Carpetbagger Dbq

The South’s industrial development was mostly due to redeemer governments policies as far as big business went. Redeemer governments offered tax exemptions to the northern businessmen willing to relocate their business to the south. The northern businessmen who arrived in the south were not concerned with what’s good for the south. They were concerned with exploiting the cheap labor. “"Carpetbagger" was a negative term applied to white Northerners who moved South after the Civil War; the name derives from a reference to an inexpensive type of luggage. Carpetbaggers were viewed as profiteers who arrived in the defeated South with nothing more than an empty carpet bag and the clothes on their backs, intent on returning to the North richer after

making their fortunes at the expense of the South.” The Redeemer government’s policies were also responsible for further staining the south with racial segregation.
The textile business in the South began to boom because of the Redeemer governments. After the war, cotton and textile factories to appear and expand along the south due to the fact that they were financed by northern industrialists. They were attracted to the south because of the low taxes, water, power, and cheap labor. In the North, the labor unions were fighting for the workers conditions and minimum wage, but in the South labor unions had not yet been formed and so therefore, workers could be exploited.
Not only was the South booming in textiles, but the tobacco business took off dramatically. The tobacco business boomed because of the growth of bright leaf tobacco. John Ruffin Green from Durham, North Carolina was a tobacco producer. After the war ended Union soldiers dismantled his farm, and stole a lot of his tobacco. Ironically enough, these were the same men who later on were writing him letters asking if he could grow more, and if they could buy some. Green being a good entrepreneur took advantage of this demand for his tobacco and began selling in nationally and even internationally. Along with Green, another successful entrepreneur of tobacco was Washington Duke also from Durham, South Carolina. Around the end of the war, a union soldier offered Duke fifty cents for a worthless Confederate five dollar bill. Duke like a good capitalist bought some bright leaf tobacco which he would sell, and with that money he would buy more tobacco. Duke was producing about 125,000 pounds of tobacco a year, and more were sold as cigarettes which required hand rollers. Rollers were considered intellectuals and were paid well. The process of rolling was expensive and soon it could not keep up with the high demand for cigarettes. The rolling process soon became obsolete when Allen & Ginter Company offered $75,000 to anyone that invented a cigarette-rolling machine. About three years later eighteen year old James Bonsack invented the machine. All of these factors were key to making the tobacco business as successful as it was in the South.
The South was also booming with natural resources. Coal was a major factor in the successful development of the railroad. Coal was found in the Appalachian Mountains from West Virginia to Alabama. Coal production increased from “5 million tons to almost 50 million tons by 1900.” This drastic increase is because coal was the major fuel for iron and steel, steam powered transportation. Not only this, but coal was used for domestic purposes such as home heating and stoves. The increase in coal production also exponentially increased railroad construction in the South from “10,000 miles in 1870 to 20,000 miles by 1900”. Although this wasn’t nearly all of the railroads that would be built, but definitely the increase in coal production established the base for the railroads in the South, which therefore establishes the dependent transportation of goods.
Aside from Coal, the South had a very solid iron industry. The industry went all the way back to the colonial era. The British established this industry by sending skilled artisans to construct and operate iron smelters, make charcoal from wood, and the charcoal being the fuel used in the smelters to melt iron ores. This all mostly took place in the Chesapeake Region.
All of these advancements in natural resources led to one of the most beneficial accomplishments of the south, the railroad. Coal was very abundant, and it became the major fuel for the iron industry, and so therefore increasing railroad construction. The tracks in the south were only 10,000 in 1870 but by 1900 there 20,000 miles. Still this was only 10% of the tracks in the United States, but since there was a new system that standardized the gauge track width. This helped because normally transitioning from one track to another was difficult.
After the war, the south still had an agricultural economy. This impacted their economy vastly due to sharecropping, tenant farming, and crop-liens. These systems also further divided the South’s population. This two-tier system worsened the racial divide in the South, and prevented both black and white people from combining in order to improve the South.
The crop-lien system was incorporated to handle the financial situation that happened when the farmers fell into debt to the banks and merchants who supplied them with money or tools they needed to farm. To assure the payment of the debt owed, banks and merchants would place a lien on farmers’ crops. This would make the crops collateral for the loan as credit. The lien holders first had to be paid when the crop was sold. This further forced farmers into debt, and the debt holders started requiring that the farmer plant cash crops, such as tobacco or cotton. The combination of the crop-lien system, and the cash crop agriculture kept the south from advancing in crop diversification, and kept the farmers submerged in debt.
Along with the crop-lien system, the tenant farming system kept farmers in debt. In this system, the farmer had their own tools, e.g. plow, seed, or mule. The farmer thought that he’d strike a better with the landowner by becoming a tenant on the land. Since the land wasn’t theirs, the farmers had to pay anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of the crops he produced as sort of a “rent” to the land owners.
As if these two systems that were previously described weren’t already awful, a third system called sharecrop farming was also in place. Sharecropping was a system that a landowner rented land to a landless farmer, normally an ex-slave, and would also be given the tools and animals needed to cultivate the crops. The farmer’s family would also get a small house to live in on the land. In exchange for all of this, the farmer was required to pay the landowner one third or one half of the crop raised. Each agreement was different therefore, the amount of crop being paid back was different. “Most sharecroppers found themselves bound to the land, with little improvement over the slave system. Moreover, it was also an economic relationship utilized in the Jim Crow South to ensure the economic subservience of African Americans in relation to the maintenance of white supremacy.” These systems were in place to maintain blacks as slaves, but without the title.
Apart from awful farming techniques that impacted the South’s economy drastically, and advances in natural resources, the South was still suffering tremendously due to the racism and segregation deeply rooted in the area.
After the civil war, Radical republicans worked endlessly for blacks to have their rights guaranteed to them. The civil rights act of 1875 and the 14th amendment were supposed to take of this. The civil rights act was supposed to guarantee that all African Americans all the same rights as whites, and the 14th amendment stated that citizenship would be granted to all who were born in the United States regardless of skin, and also enacted the due process clause which meant everyone was entitled to the same law process. Unfortunately, the Civil Rights clause was attacked 5 separate times. The five separate law suits were presented as one case, and they were called the “civil rights cases”. The court decided that the clause was unconstitutional because it was not stated in the 14th amendment. Although states were not allowed to discriminate, private businesses or corporations could discriminate. About 13 years later, the Supreme Court was faced with the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. This case was brought to the Supreme Court because Homer Plessy was thought to be challenging Louisiana state law that required blacks to sit separately from whites on railroads. Mr. Plessy was an “octoroon” which meant he was one eighth black, but he was born free. He sat in a white’s only railroad car and declined when asked to leave and so was arrested. In the case, the Supreme Court decided the state discrimination was allowed because this did not technically violate the 14th amendment, and through the court’s allowing of Louisiana’s discrimination, the “separate but equal” doctrine was born. All this meant was that the protection and needs of each race would be equal but separate. So for example schools were separated by race. Unfortunately, the level of education was also lower in the black children schools.
As if the South wasn’t already discreetly striping their black inhabitants of their rights, the black vote was on the attack from different forefronts. The redeemer governments wanted them to be disenfranchised because the blacks were forming a group along with the poor whites in the populist movement which took away votes for them. In some areas, the redeemer governments were using the black vote to stay in office, and this angered the white farmers, so either way the goal was to eliminate the black vote. The redeemer governments had to be sneaky if they wanted to get around the 15th amendment which granted everyone no matter skin color, race, or that they were ex-slaves the right to vote. The serpent that slithered its way past the 15th amendment was called the Mississippi Plan. The plan required a residency requirement, meaning that the voter must have lived in the state they planned to vote in for 2 years, and in the county where they planned to vote for at least 1 year. The plan also incorporated a payment called a “poll tax”. As if this wasn’t enough to tank the vote, the plan also required a literacy test that apparently confirmed a true “grasp” of the constitution. There was also disqualification for voters who possessed criminal records (many states practice this still.).
The Mississippi Plan was challenged in the Supreme Court in the case Williams v.

Mississippi, the court declared that the plan was not unconstitutional because it required all voters to be literate not just blacks. There was no literal proof to prove the true intentions of the plan. The plan got the job done. According to America: Its History and Economy Volume 2. From 1877 to the Modern Period, “southern black voter registration decreased by 62%.” But the plan worked too well, and since it required all the voters to be literate; the plan also decreased the white vote in the southern states due to the large number of poor and illiterate white people. In order to fix this mild set back, Louisiana came up with the solution to instill a Grandfather Clause. The Grandfather Clause stated that illiterate people were allowed to vote if their grandfather or father had been allowed to vote before January 1, 1866. Obviously this only provided a solution for bringing the white vote up seeing as no blacks were registered to vote in Louisiana in 1866. Several states adapted similar clauses. The Grandfather clause was brought to the Supreme Court in the case of Guinn v. U.S. The Supreme Court ruled the clauses unconstitutional because it violated the 15th amendment. On paper, these clauses seemed harmless, but this was an obvious act of disenfranchisement towards black people. To further the disenfranchisement of black people. “African American voters were usually unaware that their votes were not counted under such conditions. "Ballot box stuffing" was yet another deceptive tactic used to disenfranchise African Americans. This practice of "counting out" the intended votes by African Americans for an opposing candidate or using phony ballots against the candidate supported by a African American majority were ways of "stealing" the

vote.”
The South became new land to conquer in the eyes of businessmen. Industries such as textiles, railroads, tobacco, iron, and coal became the forefront of the South’s economy. The northern businessmen were drawn to the South for cheap labor and to escape the union. Even more so, the businessmen were granted tax exempts from the redeemer governments. Unfortunately, the effect of business making its way to the South wasn’t in the benefit of the people. On the contrary, the shift from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy was extremely gradual, and the divide between whites and blacks kept increasing. The divide between the two races harmed labor conditions exponentially. In terms of agriculture, the South’s economy plunged farmers into debt through systems like Sharecropping, tenant farming, and crop liens. The most affected were blacks, and these systems almost kept them as slaves and constantly in debt. The blacks vicious cycle of debt, racial segregation, and the sneaky war on the black vote and education were ingredients in the dramatically slow recovery of the south.