Scalawag

[2]"Scalawag" was the derogatory nickname used by conservative southern whites to describe other southern whites who were active members of the Republican Party during Reconstruction [3]. In North Carolina, the latter group was quite large and contained a significant number of outstanding leaders. The native-born white Republicans were primarily concentrated in two parts of the state: the "Quaker belt" in the Piedmont [4], including Randolph [5], Moore [6], and Guilford [7] Counties; and the Mountain [8] areas of the west, especially Mitchell [9]and Wilkes [10] Counties.

Most native white Republicans had come to oppose the Confederacy at some point during the Civil War [11]. Raleigh Standard editor William W. Holden [12] became their leader during the last stages of the conflict and the early part of Reconstruction [3], when President Andrew Johnson [13] appointed him provisional governor of the state. After he was defeated for a full term by Conservative Party candidate Jonathan Worth [14] in 1865, Holden and many other white Republicans endorsed the congressional Republicans and African American male suffrage. In 1868 the native white Republicans dominated a constitutional convention that created the most democratic state charter in North Carolina's history. Under the new document, Holden was elected governor and Tod R. Caldwell [15], of Burke County [16], lieutenant governor. Other white Republicans, including Alexander H. Jones of Henderson County [17], were sent to Congress.

When white supporters of the Conservative Party resorted to violence during the 1870 legislative campaign, Holden created and used a state militia composed of partisans from western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. This so-called Kirk-Holden War [18] dominated the 1870 elections, which the Conservatives won decisively. When the General Assembly impeached and turned Holden out of office, Caldwell became governor. Caldwell was elected to a full term in 1872; he died in 1874 and was succeeded in office by Curtis Brogden.

The revived and renamed Conservatives-now calling themselves Democrats-nominated Zebulon B. Vance [19] for governor in 1876 and defeated the Republicans despite a strong run by Thomas Settle Jr. of Rockingham [20]County. Settle, a former North Carolina Supreme Court [21] justice and U.S. ambassador to Peru, was widely respected by opponents and allies alike. His aggressive campaign provided the impetus for a strong white presence in the North Carolina Republican Party throughout the post-Reconstruction period, when whites deserted the party in many other states of the former Confederacy.

Image Credit:

"Portrait of William Woods Holden, governor of North Carolina in 1865 and from 1868 to 1871." Photo courtesy of LeanNC. Available from http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/12771 (accessed May 3, 2012).