influential states is probably what has attracted all those carpet-wielding politicians.

    M Wendling, London via New York, Alabama England
  • Doesn't everyone know the most famous "Carpetbagger" was Rhett Butler from Margaret Mitchell's novel "Gone With The Wind" ?

    Eilishe Macfarlane, Brighton England
  • Actually, Rhett Butler was not a carpetbagger; rather, he was a blockade runner. In American history, this term is solely identified with Northerners who migrated to the former Confederate states to set up businesses. They carried their personal items in carpetbags. Currently, Northerners still move to the South as the cost of living is considerably lower.

    Rhett B. Franklin, Isle of Wight, VA U.S.A
  • Actually William Dunlap is correct as to M. Wendling's detail as well. Residency requirements for federal elective office are established by the United States Constitution and are exclusive requirements; they may not be altered - even by adding to them - by any state (or by Congress). As to the states, this has been clear since 1807, when the House of Representatives seated a successful candidate and prevented a state from imposing a 12-month residency requirement for election to the House while the federal Constitution required only that the candidate be an inhabitant when elected. The principle dates back even further. Both James Madison and Alexander Hamilton promoted that position in their still-influential essays in The Federalist, and Hamilton argued the point in the New York convention that ratified the Constitution. The courts have consistently invalidated state laws purporting to add further qualifications. This explains the failure of the recent term-limits movement, which resulted in the invalidation of state laws purporting to restrict the number of terms that senators and representatives may serve.

    William Dunlap, Hamden, Connecticut USA
  • i always thought it was an act of sexual deviance

    nat baverstock, strasbourg france
  • In New Zealand it would mean to stuff a steak with oysters! A carpetbag steak is literally a steak filled with oysters before cooking.

    shelley, nelson new zealand
  • Well, you decide to become a career politician, and go out and find someone to inflict yourself upon for pay.

    Heinfred Hermann, Milwaukee, USA
  • Many of the answers above are replications of Southern prejudice and propaganda. Many of the "carpetbaggers" were teachers and missionaries who went south to help educate freed slaves and poor whites. Many *were* freed slaves. Accounts of their stories can be found in Dorothy Sterling's "The Trouble They Seen". During the elections many were terrorised by Southerners who wanted to restore some form of the old order, and who, after burning schools and churches and hanging teachers, were successful.

    Farah Mendlesohn, London UK


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