The correct answer is A) They were white southerners who had been excluded from politics before the war.
The scalawags were white southerners who had been excluded from politics before the war.
After the Civil War and during the Reconstruction years, the scalawags were white southerners that worked with the people from the North that arrive at the south in those years to try to help and make business. The northerners were called carpetbagger. As you can image, scalawags and carpetbaggers were pejorative terms to insult these people.