Who were the Scalawags? Scalawags is the name given to native or local whites who supported the Rep party. The origins of the word is uncertain but the term came from Scalway, a district in Sheton Island, where small cattle lived. Used in US before the Civil war to mean scrawny or undersized cattle. It was also a synonmy for good for nothing. Southern conservative whites found the scalawags uniquely hateful. Blacks were considerable more understand then the faults of a scalawags who was considered a traitor to the south and his own white race. They were primarily thought to be poor whites who had opposed the southern aristocracy and the confederacy and who now sought personal and class gains through the republican party. “The mean and lousy filty kind that are not fit for butlers or dogs.” Numbering in the 10s of thousands, they blurred the stark contrast in black/white racial division in southern politics. Thus, they provided an indigenous power base and respectabilty to the republican party that was recognized as crucial to its permanance in the south. “A party sustained by only black votes will not grow old.” It is impossible to maintain the republican party in the south without a division of the white votes: it could not maintain unless it got the votes of some whites. But conservative whites called them “white negroes.”For a time Scalawags dominated the state governments of 5 southern states: Ala, Ge, Tenn, Tx, NC. They also played a major role in Miss. Ex of two Scalawags who closely fit the conservativestereotype: Franklin Moses Jr, despite his pledge of honest administration was to provide SC with its worst governortorial administration of the reconstruction era. When he was speaker of the house in SC, he accepted bribes and submitted fradulent pay certificates. On one occasion, the members of the house reimbured him for his loses on a horse race. He missappropiated arms funds. He also took ...
