USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Another important aspect of the period of radical reconstruction was the role played by groups like Carpetbaggers (Northern White Republics) and Scalawags (Southern White Republicans who supported the reconstruction program.

Detailed explanation-2: -scalawag, after the American Civil War, a pejorative term for a white Southerner who supported the federal plan of Reconstruction or who joined with black freedmen and the so-called carpetbaggers in support of Republican Party policies.

Detailed explanation-3: -In addition to carpetbaggers and freed African Americans, the majority of Republican support in the South came from white southerners who for various reasons saw more of an advantage in backing the policies of Reconstruction than in opposing them. Critics referred derisively to these southerners as “scalawags.”

Detailed explanation-4: -Although the exact origins of scalawag are unknown, it was in use in the United States before the Civil War as a term for both a farm animal of little value and a ne’er-do-well individual.

Detailed explanation-5: -Carpetbagger” and “scalawag” are derisive epithets which southern Democrats, or Conservatives, applied to white Republicans, or radicals, during Congressional or Radical Reconstruction. Carpetbagger referred to Republicans who had recently migrated from the North; scalawag referred to southern-born radicals.