Carpetbagger

Nast draws a stout, bearded Northerner in a top hat striding purposefully southward, bent under an enormous sack labeled C. Schurz / Carpet-Bag / From Wisconsin to Missouri while clutching a smaller bag stamped Carpet Bagger / South. A crowd of figures watches from the background. The printed caption turns the image into a proverb: the bag in front, filled with others' faults, he always sees; the one behind him, filled with his own faults, he never sees. The target is the Republican politician Carl Schurz and, more broadly, Northern opportunists who flooded Southern states during Reconstruction seeking office and profit. Nast, himself a German immigrant and staunch Republican, here breaks from party loyalty to skewer self-righteous reformers he considered hypocrites—a rare moment of inward fire.