(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English. Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election in November of eighteen sixty. When he took office several months later, he faced the most serious crisis in American history. The southern states had finally acted on their earlier threats. They had begun to leave the Union over the issue of slavery. This week in our series, Harry Monroe and Kay Gallant talk about this critical time in American history. The southern states did not want Abraham Lincoln to win the election of eighteen sixty. Lincoln was a Republican. And the Republican Party opposed slavery. Lincoln never said he wanted to end slavery in the South. He did not believe anyone had the right to do so. Yet he did not want to see slavery spread to other parts of the United States.
Lincoln told southerners: "You think slavery is right and should be extended, while we think it is wrong and should be limited. That, I suppose, is the trouble. It surely is the only important difference between us." Pro-slavery extremists felt this difference was enough. And they were sure Lincoln and his Republicans would soon win control of Congress and the Supreme Court. Before long, they thought, the Constitution would be changed. Slavery would become illegal everywhere. Even if this did not happen, southerners were worried. Unless slavery could spread, they said, the slave population in the South would become too large. In time, blacks and whites would battle for control. One or the other would be destroyed. So even before the presidential election, southerners began discussing what they would do if Abraham Lincoln won. Early in October, the governor of South Carolina, William Gist, wrote letters to the governors of other southern states. He said they should agree on what action to take if Lincoln became president.
Gist said South Carolina would call a state convention as soon as the election results were made official. If any state decided to leave the Union, he said, South Carolina would follow. If no other state decided to leave, then South Carolina would secede by itself. Governor Gist received mixed answers. Two states -- Alabama and Mississippi -- said they would not secede alone. But they said they would join others that made this decision. Two more states -- Louisiana and Georgia -- said they would not secede unless the north acted against them. And one state -- North Carolina -- said it had not yet decided what to do. No southern governor, except William Gist of South Carolina, seemed willing to lead the South out of the Union. Abraham Lincoln was elected president on November sixth, eighteen sixty. South Carolina exploded with excitement at the news. To many of the people there, Lincoln's victory was a signal that ended the state's ties to the Union. To them, it was the beginning of southern independence. Both United States Senators from South Carolina resigned. So did a federal judge and the collector of federal taxes. United States flags were lowered. State flags were raised in their place.
The state legislature agreed to open a convention on December seventeenth. The convention would make the final decision on leaving the Union. Several other southern states did the same. This idea of leaving the Union -- secession -- split North and South just as much as slavery. Southerners claimed they had the right to secede peacefully. Northerners disagreed. They said secession was treason. They said it would lead to civil war. In the months before Lincoln's inauguration, President James Buchanan tried to deal with the situation. First he proposed a convention of all the states. The purpose of the convention would be to work out differences between North and South. The southern members of Buchanan's cabinet rejected this idea. The second proposal was a strong policy statement on secession. The statement would include an opinion by the attorney general. It said the government could use force, if necessary, to keep states in the Union. The southern cabinet members rejected this idea, too. President Buchanan had to settle for a moderate policy statement on secession.
It said the president could send troops into a state to help federal marshals enforce the rulings of federal courts. But if federal judges resigned, there would be no federal court rulings to enforce. Therefore, to send troops to a state where federal officers had resigned -- such as South Carolina -- would be an act of war against the state. And only Congress had the constitutional power to declare war. Buchanan accepted this statement. He was only too happy to let Congress decide what to do. There was little chance that Congress could do anything. Congressmen from both North and South already had made decisions that could not, and would not, be changed easily. Most of the congressmen from states in the deep south supported secession. They did not want to remain in the Union. Many congressmen from states in the North had been elected because they promised to keep slavery from spreading to the western territories. They did not plan to break their promises. A few lawmakers hoped President Buchanan, in his yearly message to Congress, might propose a compromise.
Buchanan began by denouncing northern Abolitionists. He said they were responsible for the present problem. Their interference, he said, had created a great fear of slave rebellions in the South. Then Buchanan called on the South to accept the election of Abraham Lincoln. He said the election of a citizen to the office of president should not be a reason for dissolving the Union. Buchanan declared that the constitution gave no state the right to leave. But, he admitted, if a state did secede, there was little the federal government could do. "The fact is," Buchanan said, "that our Union rests upon public opinion. It can never be held together by the blood of its citizens in civil war. If it cannot live in the hearts of its people, then it must one day die." Buchanan proposed to Congress that it offer a constitutional amendment on the question of slavery. He said the amendment should recognize the right to own slaves as property in states where slavery was permitted. It should protect this right in all territories until the territories became states. And it should end all state laws that interfered with the return of escaped slaves to their owners.
No one liked President Buchanan's message to Congress. Northerners did not like his declaration of federal weakness in the face of secession. Southerners did not like his declaration that secession was unconstitutional. The message did nothing to change the situation. Soon after it was read to Congress, South Carolina opened its secession convention. Delegates to the convention would make the final decision if South Carolina would remain in the Union or secede. There was little question how they would vote. A committee wrote a secession resolution. The resolution said simply that the people of South Carolina were ending the agreement of seventeen eighty-eight in which the state had approved the Constitution of the United States. It said the Union existing between South Carolina and the United States of America was being dissolved. The committee offered the resolution to the convention on December twentieth, eighteen sixty. There was no debate. The delegates voted immediately. No one voted against it. South Carolina had seceded. But what must it do now. There was the problem of property in South Carolina owned by the federal government. The convention continued to meet to work out details of South Carolina's new position in the world. That will be our story next week.
重点解析
1.spread to 传到；蔓延到
Worries about the virus appear to have spread to North Korea as well.
对这种病毒的担心似乎也蔓延到了朝鲜。
2.before long 不久以后；很快
German interest rates will come down before long.
德国的利率水平很快就会降下来。
3.work out 解决；制定出
Things just didn't work out as planned.
事情根本没有按计划进行。
4.call on 请求；呼吁
One of Kenya's leading churchmen has called on the government to resign.
肯尼亚一位高级宗教人士要求政府下台。
参考译文
欢迎收听VOA慢速英语之建国史话节目。亚伯拉罕·林肯在1860年11月赢得了总统选举。几个月后，当他上任时，他面临着美国历史上最严重的危机。南方各州终于实践了他们先前威胁要做的事情，他们因为奴隶制问题开始脱离联邦。在本周的系列节目中，哈里·门罗和凯·格兰特将讨论美国历史上的这个关键时刻。南方各州不希望亚伯拉罕·林肯赢得1860年的选举。林肯是共和党人，共和党反对奴隶制。林肯从未表态过他想结束南方的奴隶制。他不相信有人有权这么做。然而，他不想看到奴隶制蔓延到美国的其他地方。
林肯告诉南方人：“你们认为奴隶制是正确的，应该被扩展到更广的范围。而我们认为它是错误的，应该受到限制。我想这就是问题所在。这肯定是我们之间唯一重要的区别。”支持奴隶制的极端分子认为这种差别已经足够了，他们确信林肯和他的共和党人很快就会赢得国会和最高法院的控制权。他们认为，不久后宪法就会更改。奴隶制在任何地方都会是非法的。即使这没有发生，南方人也很担心。他们说，除非奴隶制能够扩沿，否则南方的奴隶数量将过多。随着时间的推移，黑人和白人将争夺控制权，其中一方会被摧毁。因此，甚至在总统选举之前，南方人就开始讨论如果亚伯拉罕·林肯获胜，他们会怎么做。10月初，南卡罗来纳州州长威廉·吉斯特给其他南部各州的州长写信。他说，如果林肯当选总统，他们应该就采取什么行动达成一致。
基斯特说，一旦选举结果正式公布，南卡罗来纳州将召开州会议。他说，如果任何一个州决定脱离联邦，南卡罗来纳州也会效仿。如果没有其他州决定离开，那么南卡罗来纳州将自行退出联邦。州长吉斯特得到了不同的答案。两个州——阿拉巴马州和密西西比州——都表示不会单独脱离联邦。但他们说，他们将与做出这一决定的其他州一道行动。另外两个州——路易斯安那州和乔治亚州——则表示，除非北方对他们采取行动，否则他们不会脱离联邦。一个州——北卡罗来纳州——说，它还没有决定该怎么做。除了南卡罗来纳州的威廉·吉斯特，似乎没有哪个南方州长愿意领导南方脱离联邦。1860年11月6日，亚伯拉罕·林肯当选总统。南卡罗来纳州听到这个消息后，人们激动异常。对那里的许多人来说，林肯的胜利标志着该州与联邦关系的终结。对他们来说，这是南方独立的开始。来自南卡罗来纳州的两位美国参议员都辞职了。联邦法官和联邦税收收税官也相继辞职。人们降下美国国旗，升起了各州的旗帜。
州立法机关同意在12月17日召开大会，大会将做出离开联邦的最后决定。其他几个南方州也做出同样的决定。脱离联邦的想法——分裂——就像奴隶制一样，将南北方分裂。南方人声称，他们有权和平地脱离联邦。但北方人并不同意，他们说，分裂就是叛国，这会导致内战。在林肯就职的前几个月，总统詹姆斯·布坎南试图解决这个问题。首先，他提出了召开一次所有州都参加的大会。大会的目的是解决南北两方的差异。布坎南内阁中的南方成员拒绝这种提议。第二项提议，是关于分裂国家的强有力的政策声明。该声明将包括司法部长的意见，声明中指出，如果有必要的话，政府可以使用武力来维持国家统一。南方的内阁成员也反对这种提议。总统布坎南不得不就分裂问题发表温和态度的政策声明。
该声明指出，总统可以向某州派遣军队，以帮助联邦执法官执行联邦法院的裁决。但如果联邦法官辞职，联邦法院将不会作出强制执行的裁决。因此，向南卡罗来纳州等联邦官员已经辞职的州派遣军队，将是反对该州的战争行为。只有国会拥有宪法赋予的宣战权。布坎南接受了这一声明，他非常乐意让国会决定应该采取的措施。国会几乎没有机会采取行动，来自北部和南部的国会议员已经做出一些决定，而这些决定既不能、也不会被轻易更改。南部诸州的大多数国会议员都支持脱离联邦，他们不想留在联邦。许多来自北方各州的国会议员当选，因为他们承诺阻止奴隶制向西部地区扩展。他们不打算违背自己的承诺。一些立法者希望，总统布坎南在每年向国会发表的国情咨文中提出一个折衷方案。
布坎南首先谴责北方的废奴主义者。他说，他们要对目前的问题负责，他们的干涉引起了对南方奴隶叛乱的极大恐惧。随后，布坎南呼吁南方人民接受林肯当选一事。他表示，选举一名公民担任总统一职不应成为解散联邦的理由。布坎南宣称，宪法没有赋予任何州脱离联邦的权利。但是，他承认，如果某个州真的脱离联邦，联邦政府几乎无能为力。“事实是，”布坎南说，“我们的联邦建立在公众舆论之上。而在内战中，人民的鲜血永远无法将它凝聚在一起。如果联邦不能活在人民心中，那它总有一天会消亡。”布坎南建议国会就奴隶制问题提出宪法修正案。他说，修正案应该承认在允许奴隶制的各州，认可拥有奴隶作为财产的权利。在领土变为州之前，宪法应该保护这种权利在所有领土上实施。同时，宪法还应该终结所有妨碍将逃亡奴隶归还其主人的州法律。
没有人喜欢总统布坎南向国会发表的国情咨文。北方人不喜欢他在面临分裂一事时，宣布联邦政府软弱；南方人则不喜欢他宣布，脱离联邦是违宪的。这项国情咨文并未对改变形势起到任何作用。将其宣读给国会不久，南卡罗来纳州就召开了分裂大会。如果南卡罗来纳州继续留在联邦或脱离联邦，与会代表将作出最后决定。对于他们将如何投票，也不是什么问题。一个委员会撰写了一份分裂决议，决议中简洁地表示，南卡罗来纳州的人民正在终结1788年的协议，在该协议中，南卡罗来纳州批准了美国宪法。分裂决议中则表示，南卡罗来纳州和美利坚合众国之间存在的联邦关系正在终结。委员会于1860年12月20日向大会提交这份决议。根本没有什么辩论，代表们立即投票表决。没有人投反对票。南卡罗来纳州已经脱离联邦，但它现在必须要做的是什么呢。在南卡罗来纳州，联邦政府拥有的财产存在问题。会议继续进行，讨论有关南卡罗来纳州的全球新定位的各项细节。这将是我们下周要讲述的故事。
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