United States history The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many saw transformations in the 16th century away from more densely ...

, the term scalawag (sometimes spelled scallawag or scallywag) referred to white Southerners who supported Reconstruction policies and efforts after the conclusion of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

. As with the term ''

carpetbagger In the history of the United States, carpetbagger is a largely historical term used by Southerners to describe opportunistic Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War, who were perceived to be exploiting the l ...

'', the word has a long history of use as a slur in Southern partisan debates. The post-

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

opponents of the scalawags claimed they were disloyal to traditional values and

white supremacy White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White ...

.Ted Tunnell. 2006. Creating "The Propaganda of History": Southern Editors and the Origins of "Carpetbagger and Scalawag". The Journal of Southern History , Vol. 72, No. 4 (Nov., 2006), pp. 789–822 Scalawags were particularly hated by 1860s–1870s Southern Democrats, who called Scalawags ''traitors to their region'' (long known for its widespread chattel

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

). Prior to the Civil War, most Scalawags had been opposed to the southern states' (the Confederacy's) secession from the United States. The term is commonly used in historical studies as a descriptor of Reconstruction Era Southern white Republicans, although some historians have discarded the term due to its history of pejorative connotations.

Origins of the term

The term is a derogatory epithet, yet it is used by many historians anyway, as in Wiggins (1991), Baggett (2003), Rubin (2006), and Wetta (2012). The word ''scalawag'' has an uncertain origin. Its earliest attestation is from 1848 to mean a disreputable fellow, good-for-nothing, scapegrace, or blackguard. It has been speculated that "perhaps the original use of the word" referred to low-grade farm animals, but this meaning of the word is not attested until 1854. The term was later adopted by their opponents to refer to Southern whites who formed a Republican coalition with black

freedmen A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), emancipation (granted freedom ...

and

Northern Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a r ...

newcomers (called

carpetbaggers In the history of the United States, carpetbagger is a largely historical term used by Southerners to describe opportunistic Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War, who were perceived to be exploiting the ...

) to take control of their state and local governments. Among the earliest uses in this new meaning were references in Alabama and Georgia newspapers in the summer of 1867, first referring to all Southern Republicans, then later restricting it to only white ones. Historian Ted Tunnel writes that

Reference works such as
Joseph Emerson Worcester Joseph Emerson Worcester (August 24, 1784 – October 27, 1865) was an American lexicographer who was the chief competitor to Noah Webster of ''Webster's Dictionary'' in the mid-nineteenth-century. Their rivalry became known as the "dictionar ...
's 1860 Dictionary of the
Caribbean Spanish * Caribbean Spanish ( es, español caribeño, ) is the general name of the Spanish dialects spoken in the Caribbean region. The Spanish language was introduced to the Caribbean in 1492 with the voyages of Christopher Columbus. It resembles the ...
Language defined scalawag as "A low worthless fellow; a scapegrace." Scalawag was also a word for low-grade farm animals. In early 1868 a Mississippi editor observed that scalawag "has been used from time immemorial to designate inferior milch cows in the cattle markets of Virginia and Kentucky." That June the Richmond Enquirer concurred; scalawag had heretofore "applied to all of the mean, lean, mangy, hidebound skiny ic worthless cattle in every particular drove." Only in recent months, the Richmond paper remarked, had the term taken on political meaning.

During the 1868–69 session of Judge "Greasy" Sam Watts' court in

Haywood County, North Carolina Haywood County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 62,089. The county seat and its largest city is Waynesville. Haywood County is part of the Asheville, NC Metropolitan Statistica ...

, William Closs testified that a scalawag was "a Native born Southern white man who says he is no better than a negro and tells the truth when he says it". Some accounts record his testimony as "a native Southern white man, who says that a negro is as good as he is, and tells the truth when he says so". By October 1868 a Mississippi newspaper was defining the expression scathingly in terms of Redemption politics. The term continued to be used as a pejorative by conservative pro-segregationist southerners well into the 20th century. But historians commonly use the term to refer to the group of historical actors with no pejorative meaning intended.

History

After the

during the

Reconstruction Era The Reconstruction era was a period in American history following the American Civil War (1861–1865) and lasting until approximately the Compromise of 1877. During Reconstruction, attempts were made to rebuild the country after the bloo ...

1863 to 1869, Presidents

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation throu ...

and

Andrew Johnson Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a De ...

undertook policies designed to bring the South back to normal as soon as possible, while the

Radical Republicans The Radical Republicans (later also known as "Stalwarts") were a faction within the Republican Party, originating from the party's founding in 1854, some 6 years before the Civil War, until the Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended Recons ...

used Congress to block the president, impose harsh terms, and upgrade the rights of the Freedmen (the ex-slaves). In the South, Black Freedmen and White Southerners with Republican sympathies joined forces with Northerners who had moved south (called "Carpetbaggers" by their southern opponents) to implement the policies of the Republican party. Despite being a minority, scalawags gained power by taking advantage of the

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology * Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

laws of 1867, which disenfranchised the majority of Southern white voters as they could not take the Ironclad oath, which required they had never served in Confederate armed forces or held any political office under the state or Confederate governments. Historian Harold Hyman says that in 1866 Congressmen "described the oath as the last bulwark against the return of ex-rebels to power, the barrier behind which Southern Unionists and Negroes protected themselves." The coalition controlled every former Confederate state except Virginia, as well as Kentucky and Missouri (which were claimed by the North and the South) for varying lengths of time between 1866 and 1877. Two of the most prominent scalawags were General

James Longstreet James Longstreet (January 8, 1821January 2, 1904) was one of the foremost General officers in the Confederate States Army, Confederate generals of the American Civil War and the principal subordinate to General Robert E. Lee, who called him his ...

, one of Robert E. Lee's top generals, and Joseph E. Brown, who had been the wartime governor of Georgia. During the 1870s, many scalawags left the Republican Party and joined the conservative-Democrat coalition. Conservative Democrats had replaced all Republican minority governments in the South by 1877, after the disputed

presidential election of 1876 The following elections occurred in the year 1876. Europe * 1876 Dalmatian parliamentary election * 1876 French legislative election * 1876 Leominster by-election * 1876 Spanish general election North America Canada * 1876 Prince Edward Isl ...

, in which the remaining Reconstruction governments had certified the Republican electors despite the Democratic candidate having carried the states. Historian

John Hope Franklin John Hope Franklin (January 2, 1915 – March 25, 2009) was an American historian of the United States and former president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Histo ...

gives an assessment of the motives of Southern Unionists. He noted that as more Southerners were allowed to vote and participate:

A curious assortment of native Southerners thus became eligible to participate in
Radical Reconstruction The Reconstruction era was a period in American history following the American Civil War (1861–1865) and lasting until approximately the Compromise of 1877. During Reconstruction, attempts were made to rebuild the country after the bloo ...
. And the number increased as the President granted individual pardons or issued new proclamations of amnesty ... Their primary interest was in supporting a party that would build the South on a broader base than the plantation aristocracy of
Antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ar ...
days. They found it expedient to do business with Negroes and so-called carpetbaggers, but often they returned to the Democratic party as it gained sufficient strength to be a factor in Southern politics.

Eventually most scalawags joined the Democratic Redeemer coalition. A minority persisted as Republicans and formed the "tan" half of the "Black and Tan" Republican party. It was a minority element in the GOP in every Southern state after 1877. Most of the 430 Republican newspapers in the South were edited by scalawags—only 20 percent were edited by carpetbaggers. White businessmen generally boycotted Republican papers, which survived through government patronage.

Alabama

In Alabama, Wiggins says scalawags dominated the

Republican Party Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party. Republican Party may also refer to: Africa * Republican Party (Liberia) *Republican Party ...

. Some 117 Republicans were nominated, elected, or appointed to the most lucrative and important state executive positions, judgeships, and federal legislative and judicial offices between 1868 and 1881. They included 76 white southerners, 35 northerners, and 6 former slaves. In state offices during Reconstruction, white southerners were even more predominant: 51 won nominations, compared to 11 carpetbaggers and one black. 27 scalawags won state executive nominations (75%), 24 won state judicial nominations (89%), and 101 were elected to the

Alabama General Assembly The Alabama Legislature is the legislative branch of the state government of Alabama. It is a bicameral body composed of the House of Representatives and Senate. It is one of the few state legislatures in which members of both chambers se ...

(39%). However, fewer scalawags won nominations to federal offices: 15 were nominated or elected to Congress (48%) compared to 11 carpetbaggers and 5 blacks. 48 scalawags were members of the 1867 constitutional convention (49.5% of the Republican membership); and seven scalawags were members of the 1875 constitutional convention (58% of the minuscule Republican membership.) In terms of racial issues, Wiggins says:

White Republicans as well as Democrats solicited black votes but reluctantly rewarded blacks with nominations for office only when necessary, even then reserving the more choice positions for whites. The results were predictable: these half-a-loaf gestures satisfied neither black nor white Republicans. The fatal weakness of the Republican party in Alabama, as elsewhere in the South, was its inability to create a biracial political party. And while in power even briefly, they failed to protect their members from Democratic terror. Alabama Republicans were forever on the defensive, verbally and physically."

South Carolina

In South Carolina there were about 100,000 scalawags, or about 15% of the white population. During its heyday, the Republican coalition attracted some wealthier white southerners, especially moderates favoring cooperation between open-minded Democrats and responsible Republicans. Rubin shows that the collapse of the Republican coalition came from disturbing trends to corruption and factionalism that increasingly characterized the party's governance. These failings disappointed Northern allies who abandoned the state Republicans in 1876 as the Democrats under

Wade Hampton Wade Hampton may refer to the following people: People *Wade Hampton I (1752–1835), American soldier in Revolutionary War and War of 1812 and U.S. congressman *Wade Hampton II (1791–1858), American plantation owner and soldier in War of 1812 *W ...

reasserted control. They used the threat of violence to cause many Republicans to stay quiet or switch to the Democrats.

Louisiana

Wetta shows that New Orleans was a major Scalawag center. Their leaders were well-to-do well-educated lawyers, physicians, teachers, ministers, businessmen, and civil servants. Many had Northern ties or were born in the North, moving to the boom city of New Orleans before the 1850s. Few were cotton or sugar planters. Most had been Whigs before the War, but many had been Democrats. Nearly all were Unionists during the War. They had joined a Republican coalition with blacks but gave at best weak support to black suffrage, black office holding, or social equality. Wetta says that their "cosmopolitanism broke the mold of southern provincialism" typical of their southern-democratic opponents. That is, scalawags had "a broader worldview."

Mississippi

The most prominent scalawag of all was James L. Alcorn of Mississippi. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1865, but like all southerners was not allowed to take a seat while the Republican Congress was pondering Reconstruction. He supported suffrage for freedmen and endorsed the Fourteenth Amendment, as demanded by the Republicans in Congress. Alcorn became the leader of the scalawags, who composed about a third of the Republicans in the state, in coalition with carpetbaggers and freedmen. Elected governor by the Republicans in 1869, he served from 1870 to 1871. As a modernizer he appointed many like-minded former Whigs, even if they were Democrats. He strongly supported education, including public schools for blacks only, and a new college for them, now known as

Alcorn State University Alcorn State University (Alcorn State, ASU or Alcorn) is a public historically black land-grant university adjacent to Lorman, Mississippi. It was founded in 1871 and was the first black land grant college established in the United States. ...

. He maneuvered to make his ally

Hiram Revels Hiram Rhodes Revels (September 27, 1827Different sources list his birth year as either 1827 or 1822. – January 16, 1901) was an American Republican politician, minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and a college administrator. ...

its president.

opposed Alcorn and were angry at his patronage policy. One complained that Alcorn's policy was to see "the old civilization of the South ''modernized''" rather than lead a total political, social and economic revolution. Alcorn resigned the governorship to become a U.S. Senator (1871–1877), replacing his ally Hiram Revels, the first African American senator. Senator Alcorn urged the removal of the political disabilities of white southerners, rejected Radical Republican proposals to enforce social equality by federal legislation, he denounced the federal cotton tax as robbery and defended separate schools for both races in Mississippi. Although a former slaveholder, he characterized slavery as ''a cancer upon the body of the Nation'' and expressed the gratification which he and many other Southerners felt over its destruction. Alcorn led a furious political battle with Senator Adelbert Ames, the carpetbagger who led the other faction of the Republican Party in Mississippi. The fight ripped apart the party, with most blacks supporting Ames, but many—including Revels, supporting Alcorn. In 1873, they both sought a decision by running for governor. Ames was supported by the Radicals and most African Americans, while Alcorn won the votes of conservative whites and most of the scalawags. Ames won by a vote of 69,870 to 50,490, and Alcorn retired from state politics. Newton Knight has gained increased attention since the 2016 release of the feature film ''

Free State of Jones Jones County is in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 census, the population was 67,246. Its county seats are Laurel and Ellisville. Jones County is part of the Laurel micropolitan area. History Less ...

''.

Mountains

The mountain districts of

Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, C ...

were often Republican enclaves. People there held few slaves, and they had poor transportation, deep poverty, and a standing resentment against the Low Country politicians who dominated the Confederacy and conservative Democrats in Reconstruction and after. Their strongholds in West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, western Virginia and North Carolina, and the Ozark region of northern Arkansas, became Republican bastions. These rural folk had a long-standing hostility toward the

planter class The planter class, known alternatively in the United States as the Southern aristocracy, was a racial and socioeconomic caste of pan-American society that dominated 17th and 18th century agricultural markets. The Atlantic slave trade permitted ...

. They harbored pro-Union sentiments during the war.

was their representative leader. They welcomed Reconstruction and much of what the Radical Republicans in Congress advocated.

Outside the US

The term 'scally' is also used in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

to refer to elements of the

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

and petty criminality, in a similar vein to the more contemporary

chav "Chav" (), also "charver", "scally" and "roadman" in parts of England, is a British term, usually used in a pejorative way. The term is used to describe an anti-social lower-class youth dressed in sportswear. * * * * "Chavette" is a related t ...

. In Philippines, scalawags were used to denote rogue police or military officers.

Accusations of corruption

Scalawags were denounced as corrupt by Redeemers. The Dunning School of historians sympathized with the claims of the Democrats. Agreeing with the Dunning School, Franklin said that the scalawags "must take at least part of the blame" for graft and corruption. The Democrats alleged the scalawags to be financially and politically corrupt, and willing to support bad government because they profited personally. One Alabama historian claimed: "On economic matters scalawags and Democrats eagerly sought aid for economic development of projects in which they had an economic stake, and they exhibited few scruples in the methods used to push beneficial financial legislation through the Alabama legislature. The quality of the book keeping habits of both Republicans and Democrats was equally notorious."Wiggins p 134 However, historian Eric Foner argues there is not sufficient evidence that scalawags were any more or less corrupt than politicians of any era, including Redeemers.Foner, ''Reconstruction''

Who were the scalawags?

White Southern Republicans included formerly closeted Southern

abolitionists Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The Britis ...

as well as former slaveowners who supported equal rights for freedmen. (The most famous of this latter group was Samuel F. Phillips, who later argued against segregation in '' Plessy v. Ferguson''.) Included, too, were people who wanted to be part of the ruling Republican Party simply because it provided more opportunities for successful political careers. Many historians have described scalawags in terms of social class, showing that on average they were less wealthy or prestigious than the elite planter class. As Thomas Alexander (1961) showed, there was persistent Whiggery (support for the principles of the defunct Whig Party) in the South after 1865. Many ex-Whigs became Republicans who advocated modernization through education and infrastructure—especially better roads and railroads. Many also joined the Redeemers in their successful attempt to replace the brief period of civil rights promised to African Americans during the Reconstruction era with the

Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sou ...

era of segregation and second-class citizenship that persisted into the 20th century. Historian James Alex Baggett's ''The Scalawags'' provides a

quantitative Quantitative may refer to: * Quantitative research, scientific investigation of quantitative properties * Quantitative analysis (disambiguation) * Quantitative verse, a metrical system in poetry * Statistics, also known as quantitative analysis ...

study of the population.

Notes

References

* * * DeSantis, Vincent P. ''Republicans Face the Southern Question: The New Departure Years, 1877–1897'' (1998) * * * * Garner; James Wilford. ''Reconstruction in Mississippi'' (1901)
online edition
* * Hume, Richard L. and Jerry B. Gough. ''Blacks, Carpetbaggers, and Scalawags: The Constitutional Conventions of Radical Reconstruction'' (Louisiana State University Press, 2008); statistical classification of delegates. * Jenkins, Jeffery A., and Boris Heersink. "Republican Party Politics and the American South: From Reconstruction to Redemption, 1865-1880." (2016 paper t the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association)
online
* * McKinney, Gordon B. ''Southern Mountain Republicans, 1865–1900: Politics and the Appalachian Community'' (1998) * Pereyra, Lillian A., ''James Lusk Alcorn: Persistent Whig.'' (1966). * Perman, Michael. '' The Road to Redemption: Southern Politics 1869–1879'' (1984) * Rubin, Hyman. '' South Carolina Scalawags'' (2006) * Tunnell, Ted. "Creating 'the Propaganda of History': Southern Editors and the Origins of Carpetbagger and Scalawag," ''Journal of Southern History'' (Nov 2006) 72#
online at The Free Library
* Wetta, Frank J. ''The Louisiana Scalawags: Politics, Race, and Terrorism During the Civil War and Reconstruction'' (Louisiana State University Press; 2012) * Wiggins; Sarah Woolfolk. ''The Scalawag in Alabama Politics, 1865—1881'' (1991)