林肯的遗产

Remains From Lincoln’s Last Day

林肯的遗产

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年前的这个月，正是他人生的最后一周。沉缓的脚步，衣服松垮垮地挂在高近2米的身躯上，声音细小，一张看上去远不止56岁的脸。“我很累，”他说。“有时候我觉得，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.

春日里的华盛顿，丁香花正绽放。国会大厦圆顶的脚手架终于拆除了。这个月他首先迎来的是一场胜利，他战胜了世界上最大的蓄奴国。里士满城破，被撤退的居民一把火烧毁。4月4日，亚伯拉罕·林肯(Abraham Lincoln)和12岁的儿子泰德(Tad)——那天是他生日!——踏着叛军都城的焦土瓦砾，在一群被解放的黑人的簇拥下走了一英里左右，以征服者的身份进入南白宫(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.

“奴隶的一天，没有黎明，”一个曾被奴役的人写道。从那天起，里士满的每一天都有黎明。

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点起床，早餐是咖啡和一个鸡蛋。他和内阁开会，和一个曾经为奴的人商谈，和难以捉摸的玛丽·托德 (Mary Todd)吃午饭。他们按计划去看了《我们的美国表兄弟》(Our American Cousin)。那天晚上，在福特剧院的包厢里，一名白人至上主义者用一把德林加手枪开了一枪。子弹穿过林肯的大脑，停在右眼后面。这场美国历史上伤亡最惨重的战争中最重要的一位伤员，于次日上午死亡——成为开国以来第一位被谋杀的总统。

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.

现在，我们来想想，这出美国版的耶稣受难剧的周年纪念给我们留下了什么。想想无土地者无偿得到的土地，横贯大陆的铁路，国家公园的雏形，赋予无权利者的人权。

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党，对他那宽宏的政治哲学进行了怎样的抵制。这里说的不是400万人民的解放——战死在南方的北方民主党人，当然还有当时掌权的共和党人，都为“美利坚合众国之原罪”的终结出过一份力。

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.

我是说在其他方面：在2015年控制着国会的这个一味说不的共和党，能通过《宅地法》(Homestead Act)吗?这部法律在1863年1月1日生效，同一天，林肯签发战时政令宣布脱离联邦诸州的奴隶是自由人。法律中有一个条款，是今天的共和党人不太可能支持的。

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.

前奴隶、“爱尔兰饥民”、俄罗斯犹太人、单身女性、完全不会说英语的墨西哥人——全都可以得到160英亩(约合972亩)的土地。要得到四分之一平方英里的土地，不需要有国民身份。你只需要有成为国民的意向。

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.

从这个层面讲，《宅地法》就是今天的《梦想法》(Dream Act)。它给那些既没有国民身份也没有财富的人，提供了一条通往这两样东西的路。

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.

再来说说用一条铁路贯通东西的设想，一个宏伟繁复的基建工程。1862年，林肯签署了推动建设跨大陆铁路的法案。同年，他还签署了一项法案，为日后的赠地大学(land grant colleges)铺平道路。

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.

今天的国会，连核发足够的资金用于修缮危桥都做不到，他们还削减助学基金，迫使勤工俭学的孩子离开大学。指望共和党人在交通、能源或教育领域会通过什么有创想和远见的东西，属无稽之谈。在他们眼里，政府永远不会干出什么好事。

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，林肯签署一项法案，允许加州对约塞米蒂谷和马里波萨巨杉林进行保护——这片荒野最终会被纳入国家公园系统。环保很大程度上是共和党提出的理念，如今却遭到共和党人的公然反对。

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.

林肯时代能实现如此的宏图大略，完全是因为一心想保护奴隶制和庄园主贵族制度的南方脱离了联邦——国会没了说不的人。

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”是清一色的共和党人，清一色的阻挠派。而这个党也是清一色的白人。不，他们不是奴隶制的辩护者，尽管有不少人对存活至今、充满毒害的联盟国遗风缺乏体认。他们对奥巴马总统的攻击——说他是一个国王，一个无能的人，一个外人，多少让人想起当年林肯遭到的奚落——也不会把奥巴马变成当今的林肯。

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.

但有一点可以肯定：在林肯遇害150年后的今天，凝聚共和党的理念是，他们反对当初成就了这个政党的崛起的那种进步立法。林肯是起居室里的一幅油画，他们一边掸着上面的尘土，一边谋划如何扼杀那些他会认可的东西。