Scalawag
Encyclopedia
In United States
history, scalawag was a derogatory nickname
for southern whites who supported Reconstruction following the Civil War
.
newcomers (pejoratively labeled carpetbaggers) to take control of their state and local governments.
Despite being a minority, they gained power by taking advantage of the Reconstruction laws of 1867 that disenfranchised
the majority of Southerners who could not or did not wish to take the Ironclad oath
certifying that they did not serve in Confederate military or hold any office under the previous regime.
This coalition controlled for varying lengths of time during 1866-1877 every ex-Confederate state except Virginia. Two of the most prominent scalawags were General James Longstreet
(Robert E. Lee
's top general, after Stonewall Jackson
), and Joseph E. Brown
, the wartime governor of Georgia. In the 1870s, many switched from the Republican Party to the conservative-Democrat coalition, who called themselves Redeemers
. Conservative Democrats replaced all Southern state Republican regimes by 1877.
In 1961 one historian gave this assessment of the motives of Southern Unionists. He noted that as more Southerners were allowed to vote and participate:
In Alabama
, scalawags dominated the Republican Party
. 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 blacks. 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
(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 South Carolina
there were about 100,000 scalawags, or about 15% of the white population. During its heyday, the Republican coalition attracted some wealthier whites, 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
reasserted conservative control. They used the threat of violence to cause many Republicans to stay quiet or switch to the Democrats.
The most prominent scalawag 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 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
. He maneuvered to make his ally Hiram Revels its president. Radical Republicans 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.
During the 1868-69 session of Judge "Greasy" Sam Watts court in Haywood County, North Carolina, Dr. William Closs, D.D. 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."
The word's origins lie, via Scallywag in the Irish language word for drudge or farmservant, "sgaileog". It is a word which appears to be in common modern use within towns that have historic Irish communities in the Northwest of England, predominantly Liverpool, where it is sometimes abbreviated to "scall" or "scally". It is also a derogatory epithet, one that denotes a fashion follower of low class or abilities.
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. "But their most serious offense was to have been loyal to the Union during the Civil War or to have declared that they had been loyal and thereby to have enjoyed full citizenship during the period of Radical Reconstruction."
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 bookkeeping habits of both Republicans and Democrats was equally notorious." 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
.
In terms of racial issues, "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."
Social pressure forced most scalawags to join the conservative/Democratic Redeemer coalition. A minority persisted and formed the "tan" half of the "Black and Tan" Republican party, a minority in every southern state after 1877.
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 vs. Ferguson (1896)). 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.
The mountain districts of Appalachia
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 Democracy 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. They harbored pro-Union
sentiments during the war. Andrew Johnson
was their representative leader. They welcomed Reconstruction and much of what the Radical Republicans in Congress advocated.
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
era of segregation and second-class citizenship that persisted into the 20th century.
Baggett profiled 742 Scalawags, comparing them to 666 Redeemers who opposed and eventually replaced them. He compared three regions: the Upper South, the Southeast, and the Southwest. Baggett followed the life of each scalawag before, during, and after the war, with respect to birthplace, occupation, value of estate, slave ownership, education, party activity, stand on secession, war politics, and postwar politics.
Baggett thus looked at 1400 political activists across the South, and gave each a score:
He found the higher the score the more likely the person was a Scalawag.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
history, scalawag was a derogatory nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
for southern whites who supported Reconstruction following the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
.
History
Scalawags formed a winning coalition with black freedmen and NorthernNorthern United States
Northern United States, also sometimes the North, may refer to:* A particular grouping of states or regions of the United States of America. The United States Census Bureau divides some of the northernmost United States into the Midwest Region and the Northeast Region...
newcomers (pejoratively labeled carpetbaggers) to take control of their state and local governments.
Despite being a minority, they gained power by taking advantage of the Reconstruction laws of 1867 that disenfranchised
Disfranchisement
Disfranchisement is the revocation of the right of suffrage of a person or group of people, or rendering a person's vote less effective, or ineffective...
the majority of Southerners who could not or did not wish to take the Ironclad oath
Ironclad oath
The Ironclad Oath was a key factor in the removing of ex-Confederates from the political arena during the Reconstruction of the United States in the 1860s...
certifying that they did not serve in Confederate military or hold any office under the previous regime.
This coalition controlled for varying lengths of time during 1866-1877 every ex-Confederate state except Virginia. Two of the most prominent scalawags were General James Longstreet
James Longstreet
James Longstreet was one of the foremost Confederate generals of the American Civil War and the principal subordinate to General Robert E. Lee, who called him his "Old War Horse." He served under Lee as a corps commander for many of the famous battles fought by the Army of Northern Virginia in the...
(Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee
Robert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....
's top general, after Stonewall Jackson
Stonewall Jackson
ຄຽשת״ׇׂׂׂׂ֣|birth_place= Clarksburg, Virginia |death_place=Guinea Station, Virginia|placeofburial=Stonewall Jackson Memorial CemeteryLexington, Virginia|placeofburial_label= Place of burial|image=...
), and Joseph E. Brown
Joseph E. Brown
Joseph Emerson Brown , often referred to as Joe Brown, was the 42nd Governor of Georgia from 1857 to 1865, and a U.S. Senator from 1880 to 1891...
, the wartime governor of Georgia. In the 1870s, many switched from the Republican Party to the conservative-Democrat coalition, who called themselves Redeemers
Redeemers
In United States history, "Redeemers" and "Redemption" were terms used by white Southerners to describe a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era which followed the American Civil War...
. Conservative Democrats replaced all Southern state Republican regimes by 1877.
In 1961 one historian gave this 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. 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 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.
In Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, scalawags dominated the Republican Party
Alabama Republican Party
The Alabama Republican Party is the state affiliate of the national Republican Party in Alabama. It is the dominant political party in Alabama. The state party is governed by the Alabama Republican Executive Committee. Most of the committee's more than 200 members are elected in district...
. 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 blacks. 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
Alabama Legislature
The Alabama Legislature is the legislative branch of the state government of Alabama. It is a bicameral body composed of the Alabama House of Representatives, with 105 members, and the Alabama Senate, with 35 members...
(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 South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
there were about 100,000 scalawags, or about 15% of the white population. During its heyday, the Republican coalition attracted some wealthier whites, 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 III
Wade Hampton III was a Confederate cavalry leader during the American Civil War and afterward a politician from South Carolina, serving as its 77th Governor and as a U.S...
reasserted conservative control. They used the threat of violence to cause many Republicans to stay quiet or switch to the Democrats.
The most prominent scalawag was James L. Alcorn
James L. Alcorn
James Lusk Alcorn was a prominent American political figure in Mississippi during the 19th century. He was a leading southern white Republican or "scalawag" during Reconstruction in Mississippi, where he served as governor and U.S. Senator...
of Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1865 but, like all southerners, was not allowed to take a seat while Congress was pondering Reconstruction. He supported suffrage for freedmen and endorsed the Fourteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
, 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 University is an historically black university comprehensive land-grant institution in Lorman, Mississippi. It was founded in 1871-History:...
. He maneuvered to make his ally Hiram Revels its president. Radical Republicans 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
Adelbert Ames
Adelbert Ames was an American sailor, soldier, and politician. He served with distinction as a Union Army general during the American Civil War. As a Radical Republican and a Carpetbagger, he was military governor, Senator and civilian governor in Reconstruction-era Mississippi...
, 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.
Origins of the term
The term was originally a derogatory epithet but is used by many historians as a useful shorthand. The term originally meant rascal. Here is a quote by historian Ted Tunnell on the origins of the term:
Reference works such as Joseph E. Worcester's 1860 Dictionary of the English 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 [sic], 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, Dr. William Closs, D.D. 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."
The word's origins lie, via Scallywag in the Irish language word for drudge or farmservant, "sgaileog". It is a word which appears to be in common modern use within towns that have historic Irish communities in the Northwest of England, predominantly Liverpool, where it is sometimes abbreviated to "scall" or "scally". It is also a derogatory epithet, one that denotes a fashion follower of low class or abilities.
Accusations of corruption
Scalawags were denounced as corrupt by Redeemers. The Dunning SchoolDunning School
The Dunning School refers to a group of historians who shared a historiographical school of thought regarding the Reconstruction period of American history .-About:...
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. "But their most serious offense was to have been loyal to the Union during the Civil War or to have declared that they had been loyal and thereby to have enjoyed full citizenship during the period of Radical Reconstruction."
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 bookkeeping habits of both Republicans and Democrats was equally notorious." However, historian Eric Foner
Eric Foner
Eric Foner is an American historian. On the faculty of the Department of History at Columbia University since 1982, he writes extensively on political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African American biography, Reconstruction, and historiography...
argues there is not sufficient evidence that scalawags were any more or less corrupt than politicians of any era, including Redeemers
Redeemers
In United States history, "Redeemers" and "Redemption" were terms used by white Southerners to describe a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era which followed the American Civil War...
.
In terms of racial issues, "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."
Social pressure forced most scalawags to join the conservative/Democratic Redeemer coalition. A minority persisted and formed the "tan" half of the "Black and Tan" Republican party, a minority in every southern state after 1877.
Influence
White Southern Republicans included formerly closeted Southern abolitionistsAbolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
as well as former slaveowners who supported equal rights for freedmen. (The most famous of this latter group was Samuel F. Phillips
Samuel F. Phillips
Samuel Field Phillips was a civil rights pioneer, lawyer, politician, and U.S. Solicitor General . He took part in the landmark civil rights case, Plessy v. Ferguson.- Early life :...
, who later argued against segregation in Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896)). 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.
The mountain districts of Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
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 Democracy in Reconstruction and after. Their strongholds in West Virginia
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
, eastern Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
and Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, western Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
and North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, and the Ozark region of northern Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, became Republican bastions. These rural folk had a long-standing hostility toward the planter class. They harbored pro-Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
sentiments during the war. Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States . As Vice-President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American...
was their representative leader. They welcomed Reconstruction and much of what the Radical Republicans in Congress advocated.
As Thomas Alexander (1961) showed, there was persistent Whiggery (support for the principles of the defunct Whig Party
Whig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...
) 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
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
era of segregation and second-class citizenship that persisted into the 20th century.
Baggett profiled 742 Scalawags, comparing them to 666 Redeemers who opposed and eventually replaced them. He compared three regions: the Upper South, the Southeast, and the Southwest. Baggett followed the life of each scalawag before, during, and after the war, with respect to birthplace, occupation, value of estate, slave ownership, education, party activity, stand on secession, war politics, and postwar politics.
Baggett thus looked at 1400 political activists across the South, and gave each a score:
- score = 1 an antisecessionist Breckinridge supporter in 1860 electionUnited States presidential election, 1860The United States presidential election of 1860 was a quadrennial election, held on November 6, 1860, for the office of President of the United States and the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the American Civil War. The nation had been divided throughout the 1850s on questions surrounding the...
- 2 1860 Bell or Douglas supporter in 1860 electionUnited States presidential election, 1860The United States presidential election of 1860 was a quadrennial election, held on November 6, 1860, for the office of President of the United States and the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the American Civil War. The nation had been divided throughout the 1850s on questions surrounding the...
- 3 1860-61 opponent of secession
- 4 passive wartime unionist
- 5 peace party advocate
- 6 active wartime unionist
- 7 postwar Union party supporter
He found the higher the score the more likely the person was a Scalawag.
See also
- CarpetbaggerCarpetbaggerCarpetbaggers was a pejorative term Southerners gave to Northerners who moved to the South during the Reconstruction era, between 1865 and 1877....
- Southern UnionistSouthern UnionistIn the United States, Southern Unionists were people living in the Confederate States of America, opposed to secession, and against the Civil War. These people are also referred to as Southern Loyalists, Union Loyalists, and Lincoln Loyalists...
- Freedmen
- Reconstruction era of the United States
- RedeemersRedeemersIn United States history, "Redeemers" and "Redemption" were terms used by white Southerners to describe a political coalition in the Southern United States during the Reconstruction era which followed the American Civil War...
- QuislingQuislingQuisling is a term used in reference to fascist and collaborationist political parties and military and paramilitary forces in occupied Allied countries which collaborated with Axis occupiers in World War II, as well as for their members and other collaborators.- Etymology :The term was coined by...
- CollaborationismCollaborationismCollaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
Sources
- Fleming, Walter L. Documentary History of Reconstruction: Political, Military, Social, Religious, Educational, and Industrial 2 vol (1906). Uses broad collection of primary sources; vol 1 on national politics; vol 2 on states
- Memoirs of W. W. Holden (1911), North Carolina Scalawag governor