By Frank J. Wetta
During the Civil War and Reconstruction, the pejorative term
''scalawag'' referred to white southerners loyal to the Republican Party. With
the onset of the federal occupation of New Orleans in 1862, scalawags
challenged the restoration of the antebellum political and social orders.
Derided as spoilsmen, uneducated ''poor white trash,'' Union sympathizers, and
race traitors, scalawags remain largely misunderstood even today. In The
Louisiana Scalawags, Frank J. Wetta offers the first in-depth analysis of
these men and their struggle over the future of Louisiana. A fascinating look
into the interplay of politics, race, and terrorism during Reconstruction, this
volume answers an array of questions about the origin and demise of the
scalawags, and debunks much of the negative mythology surrounding them.
Contrary to popular thought, the white Republicans counted
among their ranks men of genuine accomplishment and talent. They worked in
fields as varied as law, business, medicine, journalism, and planting, and many
held government positions as city officials, judges, parish officeholders, and
state legislators in the antebellum years. Wetta demonstrates that a strong
sense of nationalism often motivated the men, no matter their origins.
Louisiana's scalawags were most active and influential
during the early stages of Reconstruction, when they led in founding the
state's Republican Party. The vast majority of white Louisianans, however,
rejected the scalawags' appeal to form an alliance with the freedmen in a
biracial political party. Eventually, the influence of the scalawags succumbed
to persistent white terrorism, corruption, and competition from the
carpetbaggers and their black Republican allies. By then, the state's
Republican Party consisted of white political leaders without any significant
white constituency. According to Wetta, these weaknesses, as well as
ineffective federal intervention in response to a Democratic Party insurgency,
caused the Republican Party to collapse and Reconstruction to fail in
Louisiana.
About the Author
Frank J. Wetta is Senior Fellow at the Center for
History, Politics, and Policy in the department of history at Kean University.
He is a former Leverhulme British Commonwealth, United States Visiting Fellow
in American Studies at the University of Keele in the United Kingdom.
ISBN 978-0807147467, Louisiana State University Press, ©
2012, Hardcover, 256 pages, End Notes, Bibliography & Index. $42.50. To purchase a copy of this book click HERE.
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