VOA慢速英语:150 Years Later, US Still Debate Issues That Fueled Civil War

This Tuesday is the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the opening shots of the American Civil War. On April twelfth, eighteen sixty-one, Confederate soldiers fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
这个星期二是美国内战爆发150周年纪念日。1861年4月12日，南部盟军士兵向南卡罗莱纳州萨姆特堡的联邦士兵开火。

A total of eleven southern states left the Union. They formed the Confederate States of America. They wanted to continue their economic system based on agriculture and slavery.
11个南方州脱离联邦，他们成立了美利坚联盟国。他们希望继续以农业和奴隶制为基础的经济制度。

The War Between the States continued for four years until the Confederates surrendered. Six hundred twenty thousand Americans died during the war. President Abraham Lincoln was killed shortly after it ended.
直到盟军投降,美国各州之间的战争持续了4年。62万美国人死于此次战争。战争刚结束后不久，总统亚伯拉罕．林肯（Abraham Lincoln）被刺杀。

One of the first battles took place at what is now Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia. Ray Brown from the National Park Service says two percent of the American population died in the Civil War.
起初的一次战役发生在现在的弗吉尼亚州马纳萨斯国家战场公园。公园管理处的雷．布朗（Ray Brown）称，美国2％的人在内战中丧生。

RAY BROWN: "You can imagine the impact that this would have on whole communities throughout the country and why there would be such passions that have been passed on from generation to generation even at the remove of one hundred fifty years."
布朗：“你可以想象这对全国所有社区的影响，以及为什么即使在150年以后, 这种情绪会一代代传下来。”

Marianne Lee brought her children to the historic battlefield for a history class.
玛丽安．李（Marianne Lee）带着她的孩子们来到战场遗址，给他们上一堂历史课。

MARIANNE LEE: "I think it is important to look back at this particular war, because it is what made our Union. We separated and yet managed to come back together."
玛丽安．李：“我认为回顾这次特殊战争是非常必要的。因为它造就了我们国家。我们分裂过，然后又设法统一。”

David Blight is a historian at Yale University in Connecticut and an expert on the Civil War. He says observances of the fiftieth anniversary centered on the sacrifices of the two sides.
大卫．布莱特（David Blight）是耶鲁大学历史学家，也是一名美国内战研究专家。他表示，150周年纪念活动聚焦于双方的牺牲上。

DAVID BLIGHT: "What we did in this country is we suppressed having to talk about what caused that war or what its results or legacies were, focusing largely on honoring the soldier."
布莱特：“我们一直所做的就是隐瞒那些不得不去谈论关于战争的成因、结果和影响。而主要集中于纪念士兵们。”

Kevin Levin is a history teacher in Charlottesville, Virginia, who writes the blog Civil War Memory. He says Americans continued to ignore the issues at the one hundredth anniversary of the war.
凯文．莱文（Kevin Levin）是弗吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔的一名历史老师。他在博客发表了《内战记忆》。他说，美国人在150周年纪念上仍继续无视这些问题。

KEVIN LEVIN: "Americans, I think, were more interested in remembering a war that united Americans rather than divided Americans."
莱文：“我认为美国人更愿意把这看做一场统一战争,而不是分裂战争。”

But in recent years, historians like David Blight at Yale have started to take a new look.
但近年来，像耶鲁大学的布莱特一样的历史学家开始从新的视角看待这场战争。

DAVID BLIGHT: "We do not want to sacrifice the military history story. That needs to be understood. But this time, we need to put the story of emancipation at the center of this narrative, because what really transformed the United States, were not those battles. What really transformed the United States was the process by which four million slaves were freed that necessitated a recrafting of our Constitution."
布莱特：“我们不想廉价出售那些军事历史故事，它们需要被理解。但这次，我们需要把解放故事放到叙述的中心。因为真正改变美国的，不是那些战争。真正改变美国的，是400万奴隶获得自由,迫使美国宪法修改的过程。”

The addition of the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment gave citizenship to anyone born in the United States and guaranteed equal protection to all people. And the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed all citizens the right to vote.
美国宪法第13修订案废除了奴隶制。第14修正案赋予任何在美国出生的人公民身份，并保证人人享有平等被保护的权利。第15修正案保障所有公民的投票权。

But it took the civil rights movement of the nineteen fifties and sixties to enforce many of those promises.
但直到上世纪五六十年代采取民权运动才实现了大部分承诺。

Historian David Blight says Americans are still debating many of the same issues as they were a century and a half ago.
历史学家布莱特表示，美国人仍在争论和150年前相同的问题。

DAVID BLIGHT: "Every time Americans debate the problem of states' rights, the relationship of federal power to state power -- which we are indeed having a roiling debate again -- and every time we debate not only race relations, but the very idea of what it means to be an American, multi-racial, greatly diverse society, we are debating the direct legacies of the Civil War."
布莱特：“每一次美国人争论各州的权利问题，联邦权力与各州权力的关系，我们都确实又重回了争论的起点－－不仅每次我们争论的种族关系，还包括作为一个美国人意味着什么，多种族，多元化社会等观点。我们正在辩论的是内战的直接影响。”