Scalawags were white Southerners who supported Reconstruction and collaborated with the federal government. They took up political office in the South, making enemies with bitter Southerners. They were joined by freedmen and carpetbaggers, and were considered traitors by some. After Reconstruction, former Confederate members were allowed to participate in government, leading to the decline of the term.
Scalawags were white Southern Americans who advocated politically and collaborated with the federal government during the Reconstruction era of the United States. Many scalawags took up regional and local political office in the South, taking advantage of vacancies left by Confederate members barred from taking office by the government. They quickly made enemies with the large population of Southerners who were bitter about Reconstruction and the North’s victory over the South. Those derides, like the Ku Klux Klan, adopted scalawag as a derogatory nickname; the term had previously been used to refer to bad cattle. Over time, scalawag has become less of an insult and more of a ubiquitous political term.
After the Civil War, the Republican Party assumed the leading role of Reconstruction efforts in the South. Former Confederate members and supporters were barred from serving in government. The Scalawags joined political forces with other pro-Reconstruction forces, such as freedmen and carpet raiders. Freedmen, as the name suggests, were former black slaves. The carpetbaggers were northerners who made the trek south to aid rebuilding efforts. To Southerners who opposed Reconstruction, the scalawags and carpetbaggers were different mutations of the same race: political opportunists who profited from Southern woes.
Worse than being considered opportunists, some scalawags were considered traitors by many in the South, especially by former Confederate members who expressed support for Reconstruction and the Union after the war. Anti-Reconstruction groups such as the Ku Klux Klan considered Southerners who aided Reconstruction guilty of collaborationism and collaborationism, terms synonymous with treasonous behavior. Some of those ex-Confederates were granted presidential pardons, and thus able to compete for political seats years before their fellow Southerners were able to. Certainly for such men there was no other fate than to be considered traitors and turncoats by their southern compatriots with whom they used to side. Confederate General James Longstreet was one such scalawag. Longstreet was a friend of Northern General Ulysses S. Grant before the Civil War and used that friendship to restore his legitimacy after the war. He became a scalawag, earning equal amounts of praise and scorn from a nation still divided.
When Reconstruction efforts ended in 1877, former Confederate members were again allowed to vote and participate in government. Other political factions, such as the Redeemer Democrats, began flexing their political muscles and jostling for Republican seats. The reintegration of the South into American politics has led to the decline of scalawag as a relevant political term.
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