林肯的遺產(chǎn)

Remains From Lincoln’s Last Day

林肯的遺產(chǎn)

Imagine him in the last week of his life, 150 years ago this month. Shuffling, clothes hanging loosely on the 6-foot-4-inch frame, that tinny voice, a face much older than someone of 56. “I am a tired man,” he said. “Sometimes I think I am the tiredest man on earth.”

想象150年前的這個月，正是他人生的最后一周。沉緩的腳步，衣服松垮垮地掛在高近2米的身軀上，聲音細小，一張看上去遠不止56歲的臉。“我很累，”他說。“有時候我覺得，我是世上最累的人。”

Springtime in Washington, lilacs starting to flower. The Capitol Dome finally free of its scaffolding. His month began in triumph against the largest slaveholding nation on earth. Richmond fell and was set afire by its retreating residents. On April 4, Abraham Lincoln, with his 12-year-old son, Tad — his birthday! — walked the smoldering shell of the rebel capital, walked a mile or so, pressed by a throng of liberated blacks, to sit as a conqueror in the seat of the Southern White House.

春日里的華盛頓，丁香花正綻放。國會大廈圓頂?shù)哪_手架終于拆除了。這個月他首先迎來的是一場勝利，他戰(zhàn)勝了世界上最大的蓄奴國。里士滿城破，被撤退的居民一把火燒毀。4月4日，亞伯拉罕·林肯(Abraham Lincoln)和12歲的兒子泰德(Tad)——那天是他生日!——踏著叛軍都城的焦土瓦礫，在一群被解放的黑人的簇擁下走了一英里左右，以征服者的身份進入南白宮(Southern White House)。

“No day ever dawns for the slave,” wrote a man who had once been owned by a fellow man. In Richmond, thereafter, all days had dawns.

“奴隸的一天，沒有黎明，”一個曾被奴役的人寫道。從那天起，里士滿的每一天都有黎明。

On the dawn of his final day, April 14, Lincoln rises as usual at 7 a.m., breakfasts on coffee and an egg. He meets with his cabinet, confers with an ex-slave, lunches with the unpredictable Mary Todd. They have plans to attend “Our American Cousin.” In the box at Ford’s Theater that evening, a white supremacist fires a single shot from a Derringer. The bullet penetrates Lincoln’s brain and lodges just behind his right eye. The most significant casualty in a war that took more lives than any other in the nation’s history dies the next morning — the first president to be murdered.

4月14日，人生最后一天的黎明，林肯照常7點起床，早餐是咖啡和一個雞蛋。他和內(nèi)閣開會，和一個曾經(jīng)為奴的人商談，和難以捉摸的瑪麗·托德 (Mary Todd)吃午飯。他們按計劃去看了《我們的美國表兄弟》(Our American Cousin)。那天晚上，在福特劇院的包廂里，一名白人至上主義者用一把德林加手槍開了一槍。子彈穿過林肯的大腦，停在右眼后面。這場美國歷史上傷亡最慘重的戰(zhàn)爭中最重要的一位傷員，于次日上午死亡——成為開國以來第一位被謀殺的總統(tǒng)。

Now think of the legacy on this anniversary of the American passion play. Think of free land for the landless, the transcontinental railroad, the seeding of what would grow into national parks, the granting of human rights to people who had none.

現(xiàn)在，我們來想想，這出美國版的耶穌受難劇的周年紀念給我們留下了什么。想想無土地者無償?shù)玫降耐恋?，橫貫大陸的鐵路，國家公園的雛形，賦予無權利者的人權。

And think of how much the party of Lincoln has turned against the expansive political philosophy of Lincoln. Not the emancipation of four million people — Northern Democrats who died on southern battlegrounds, and certainly the Republicans who held power then, get their share of credit for ending the Original Sin of the United States.

再想想林肯自己的政黨，對他那寬宏的政治哲學進行了怎樣的抵制。這里說的不是400萬人民的解放——戰(zhàn)死在南方的北方民主黨人，當然還有當時掌權的共和黨人，都為“美利堅合眾國之原罪”的終結出過一份力。

But beyond: Could the Republicans who control Congress in 2015, the party of no, ever pass a Homestead Act? That law, which went into effect the very day, Jan. 1, 1863, Lincoln’s wartime executive order to free slaves in the breakaway states did, carries a clause that very few Republicans would support now.

我是說在其他方面：在2015年控制著國會的這個一味說不的共和黨，能通過《宅地法》(Homestead Act)嗎?這部法律在1863年1月1日生效，同一天，林肯簽發(fā)戰(zhàn)時政令宣布脫離聯(lián)邦諸州的奴隸是自由人。法律中有一個條款，是今天的共和黨人不太可能支持的。

Former slaves, “famine Irish,” Russian Jews, single women, Mexicans who didn’t speak a word of English — all qualified to claim 160 acres as their own. You didn’t have to be a citizen to get your quarter-square-mile. You just had to intend to become a citizen.

前奴隸、“愛爾蘭饑民”、俄羅斯猶太人、單身女性、完全不會說英語的墨西哥人——全都可以得到160英畝(約合972畝)的土地。要得到四分之一平方英里的土地，不需要有國民身份。你只需要有成為國民的意向。

In that sense, the Homestead Act was the Dream Act of today. It had a path to citizenship and prosperity for those in this country who were neither citizens nor prosperous.

從這個層面講，《宅地法》就是今天的《夢想法》(Dream Act)。它給那些既沒有國民身份也沒有財富的人，提供了一條通往這兩樣東西的路。

Consider the vision to stitch a railroad from east to west, an enormous tangle of infrastructure. In 1862, Lincoln signed legislation spurring construction of the transcontinental railroad. That same year, he approved a bill that led to the creation of land grant colleges.

再來說說用一條鐵路貫通東西的設想，一個宏偉繁復的基建工程。1862年，林肯簽署了推動建設跨大陸鐵路的法案。同年，他還簽署了一項法案，為日后的贈地大學(land grant colleges)鋪平道路。

Today, Congress will not even approve enough money to keep decrepit bridges from falling down, and has whittled away funds to help working kids stay in college. It’s laughable to think of Republicans’ approving of something visionary and forward-looking in the realm of transportation, energy or education. Government, in their minds, can never be a force for good.

今天的國會，連核發(fā)足夠的資金用于修繕危橋都做不到，他們還削減助學基金，迫使勤工儉學的孩子離開大學。指望共和黨人在交通、能源或教育領域會通過什么有創(chuàng)想和遠見的東西，屬無稽之談。在他們眼里，政府永遠不會干出什么好事。

In 1864, Lincoln signed a bill that allowed California to protect the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of giant Sequoias — wild land that would eventually become part of the National Park system. Republicans of today are openly hostile to conservation, a largely Republican idea.

1864年，林肯簽署一項法案，允許加州對約塞米蒂谷和馬里波薩巨杉林進行保護——這片荒野最終會被納入國家公園系統(tǒng)。環(huán)保很大程度上是共和黨提出的理念，如今卻遭到共和黨人的公然反對。

The great, nation-shaping accomplishments of Lincoln’s day happened only because the South, always with an eye on protecting slavery and an estate-owning aristocracy, had left the union — ridding Congress of the naysayers.

林肯時代能實現(xiàn)如此的宏圖大略，完全是因為一心想保護奴隸制和莊園主貴族制度的南方脫離了聯(lián)邦——國會沒了說不的人。

Today, the South is solidly Republican and solidly obstructionist. The party is also solidly white. No, they’re not slave-apologists, though many fail to recognize the active, toxic legacy of the Confederacy. And no, their insults of President Obama — calling him a king, an incompetent, an outsider, echoing some of the slights against Lincoln — do not in any way make Obama the Lincoln of today.

今日之“南方”是清一色的共和黨人，清一色的阻撓派。而這個黨也是清一色的白人。不，他們不是奴隸制的辯護者，盡管有不少人對存活至今、充滿毒害的聯(lián)盟國遺風缺乏體認。他們對奧巴馬總統(tǒng)的攻擊——說他是一個國王，一個無能的人，一個外人，多少讓人想起當年林肯遭到的奚落——也不會把奧巴馬變成當今的林肯。

But you can say this with certainty: what unites the Republican Party, on this 150th anniversary of the murder of Lincoln, is that they are against the type of progressive legislation that gave rise to their party. Lincoln is an oil painting in the parlor, to be dusted off while Republican leaders plot new ways to kill things that he would have approved of.

但有一點可以肯定：在林肯遇害150年后的今天，凝聚共和黨的理念是，他們反對當初成就了這個政黨的崛起的那種進步立法。林肯是起居室里的一幅油畫，他們一邊撣著上面的塵土，一邊謀劃如何扼殺那些他會認可的東西。