For the article, "The State of the South", The Nation (1872): 1. How does the author of this article in The Nation describe the economic...

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What the author means by “universal amnesty” is a law that would allow all white men to be able to vote again.  The author is claiming that white men are not being allowed to vote.  Because of this, the blacks and the carpetbaggers are able to dominate government and, the author says, harm the South.

The...

We request that you only ask one question per post here .  I will answer your second question.

What the author means by “universal amnesty” is a law that would allow all white men to be able to vote again.  The author is claiming that white men are not being allowed to vote.  Because of this, the blacks and the carpetbaggers are able to dominate government and, the author says, harm the South.

The author is saying that black voters are being used by carpetbaggers to allow the latter to have control of the government.  He says that the government is ruining the South for the benefit of the carpetbaggers.  Therefore, he says, a universal amnesty is needed.  We can see what this means by looking at the next line.  There, he says

We have given the negro the ballot to protect him against his old master; we need now to give the white citizen the vote to protect him against the carpet-bagger.

This clearly shows that the “amnesty” is something that will give white citizens the vote.

After the Civil War, some whites were deprived of the right to vote.  The Radical Republicans in Congress wanted to punish the most important ex-Confederates.  They also wanted to prevent the whites in the South from simply voting for all of the same leaders who had led them before and during the war.  Therefore, they took the right to vote from some whites.  We do not know exactly how many whites were banned from voting and/or holding office, but it seems unlikely that it was a large enough number to have the effect that this author claims.

The “universal amnesty,” then, is one in which all white men are forgiven for having been Confederates and in which they have the vote and the right to hold office returned to them.