Radical Republicans wanted to punish the South for starting the war. They also wanted to be sure new governments in the southern states would support the Republican Party.

This week in our series, Doug Johnson and Frank Oliver tell about the reconstruction of the South.

DOUG JOHNSON:

One way radical Republicans gained support was by helping give blacks the right to vote. They knew former slaves would vote for the party which had freed them.

Another way Republicans kept control in the South was by preventing whites from voting there. They passed a law saying no southerner could vote if he had taken part in the rebellion against the Union. This prevented the majority of southern whites from voting for Democrats and against Republicans.

FRANK OLIVER:

Thomas Nast made this wood engraving of a carpetbaggerCongress also made strong rules about what southern states had to do to re-enter the Union. It said each of the states needed a new constitution that protected the voting rights of all black men. And it said each southern state must approve an amendment to the United States Constitution that gave citizenship to blacks.

The radicals did not rest with changes in the law. They also sent their supporters south to organize blacks for the Republican Party. Many southern whites hated these men from the North. They had a special name for them: carpetbaggers.

The name arose because many of the northerners who went south arrived with all their possessions in a carpet handbag. Southerners also had a name for their own people who cooperated with the carpetbaggers. They called them scalawags. Neither name was friendly.