从选举到开战：美国南北分裂的经过

历史学家亚当·古哈特讲述了：从林肯当选，到南方军袭击萨姆特要塞的那段动荡岁月。（萨姆特要塞：位于美国查尔斯顿港，1861年，这里发生的战斗，开始了南北战争。——译者注。）

你可能会认为德雷德·斯哥特案是压垮骆驼的最后一根稻草，随后国家就分裂了。（该案件的裁决认为：无论美国黑人是否身为奴隶，他们都不能作为公民，受到宪法的保护。）那么该案，如何将国家从相对平静的岁月中，活生生吓醒了。(德雷德·斯哥特:美国黑人，从蓄奴州被卖至非蓄奴州，他向法院起诉，要求自由。从而，最高法院裁定《密苏里妥协案》违宪。——译者注。)

德雷德·斯哥特案触及了奴隶制的深层次问题，这些问题以前尚未讨论过。过去的妥协案都试图在一些重大问题上和稀泥：种族是否平等；还有公民权，到底对美国人意味着什么；还有奴隶制的未来可能走向。首席法官塔尼裁决德雷德·斯哥特案时，他挑明了一些敏感问题；然而，已经有一段时间了，人们试图掩盖这些问题。

他以为他能一次性解决这个问题，能一劳永逸。他是一位非常谨慎的人，也很有学识。我认为他的出发点是善意的；他真的认为，自己能够理性地、深入地解决这个问题。当然，结果他全错了。

1860年共有4位总统候选人；他们是谁？他们的执政基础在哪里？

在巴尔的摩和查尔斯顿召开的两次会议，民主党人互相攻讦，最终一分为二。南北双方的民主党人不能就一位候选人达成协议；随后，南方民主党人退会，推选出了时任副总统的南方人——约翰·布瑞肯里奇。随后，北方民主党人推选斯蒂芬·A·道格拉斯。同时，宪政联邦党推选约翰·贝尔。基本上，这三位的支持者阵营都比较泾渭分明，所以留给林肯的领域就很清楚了。

当亚伯拉罕·林肯当选总统时，人们对他有多了解？

人们了解不多。我们现在很难想象：历史伟人林肯的面目会如此模糊。到目前为止，他真的不仅在历任总统中，形象最模糊的，甚至是在主要竞选人中，也是如此。当时，他到华盛顿的时间，刚超过10年。他作为伊利诺伊州的国会议员，干过一届。不仅对选民，他没有名气；华盛顿的整个政界，对他也所知甚少。

人们甚至不知道怎么拼写他的名字。《纽约时报》头条宣布他的提名时，把他的名字写成了“亚伯拉·林肯”。甚至当选后，有一段时间，很多报纸提到他，还用这个错误称谓。

那些“狂野清醒者”是谁？

有一点，根本不是值得夸耀，这场运动真的很有草蛮色彩。很快，运动如烈火烹油般开展了，超出了共和党头头们的预计。

“狂野清醒者”介于啦啦队和准军事队伍之间。绝大多数是小年轻。实际上，很多报纸编辑取笑他们，说大多数“狂野清醒者”不仅太年轻，还没有投票权，而且年纪太小，还得挨妈妈的板子。

“狂野清醒者”运动很可怕。比如，你住在曼哈顿下城区，半夜时分，可能会被鼓声和脚步声吵醒。你跑到窗边，向外看，一排排男子大踏步前进，他们都披着长长的黑斗篷，而且，你还知道斗篷下，藏着哪些武器。他们高举火把。有些人背上捆着斧头，以此向候选人林肯致敬。

一直以来，流传一个略带神奇的传说：南方充满骑士精神，骁勇能战；北方都是平和的商人。真相真的不同：北方历来有很强烈的尚武精神。当南方人备战时，北方人也一样。

为避免分裂和内战，国会做过哪些努力？

以前，因为国会解决过麻烦，所以这次，就算不是绝大多数，很多人也以为国会能妥善处理。约翰·J·克里腾登，来自肯塔基的参议员，提出了一揽子妥协案。克里腾登来自蓄奴州。他本身也是奴隶主；他并不属于南方大农场主，但有一些奴隶。他出生于1787年，宪法诞生的那年；而且，他属于老一代的美国人，秉持着国家统一的理念，而年轻一代人就不一样了。克里腾登的妥协案有六部分，首先要扩大密苏里妥协案的范围。

但事态进展超出了预计；而且，国会里，双方激进代表的力量太强大了。国会里，双方的激进代表，比选民们，还要激进。

会场内，大肆嚷嚷着分裂和僵硬的话语，人们都要站队了：支持一边，反对另一边。就是说，事情走向了极端，再也回不了头了。从克里腾登抛出妥协案的那刻起，就有参议员，如来自德克萨斯州的路易·T·威戈佛，说这个法案将北方逼到了墙角。

跌跌撞撞的詹姆斯·布坎南总统，如何应对南方的脱离？

某种程度上，布坎南的角色类似塔尼。布坎南深谙华盛顿的运作模式。他真心信服用政治家的方式，去管理去妥协，也相信理性和辩论的力量。南方只是因为选出的总统不合心意，就要脱离合众国，他觉得完全不合逻辑。北方对南方的态度如此僵硬，也完全不合逻辑。他认为，他要做的就是：让双方都采取符合逻辑的方式。

他立即坐下来，写了给国会的年度通报——当时的总统，要给国会写长长的文件，而不是演讲。布坎南的文件超过了1万字；布坎南在文件中，非常清晰地阐明南方不应该脱离，但同时，他说联邦政府强制南方回归合众国，也缺乏宪法支撑。这文件如跛脚的鸭子，谁都不满意。

詹姆斯·罗塞尔·罗威的《亚特兰大月刊》，撰文说该文件如“被最后挤压的干瘪橙子”，此后，学界和政界都耗尽了布坎南的管理力量。

林肯呢？在此期间，他是否公开表过态？

从他5月份被共和党提名，到1861年的2月份，他离开伊利诺伊州的春田市，在这大半年的多事之秋，林肯紧紧地闭嘴。人们，特别是其他共和党人，求他做一些公开表态，能安抚一下焦虑的国家；而且，能给民众一些保证，说他事实上不是极端共和党人；他拒绝了。

林肯说，他曾经说过的任何保守意见，人们都不应再相信了。他说，他说的话，都有可能会被扭曲；实际上，过去，他的话被错误地利用了。他还说，他仅是收集危机的信息，这样，才能充分了解情况。一个基本待在春田市办公室里的人，说他正在收集信息，这有点奇怪。

有过一些共和党的领导们，甚至有些民主党人，去春田市拜访过林肯，还进行了私下交谈；但他肯定没挪离那个窝。很多迹象表明，他真的低估了这场危机的严重程度。1861年2月份，他沿着春田市到华盛顿的铁路线，辗转举办了几场演讲。他在每个大城市停留，并演讲。每次都是典型的即席演说，有几个地方，如在俄亥俄州的哥伦布市，他说：“哦，我们没什么可担心的。目前，没有伤害，没人受苦。”当国家即将分裂时；当国家即将陷入严重财政危机时；当双方民众都厉兵秣马，准备内战时，他却说没人受苦——人们真的觉得意外。

那么，因为德雷德·斯哥特案，司法部门点了分裂的火花；立法部门怒气冲冲地抗争，拿出一些无效的妥协案；行政部门因为林肯和布坎南进行交接，能力不逮。那么媒体，所谓政府的第四部门，表现如何？它扮演了什么样的角色？

在分裂过程中，媒体的重要性让人难以想象。那是一个信息革命的时代。当时，出现了如电报等新技；廉价的、大量印刷的报刊，如雨后春笋般出现。不止每星期出版的刊物，在全国各地，很多城市，双方都办起了日报。

查尔斯顿的人说了一些话，马萨诸塞州的人听到了，提出反对。双方激烈的言辞，都让对方深感震惊。我想这产生了出人意料的偏光效果。编辑或政客要想吸引眼球，就得说一些能在全国流行的过激言论。

北方是否支持分裂？

现在看起来，我们可能会感到惊讶：北方的一些人，包括很多坚定的废奴人士，愿意接受分裂，或者真的支持南方分裂。象温戴尔·菲利普斯和威廉姆·劳埃德·盖瑞森，这些人要说：“好吧，这将抹去国旗上的奴隶制。美国国旗的象征不再有障碍物。（分裂）将让我们宣布：我们拥有了——从未曾有过的——自由。”这念头真自私。他们更关心道德上是否有瑕疵，而不是实实在在地解放奴隶。

北方，不止有象约翰·布朗那样的极端分子，还有一些著名代表，他们要说：“我们携手一致，我们厌烦了跟南方妥协。我们不仅厌烦了跟南方的妥协，而且，我们准备战斗，愿意以命相搏，将来不再需要妥协。”

奴隶制，那个“古怪的体制”，是如何植入美国经济？北方代表们试图阻止战争，是否有经济上的考量？

1860年，就在选举前的两天，当时全国最重要的报纸之一，《纽约先驱报》撰文说，选出象林肯这样的反奴隶制总统，表明我们正在宰杀会下金蛋的鹅。这提醒了北方人，北方的经济有多依赖南方的棉花：马萨诸塞州的洛威尔，还有新英格兰的其他地方，许许多多纺织厂等着棉花开工。

纽约航运业的很大一部分根基，就是将一包包棉花，从南方港口运往欧洲港口；将北方的货物运往南方。这其中大部分是北方人的船只。北方的工厂生产出南方奴隶的衣服。中西部的农民种植粮食、饲养肥猪，通过河流，运去南方，给农场里的奴隶吃。

北方经济与奴隶制有千丝万缕的关系。通过抵押和保单，某种程度上，北方的银行和保险公司自身也是奴隶主。

今天，我们忘了奴隶不仅仅是劳动力，他们还是资本。内战前，奴隶价格飙升，到了1860年，南方奴隶的总价值，超过了全国工业和铁路加起来的价值。要南方人自断财路，自愿放弃奴隶制，简直就是不可能；那时候，奴隶制的繁荣真是史无前例。

过去40年的美国五大事件

移动电话、国家安全、DVD、iPod、每张桌子上的电脑、宇宙飞船、HIV病毒、“美国偶像”（一档娱乐节目——译者注）、自动取款机、苏联解体、国际恐怖主义、设计水（瓶装矿泉水，根据客户需要贴上商标，在特定场合使用，如营销或展览。——译者注。）、电动汽车。总体上，过去40年，我们生活的世界变化巨大，那时候，史密斯森协会刚建成。（史密斯森协会：联合国博物馆。——译者注。）

为纪念杂志创刊40周年，我们想问：如果要你说出过去40年，最重要的5件事情，包括事件、思想或进步，会是哪些呢？

抛砖引玉，我先列出清单，按时间排序。

1970年：通过《清洁空气法》。该法案，第一次在全国范围内，对工厂、汽车和其他排放源，全面限制，以减少空气污染。在第一个地球日后的几个月，国会批准了各项规章制度。已故的国会众议员保尔·G·罗杰斯说：“（这是）国家环保事业的关键转折点。”他参与了条款的制定。很大程度上，由于该法案和一系列的修正案，即使现在，美国人口增加了1亿，汽车增加了1.2亿辆；但我们呼吸的空气，污染程度要比1970年还少。

1991年：互联网的出现。互联网对公众开放，永远改变了人们的表达、购物、社交、政治运作、学习、自娱自乐和创造等方方面面。网络将数亿人联系在一起——还是数十亿人？——第一次，真正的全球文化开始萌芽。

2001年：9·11恐怖袭击。如同世贸双塔轰然倒塌，改变了曼哈顿天际的景色，9·11事件也改变了美国的历史意识，再也不是天下无敌了。不算基地组织的自杀式袭击者，共有2973人丧生。一连串的事件：其他地方，同时发生的劫机事件；对纽约和五角大楼的袭击；袭击华盛顿未遂，飞机在宾夕法尼亚州坠毁，所有这一切大大改变了政府，引发了伊拉克和阿富汗战争。

2003年：终于完全破解人类基因组。有些基因组早几年已经破译了。对了解人的天性，这项成就翻开了新篇章。无论于公于私，这都是一项具有里程碑意义、历时多年的功绩：阐明了DNA上有30亿个化学单位；由此产生的信息，由2万-3万个基因携带；这些基因又盘绕成23对人类染色体。利用基因技术，研发新药或新治疗方法，并在临床中使用，还需要多一些时间。但这些成果，为研究生物遗传、众多疾病、性格形成、成长和发展、进化和人类久远的历史，打下了基础。

2008年：不管民众对总统的支持率如何起伏，巴拉克·奥巴马的当选，就是（美国）社会转变的大事件。我们的社会建立在自由之上，但对少数民族的压迫，特别是非裔美国人，玷污了自由。奥巴马能否成为美国历史上伟大的总统之一，还需要拭目以待，但一位非裔美国人首次当选国家最高领导人，本身就是令人瞩目的成就；这令人激动的事情，也说明美国社会的进步，今时不同往日了。

译者按：原文刊于《史密斯森协会杂志》。

美国自由的故事之废奴篇

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于2011-04-04 13:14:31翻译 | 已有129人浏览 | 有3人评论

本文令我想起曾经读过的一本《美国自由的故事》，也是美国历史学者所著。全书以自由在不同族群不同领域的拓展为主线，回顾美国200多年的历程，耳目一新，让我们对现今美国社会对于同性婚姻等问题的争论也可以获得历史纵深的视角。本文也可以是一个注解，其中还透着人性的挣扎，回味无穷。

April 1, 2011

2011年4月1日

How Slavery Really Ended in America

奴隶制在美国是如何终结的

By ADAM GOODHEART

在Adam Goodheart

On May 23, 1861, little more than a month into the Civil War, three young black men rowed across the James River in Virginia and claimed asylum in a Union-held citadel. Fort Monroe, Va., a fishhook-shaped spit of land near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, had been a military post since the time of the first Jamestown settlers. This spot where the slaves took refuge was also, by remarkable coincidence, the spot where slavery first took root, one summer day in 1619, when a Dutch ship landed with some 20 African captives for the fledgling Virginia Colony.

在1861年5月23日，美国内战打响后一个多月，三个年轻的黑人划船过了弗吉尼亚的James河，到一处联邦军控制的堡垒寻求避难。Fort Monroe Va是坐落在Chesapeake 湾的一片形似鱼钩的土地，自从首批移民在Jamestown安顿下来之后，这里就一直是一个军事据点。奴隶们会在这里避难，但这里也是奴隶制在1619年的一个夏日首次扎根的地方，这正是一个奇妙的巧合，当时弗吉尼亚殖民地刚刚踏入发展的繁荣期，一艘荷兰船只将20名来自非洲的被俘奴隶带到了这片土地。

Two and half centuries later, in the first spring of the Civil War, Fort Monroe was a lonely Union redoubt in the heart of newly Confederate territory. Its defenders stood on constant guard. Frigates and armed steamers crowded the nearby waters known as Hampton Roads, one of the world’s great natural harbors. Perspiring squads of soldiers hauled giant columbiad cannons from the fort’s wharf up to its stone parapets. Yet history would come to Fort Monroe not amid the thunder of guns and the clash of fleets, but stealthily, under cover of darkness, in a stolen boat.

两个半世纪之后，在内战爆发后的第一个春天，Fort Monroe成了新成立的联邦领土内为数不多的联邦军据点之一，士兵们一直绷紧神经保卫着。护卫舰和武装蒸汽船在叫做Hampton Roads的水域中聚集，这也是全球最好的天然港湾之一。一队队的士兵汗流浃背，将巨大的加仑炮从要塞的码头拖到其石头护墙边。但是Monroe要塞被载入史册并不是因为枪林弹雨，而是因为一艘在黑暗中悄然行动的被盗船只。

Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory and James Townsend were field hands who — like hundreds of other local slaves — had been pressed into service by the Confederates, compelled to build an artillery emplacement amid the dunes across the harbor. They labored beneath the banner of the 115th Virginia Militia, a blue flag bearing a motto in golden letters: “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Frank Baker，Shepard和James和上千其它当地的黑奴一样被迫加入为联邦服务的大军之中，他们的主要任务是港湾的沙丘之中布置大炮。他们在弗吉尼亚民兵115编队的旗帜下劳动，这一蓝色的旗帜上面用金色的大字刻着这样的箴言：不自由，毋宁死。

After a week or so of this, they learned some deeply unsettling news. Their master, a rebel colonel named Charles Mallory, was planning to send them even farther from home, to help build fortifications in North Carolina. That was when the three slaves decided to leave the Confederacy and try their luck, just across the water, with the Union.

一周左右之后，他们得知了一些令他们深感不安的消息。他们的主人，是一个反叛的奴隶主，名叫Charles准备把他们送到离家更远的地方来帮助北卡罗来纳州修建防御设施。这个消息让这三名奴隶决定离开联邦，到河对岸试试运气。

It cannot have been an easy decision for the men. What kind of treatment would they meet with at the fort? If the federal officers sent them back, would they be punished as runaways — perhaps even as traitors? But they took their chances. Rowing toward the wharf that night in May, they hailed a guard and were admitted to the fort.

在对他们来说，这并不是一个轻松的决定。他们在要塞会受到怎样的待遇呢？如果联邦官员将他们遣送回来，他们会不会被当作逃跑者甚至是叛徒受到惩罚？但是他们还是决定试下运气。在5月的那个晚上划向那个码头，他们向一个士兵打招呼，然后被准许进入了要塞。

The next morning they were summoned to see the commanding general. The fugitives could not have taken this as an encouraging sign. Having lived their whole lives near the fort, they probably knew many of its peacetime officers by sight, but the man who awaited them behind a cluttered desk was someone whose face they had never seen. Worse still, as far as faces went, his was not — to put it mildly — a pleasant one. It was the face of a man whom many people, in the years ahead, would call a brute, a beast, a cold-blooded murderer. It was a face that could easily make you believe such things: a low, balding forehead, slack jowls and a tight, mean little mouth beneath a drooping mustache. It would have seemed a face of almost animal-like stupidity had it not been for the eyes. These glittered shrewdly, almost hidden amid crinkled folds of flesh. One of them had an odd sideways cast, as if its owner were always considering something else besides the thing in front of him. These were the eyes that now surveyed Baker, Mallory and Townsend.

第二天早上，将军召见他们。这些逃亡者并没有被看作是鼓舞士气的事件。但他们一直在要塞附近生活，对很多和平时期的长官都能一眼认出来，但是正在桌子后面等待他们的人确实他们从未见过面的。更加糟糕的是，用温和的方式描述，他的容貌也不是赏心悦目的。很多人都会认为这是冷血的残忍的带着兽性的谋杀者的容貌。这一容貌马上会让人相信以下事实：很低的正在秃顶的前额，散漫的下巴赘肉，弯弯的胡子下是一张小嘴。容貌还有着动物似的愚蠢，幸好眼睛可以弥补这一点。在满布皱纹之间的眼睛机敏的闪着光，有一只眼睛余光还扫视着周边，好像主人在考虑事务表象之后的其它事情，现在这双眼睛就在打量着Baker，Mailory和Townsend。

The general began asking them questions: Who was their master? Was he a rebel or a Union man? Were they field hands or house servants? Did they have families? Why had they run away? Could they tell him anything about the Confederate fortifications they had been working on? Their response to this last question — that the battery was still far from completion — seemed to please him. At last he dismissed the three brusquely, offering no indication of their fate.

在将军开始问他们问题：主人是谁？是叛军还是联邦军？他们是在战地里干活还是管家仆人？家庭情况如何？为什么要出逃？能不能介绍一些他们工作过的要塞情况。对最后一个问题他们回答说还远远没有建设完成，这使得将军非常高兴，最后他粗鲁的叫他们走了，也并没有明确会怎样处置他们。

Maj. Gen. Benjamin Franklin Butler arrived at the fort only a day ahead of the fugitive slaves, greeted at the esplanade by a 13-gun salute. That morning, Butler sat down to compose an important initial report. When an adjutant interrupted to inform him of the fugitives, Butler set down his pen. The War Department could wait. The three ragged black men waiting outside were a more pressing matter.

Gen Benjamin Franklin在逃离奴隶抵达一天前到达要塞，要塞鸣礼炮13响以示欢迎。那天早上，Butler坐下来准备一个非常重要的报告，然后有下属打断他告诉他逃离奴隶的事情，butler放下笔。战争指挥部可以等待，但是这三名衣衫褴褛的奴隶却提出了更加急迫的问题。

Yet to Fort Monroe’s new commander, the fugitives who turned up at his own front gate seemed like a novel case. The enemy had been deploying them to construct a battery aimed directly at his fort — and no doubt would put them straight back to work if recaptured, with time off only for a sound beating. They had just offered him some highly useful military intelligence. And Virginia, as of 12 or so hours ago, was officially in rebellion against the federal government, having just ratified the secession ordinance passed a month before. Butler had not invited the fugitives in or engineered their escape, but here they were, literally at his doorstep: a conundrum with political and military implications, at the very least. He could not have known — not yet — that his response that day might change the course of the national drama that was then just beginning. Yet it was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that an unanticipated bureaucratic dilemma would force the hand of history.
对Monroe要塞的新将军来说，这些逃犯的到来是一个比较新的事物。敌人们一直安排这些逃犯来建造直接针对其要塞的攻击设施，所以一旦抓回去，在一阵暴打之后就会马上要他们开始工作。这些逃犯也给了他很多非常有用的军事方面的信息。弗吉尼亚在12小时之前正式加入叛军行列，该州正式签署了一个月前拟定的脱离联邦军的法令。Burtler并没有邀请这些逃犯也没有鼓动他们逃离，但是现在他们来了，无论在政治上和军事上来说都是难以破解的迷局，他在当时还不可能知道他在当天的应对会是一场改变民族历史之戏的开端，但是这既不是前所未有又不是后无来者的，美国历史上很多不期而至的行政两难处境都改变了这个国家的历史。

Butler was no abolitionist, but the three slaves presented a problem. True, the laws of the United States were clear: all fugitives must be returned to their masters. The founding fathers enshrined this in the Constitution; Congress reinforced it in 1850 with the Fugitive Slave Act; and it was still the law of the land — including, as far as the federal government was concerned, within the so-called Confederate states. The war had done nothing to change it. Most important, noninterference with slavery was the very cornerstone of the Union’s war policy. President Abraham Lincoln had begun his inaugural address by making this clear, pointedly and repeatedly. “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists,” the president said. “I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

在Butler不是废奴主义者，但是这三个黑奴还是提出了一个问题。美国的法律非常清楚的规定：所有的逃犯都必须归还给主人。建国之父们将之写入宪法，国会在1850年通过逃离奴隶法案进一步明确；所以这是美国的法律，至少在同盟州里，这是十分明确的，也是联邦政府清楚的。战争也没有改变这一点。更加重要的是，不干预奴隶制度是联邦战争政策的基石。林肯总统在就职演说中也清楚的一再声明“我没有任何直接或间接的目的，来在奴隶制存在的各州去干预奴隶制，我相信我没有法律赋予的权利这样做，我也不会这样做。”

Despite his rank, General Butler had been a professional soldier barely four weeks. In private life, back in Massachusetts, he was a lawyer, and a very successful one — although he grew up poor, the swamp Yankee son of a widow who kept a boardinghouse in Lowell, the textile-mill town. Unable to attract clients through social connections or charm, he became an expert quibbler: a man who knew every loose thread in the great tangled skein of common law and who could unravel an opponent’s entire case with the gentlest of tugs. By his early 40s, he had also built a successful career as a state legislator and harbored larger political ambitions.

尽管Butler有将军的头衔，但是他成为职业军人只有四周的时间。在马塞珠塞州生活的他，曾经是一名律师，虽然出生卑微，但他还是一名非常成功的律师。他的母亲在Lowell这个纺织小镇看管一个仓库，父亲早逝。由于不能通过社会关系吸引客户，他成了一名解决小争端的专家：他熟知在严密法律之下每一个细微的漏洞，并可以将对方的整个案件破解。40出头的他，事业已经非常成功，是一名州立法者，政治抱负远大。

A fellow officer once called Butler “less like a major general than like a politician who is coaxing for votes.” Race-baiting was red meat to many of his working-class constituents in Lowell, and he had always been glad to toss morsels in their direction. But after barely 24 hours at Fort Monroe, the new commander had already sized up his new constituency. The garrison was made up predominantly of eager volunteers from New England, many with antislavery sympathies. How was Butler to win the confidence — or even obedience — of such men if his first act as their commander was to send three poor blacks back into bondage?

一位同僚曾经说：“他并不像一名将军，倒是更像到处拉选票的政客。”他善于在竞选中向选民抛出他们所希望的利益。但是在Monroe要塞仅仅24小时之后，这位新的将军就已经很好的他新的选民群体所在。这个要塞驻防地的成员大部分都是来自新英格兰的有着强烈渴望的志愿者，很多都是同情反奴隶制的。如果他就职之后的第一个行动就是把三名黑人奴隶遣送回去，他又怎样去赢得驻防地成员的信任，甚至要在这些人中树立威信呢？

Butler’s features may have been brutish and his manners coarse, but inwardly, he nursed the outsize vanity of certain physically ugly men — vanity often manifest in a craving for approval and adulation. He also possessed a sympathetic, even occasionally sentimental, heart.

Butler有时显得粗鲁，但是内心里他还是要管理好自己不佳外形之下虚荣的心，虚荣通常会通过寻求认同和恭维表现出来。当然他也富有同情心，有时候还非常感性。

Still . . . sentiment was a fine thing; so was the admiration of one’s subordinates. Ultimately, though, his duty was to his commander in chief. With a few strokes of his pen, Lincoln had made Butler a major general; the president could just as easily unmake him, sending him back to Lowell in disgrace — and with another stroke, for that matter, send the blacks back to their master as slaves.

但是感性是有好的作用的，被追随者仰慕也是一样。当然最后还是要落实到他作为统帅的责任。林肯总统只需要几笔字就可以使他成为统帅，但是也可以同样轻松免去职务，让他灰溜溜地回到Lowell，然后再写上一笔，让这几个黑人奴隶回去继续做奴隶。

Whatever Butler’s decision on the three fugitives’ fate, he would have to reach it quickly. He had barely picked up his pen to finally begin that report before an adjutant interrupted with another message: a rebel officer, under flag of truce, had approached the causeway of Fort Monroe. The Virginians wanted their slaves back.

不管Butler会对这三名逃犯的命运作出怎样的安排,他都必须迅速作出决定.他刚刚拿起笔准备写报告,一位下属就打断了他,告诉他另一个信息,一个反叛方的官员在休战的旗帜下,已经逼近了Monroe要塞.弗吉尼亚人想要回他们的奴隶.

Waiting before the front gate was a man on horseback: Maj. John Baytop Cary of the 115th. With his silver gray whiskers and haughtily tilted chin, he appeared every inch the Southern cavalier.

在大门前等待的人骑在马上,是115编队的John.银灰色的胡须配上那歪歪的下巴,他的一举一动都透着南方军的味道.

Butler, also on horseback, went out to meet him. The men rode, side by side, off federal property and into rebel Virginia. They must have seemed an odd pair: the dumpy Yankee, unaccustomed to the saddle, slouching along like a sack of potatoes; the trim, upright Virginian, in perfect control of himself and his mount.

utler也骑在马背上出去见客.他们并排骑着马,从联邦的领地到了反叛的弗吉尼亚.这看起来真是奇怪的组合,一个是又矮又胖的北方佬,还不太习惯坐驾,无精打采地像一袋土豆;另一个是挺直腰板的弗吉尼亚人,保持着极好的姿态.

Cary got down to business. “I am informed,” he said, “that three Negroes belonging to Colonel Mallory have escaped within your lines. I am Colonel Mallory’s agent and have charge of his property. What do you mean to do with those Negroes?”

Cary直接切入主题,他说,我听说有三个属于Mallory领主的黑奴逃到你这里来了,我是领主的代理人,管理着他的财产.你想怎样处理这三个黑奴?

“I intend to hold them,” Butler said.

我想留下他们,Butler回答说.

“Do you mean, then, to set aside your constitutional obligation to return them?”

你是说你要把你对宪法的义务放在一边,不把他们还给我们吗?

Even the dour Butler must have found it hard to suppress a smile. This was, of course, a question he had expected. And he had prepared what he thought was a fairly clever answer.

在这里输入译文Butler向来不苟言笑,但即使如此他还是忍不住窃笑.这当然是他意料之中的问题,他已经准备了一个自认为是十分机智的答案.

“I mean to take Virginia at her word,” he said. “I am under no constitutional obligations to a foreign country, which Virginia now claims to be.”

他说,我的意思是说按照我们承认弗吉尼亚不属于美国来处理,我对任何外国都是没有宪法义务的,而弗吉尼亚现在不是宣称自己不属于美国吗?

“But you say we cannot secede,” Cary retorted, “and so you cannot consistently detain the Negroes.”

Cary反驳说,"但你说过我们不能脱离联邦,所以你不能永远保有这些黑奴."

“But you say you have seceded,” Butler said, “so you cannot consistently claim them. I shall hold these Negroes as contraband of war, since they are engaged in the construction of your battery and are claimed as your property.”

在这里输入译文Butler说,"但是你们已经宣布你们脱离联邦了,所以你们也不能永远要求要回这些黑奴,我会把他们当作战争中逃离南方的黑奴来对待,他们一直在帮你们安装炮火,你们一直宣称这是你们的财产.

Ever the diligent litigator, Butler had been reading up on his military law. In time of war, he knew, a commander had a right to seize any enemy property that was being used for hostile purposes. The three fugitive slaves, before their escape, were helping build a Confederate gun emplacement. Very well, then — if the Southerners insisted on treating blacks as property, this Yankee lawyer would treat them as property, too. Legally speaking, he had as much justification to confiscate Baker, Mallory and Townsend as to intercept a shipment of muskets or swords.

这位非常勤奋的律师Butler一直在攻读军事方面的法律.在战争时期,他知道一位将军是可以有权利夺取敌方的财产的,且敌方的财产是用于一些敌对的目的时,这三个黑奴在逃跑前一直在帮助安装南方军的炮火.所以如果南方军坚持认为黑奴是他们的财产,北方佬律师就可以也把他们作为财产.从法律上说,他没收这三个黑奴来截获剑等武器的运输还是很有道理的.

Cary, frustrated, rode back to the Confederate lines. Butler, for his part, returned to Fort Monroe feeling rather pleased with himself. Still, he knew that vanquishing the rebel officer was only a minor victory, and perhaps a momentary one if his superiors in Washington frowned on what he had done.

Cary感到非常沮丧,他又骑着马回到了南方一边.Butler则怀着较为满意的心情回到了Monroe要塞.但是他知道这只是一个小小的胜利,如果他在华盛顿的上级对此感到不悦的话,这个胜利也只是暂时的.

The following day, a Saturday, Butler picked up his pen and resumed his twice-interrupted dispatch to Washington. Certain questions had arisen, he began, “of very considerable importance both in a military and political aspect, and which I beg leave to herewith submit.”

第二天是个周六,Butler又拿起笔,继续写他两次被打断的报告.他突然想起一个问题,他起笔写道,这是一个从军事上和政治上来说都十分重要的问题,我希望离开一下去呈递这个问题.

But before this missive reached its destination, matters would become even more complicated. On Sunday morning, eight more fugitives turned up at Union lines outside the fort. On Monday, there were 47 — and not just young men now, but women, old people, entire families. There was a mother with a 3-month-old infant in her arms. There was an aged slave who had been born in the year of America’s independence.

在这里输入译文但是在他抵达目的地之前,情况就变得愈加复杂了.周六早上,又有8名黑奴越过界限到达北方军一边.周一,有47个黑奴也效仿了,这次不仅有年轻的小伙,还有妇女老人,有的全家都来了.还有一个妈妈抱着3个月大的婴儿.还有一位在美国独立那年出生的上了年纪的黑奴.

By Wednesday, a Massachusetts soldier would write home: “Slaves are brought in here hourly.”

到周三的时候,马塞诸塞州的士兵在家书中这样写道,每个小时都有黑奴过来.

“What’s to Be Done With the Blacks?” asked a headline in The Chicago Tribune. That was the question now facing the Lincoln administration. Within days after the three fugitive slaves crossed the river, their exploits — and their fate — were being discussed throughout the nation. At first the newspapers played it more or less as a comic sketch in a minstrel show: a Yankee shyster outwits a drawling Southern aristocrat. But Lincoln saw things in a more serious light. The president realized he might now be forced to make a signal verdict about matters he previously tried to avoid: slavery, race and emancipation.

芝加哥先驱报的头条提出了这个问题“该怎样对待这些黑奴呢？”这也是林肯政府目前要面对的问题。再三个黑奴涉水逃到北方要塞之后，怎样对待他们，他们的命运在全国各地都成了热议的话题。最初，报纸都多少带有一点喜剧色彩来描述这个故事：北方草根揶揄了南方贵族，南方贵族无计可施。但是林肯则从更加严肃的角度看待这个问题。总统意识到他现在可能要被迫签署一项他过去一直回避的命令，就是奴隶制，种族和解放。

Lincoln and his cabinet gathered to address Butler’s decision — and ended up punting. While reminding Butler that “the business you are sent upon . . . is war, not emancipation,” they left the general to decide what to do with fugitive slaves — including whether or not to continue declaring them contraband of war. Unfortunately, no detailed account of the deliberations survives. But a letter from one cabinet secretary, Montgomery Blair, suggests they were driven by a motive as common in Washington then as it is now: “a desire to escape responsibility for acting at all at this time.” By that point, the administration had already received a second dispatch from Butler, describing the influx of women and children. With this in mind, Blair — a member of a slaveholding Maryland family — suggested one pragmatic “modification” to Butler’s policy. “You can . . . take your pick of the lot and let the rest go so as not to be required to feed unproductive laborers or indeed any that you do not require,” he urged. As to the slaves’ eventual fate, Blair wrote, of course no one was suggesting that they be set free. Perhaps at the end of the war, those who belonged to men convicted of treason could be legally confiscated and sent off to Haiti or Central America. (The New York Herald, meanwhile, proposed that the federal government should wait until the war ended and sell all the slaves back to their owners, at half-price, to finance its cost.)

林肯和他的内阁开会讨论Butler的决定，却是不欢而散。他们提醒butler说“你提出的事宜是战争，不是解放，然后他们要将军自己决定怎样处理这些黑奴，包括是不是宣布他们为敌方的财产。不幸的是，关于这一讨论细节的记录没有能够存留下来。但是内阁一位秘书长Blair的信提到华盛顿当时的主要动机就是要逃避责任。而在当时，他们已经又收到Butler的第二封报告说有很多妇女儿童的黑奴也跑了过来。这样，Blair，他也是马里兰州一个蓄奴家庭，他提出这样一个建议，是对Butler政策的一个修正，建议是”你可以选择留下一些，其它的可以离开，这样你就不需要养活那些没有生产力的劳动者或者是你不需要的劳动者了。“至于这些黑奴最终的命运，Blair写道，当然没有人说他们应该自由，可能在战争结束的时候，那些属于被判叛国罪的主人的黑奴可以被合法的没收，然后被送到海地或者中美洲。（纽约先驱报在当时也建议联邦政府应该等到战争结束，然后把这些奴隶再卖会给他们的主人，可以半价出售来支持其战争成本。

Yet Butler realized what Blair did not: events were unfolding far too quickly for any of that. Despite the counsels from Washington, Butler was not turning away “unproductive” fugitives. He replied: “If I take the able-bodied only, the young must die. If I take the mother, must I not take the child?” By early June, some 500 fugitives were within the Union lines at Fort Monroe.

但是Butler意识到了Blair没有意识到的事情：事情进展太快，没有那样去处理的余地。所以尽管有来自华盛顿的建议，Butler还是没有抛弃这些没有生产能力的逃离黑奴。他回答说，”如果我只要能干的，年轻人会死掉，如果我选择留下孩子的母亲，我是不是又必须留下孩子呢？“到了6月上旬，有大约500个逃离的黑奴都聚集在Monroe要赛了。

“Stampede Among the Negroes in Virginia,” proclaimed Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, with a double-page spread of dramatic woodcuts showing black men, women and children crossing a creek under a full moon, then being welcomed heartily into the fort by General Butler himself (or rather, by the artist’s trimmer, handsomer version of him). One correspondent estimated that “this species of property under Gen. Butler’s protection [is] worth $500,000, at a fair average of $1,000 apiece in the Southern human flesh market.”

Leslie的报纸用一个双面木刻来描述当时男女老少的黑奴在月光下逃离的情景，Butler本人还亲自到要塞欢迎，由于艺术家的创造，Butler要显得英俊很多，这家报纸写道”黑奴们简直是争先恐后“一位记者估计这些在Butler旗下的财产可能价值50万美金，在南方的黑奴市场平均一个黑奴的价格是1000美金。

Journalists throughout the Union quipped relentlessly about the “shipments of contraband goods” or, in the words of The Times, “contraband property having legs to run away with, and intelligence to guide its flight” — until, within a week or two after Butler’s initial decision, the fugitives had a new name: contrabands. It was a perfectly composed bit of slang, a minor triumph of Yankee ingenuity.

全国的记者都不知疲倦的窃笑这个”敌人财产的运输故事“或者用Times杂志的话说，就是”敌人的财产有脚可以炮，有思想可以指挥他们的方向“在butler做出决定的一两周内，这些逃犯就有了一个新名字，就是敌人的财产。有些像是绝妙的俚语，也是北方佬近乎天才般的胜利。

Were these blacks people or property? Free or slave? Such questions were, as yet, unanswerable — for answering them would have raised a host of other questions that few white Americans were ready to address. Contrabands let the speaker or writer off the hook by letting the escapees be all those things at once. “Never was a word so speedily adopted by so many people in so short a time,” one Union officer wrote. Within a few weeks, the average Northern newspaper reader could scan, without blinking, a sentence like this one: “Several contrabands came into the camp of the First Connecticut Regiment today.”

这些黑人是人还是财产，是自由还是奴隶。这些问题在当时无法回答，因为回答这些问题又会带来新的其它问题，当时没有什么白人愿意准备好了去回答这些问题。当时所有的逃离者一下子在记者和讲述者那里有了新的叫法，一位北方军的官员这样写道，“从来没有一个词像这个词这样这么快被接受，传播又如此之广。”在几个星期的时间内，普通的北方报纸读者就可以一眼读到这样的句子，有几个敌人的财产今天来到了Connecticut部队“

As routine as the usage soon became, however, a hint of Butler’s joke remained, a slight edge of nervous laughter. A touch of racist derision, too: William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, carped, justly enough, that it was offensive to speak of human beings that way. Yet in its very absurdity, reflecting the Alice-in-Wonderland legal reasoning behind Butler’s decision, the term also mocked the absurdity of slavery — and the willful stupidity of federal laws that, for nearly a century, had acknowledged no meaningful difference between a bushel of corn and a human being with dark skin. Eventually, even black leaders adopted it.

这一用法很快约定俗成，Butler式的幽默还是存在者，轻松一笑时也有对形势紧张的担心。当然还有一点种族意味的嘲笑。Lloyd的废奴报纸，也是一个支持解放奴隶的人士就说用这个词来描述黑奴带有侮辱性。但是在荒谬中，它反映了爱丽丝漫游仙境中的法律推理，这个词讽刺了奴隶制的荒谬，也是联邦法律的不智之处，近一个世纪以来，联邦法律就承认在一个有着黑色皮肤和一把稻谷之间没有什么区别。最后，连黑人领袖也接受了这一点。

Back at Monroe — dubbed “the freedom fort” — fugitives continued arriving daily. Each morning, dozens lined up to pitch in with manual labor. Soon they seemed almost like members of the garrison. A Times correspondent wrote: “Their shovels and their other implements of labor, they handle and carry as soldiers do their guns. . . . I have no doubt they would make fair or even excellent soldiers.” Moreover, as the garrison’s medical chief remarked, “they are the pleasantest faces to be seen at the post.”

在Monroe现在被称为“自由要塞”，逃离者还是每天继续增加。每天早上，都有几十个在排队希望能够靠体力劳动生存下来。很快，他们看起来就像是要塞的一员了。一位时代杂志的记者这样写道“他们的铲子和其它劳动工具，他们用起来扛起来的姿势就像士兵扛枪的姿势。我完全相信他们能够成为合格的甚至是优秀的士兵。”并且，要塞的首席医师还说，“他们也是这个据点里最让人心情愉快的表情。”

Many of the Union soldiers had never really spoken with a black person before; the Vermont farmboys had perhaps never even seen one before leaving home. Now they were conversing with actual men and women who had been (and perhaps still were) slaves: people who had previously figured only as a political abstraction. Some fugitives shared horrific accounts; one man described “bucking,” a practice in which a slave, before being beaten, had his wrists and ankles tied and slipped over a wooden stake. Almost all spoke of loved ones sold away; the most chilling thing was that they said it matter-of-factly, as if their wives or children had simply died.

很多北方阵营的士兵以前从来没有和黑人说过话，Vermont的农场男孩在离开家前可能从来没有见过黑人。现在他们在和真正的以前做过黑奴的人交流，而之前只是一个政治的抽象概念。一些逃离者会讲述他们可怕的经历，在奴隶被打之前，他的手腕和脚腕都要被绑起来，然后用木制的棍子抽打。几乎所有人都讲到自己的亲人被卖掉的经历，他们讲的是事实，并且对他们来说和妻子孩子去世没有什么不同，这更加令人痛心。

Perhaps most surprising of all — for Northerners accustomed to Southern tales of contentedly dependent slaves — was this, in the words of one soldier: “There is a universal desire among the slaves to be free. . . . Even old men and women, with crooked backs, who could hardly walk or see, shared the same feeling.”

对那些习惯了南方关于黑人依赖性的故事的白人来说，最让他们惊讶的是，用一个士兵的话说，就是在奴隶中间有一种普遍的愿望就是自由，不管男女老少，驼背的，不能走路的，瞎眼的，都有同样的渴望。

General Butler grew ever more adamant in the defense of “his” contrabands, to a degree that must have shocked his old associates. By July, he began pressing the Lincoln administration to admit that the contrabands were not really contraband: that they had become free. Indeed, that they were — in a legal sense — no longer things but people: “Have they not by their master’s acts, and the state of war, assumed the condition, which we hold to be the normal one, of those made in God’s image? . . . I confess that my own mind is compelled by this reasoning to look upon them as men and women.”

Butler将军在保护这些“敌人的财产”上态度越来越坚决，甚至可能会让他过去的同事震惊的程度。到7月，他开始向林肯政府施压，要林肯政府承认这些敌人的财产并不只是财产，他们已经自由了。确实，法律上讲，他们自由了，他们不再是物品而是人。他写道，“如果不是因为他们主人的行为，或战争的状态，我们就用我们普通的态度，他们也是上帝的子民，我承认我的思想里已经把他们当成男人或者女人。

It would take another 14 months — and tens of thousands more Union casualties — before the Lincoln administration was ready to endorse such a view.

要林肯总统签署这项法案，还要等上14个月，还要上千上万的伤亡。

“Shall we now end the war and not eradicate the cause?” the general wrote to a friend in August. “Will not God demand this of us now [that] he has taken away all excuse for not pursuing the right?” (During the rest of the war, Butler’s support for black civil rights — and harsh treatment of rebel sympathizers — made him hated throughout most of the South, where he won the nickname Beast Butler.)

我们是不是该结束战争，或者不去我们是不是该结束战争，或者不去理会这个问题呢？（此处之后保存失败，但已经译了这么多，只有重新译过，真是令人扼腕呀，亟盼译言改进）将军在8月写给一位朋友的信中说，“难道上帝不要求我们这样做吗？现在上帝已经把所有我们可以回避的借口都带走了。”在之后的战争中，Butler致力于支持黑人民权，对于反叛军的支持者毫不留情，南方大部地区对他恨之入骨，还给他去绰号叫兽性屠夫。

More and more people had begun to share Butler’s conviction that the fugitives at Monroe stood in the vanguard of a larger revolution. “I have watched them with deep interest, as they filed off to their work, or labored steadily through the long, hot day,” a Northern visitor to the fort wrote. “Somehow there was to my eye a weird, solemn aspect to them, as they walked slowly along, as if they, the victims, had become the judges in this awful contest, or as if they were . . . spinning, unknown to all, the destinies of the great Republic.”

越来越多的人还是接受Butler的信念，就是Monroe的逃离者代表了一场更大革命的先锋，一位北方人士造访了Monroe要塞，他写道，“我带着浓厚的兴趣，仔细观察了他们，他们去田间干活，他们在炎热之中辛勤做，在我眼中，我看到了非常奇怪也是他们中神圣的一面，就是这些受害者可能成为冲突的裁判者，他们会决定这个伟大共和国的命运。”

Earthshaking events are sometimes set in motion by small decisions. Perhaps the most famous example was when Rosa Parks boarded a segregated bus in Montgomery, Ala. More recently, a Tunisian fruit vendor’s refusal to pay a bribe set off a revolution that continues to sweep across the Arab world. But in some ways, the moment most like the flight of fugitive slaves to Fort Monroe came two decades ago, when a minor East German bureaucratic foul-up loosed a tide of liberation across half of Europe. On the evening of Nov. 9, 1989, a tumultuous throng of people pressed against the Berlin Wall at Checkpoint Charlie, in response to an erroneous announcement that the ban on travel to the West would be lifted immediately. The captain in charge of the befuddled East German border guards dialed and redialed headquarters to find some higher-up who could give him definitive orders. None could. He put the phone down and stood still for a moment, pondering. “Perhaps he came to his own decision,” Michael Meyer of Newsweek would write. “Whatever the case, at 11:17 p.m. precisely, he shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, ‘Why not?’ . . . ‘Alles auf!’ he ordered. ‘Open ’em up,’ and the gates swung wide.”

往往改变历史的事件源于一些不起眼的决定。最为著名的就是Rosa上了Montgomery的一辆种族隔离的汽车，最近的一次是突尼斯水果商贩拒绝行贿引发阿拉伯世界的浪潮。但是和Monroe要塞比较类似的还是20年前的一个决定，当时东德的一个行政失误导致了席卷半个欧洲的变革。在1989年11月9日晚上，因为一项失误，宣布去西德的旅行命令即将解除，骚动的人群挤向柏林墙，。当时掌管柏林墙的官员不断拨电话，希望得到上级比较明确的指示，但是没有。他放下电话，站着想了一会。新闻周刊的Michale写道，“他可能决定自己做出决定了，不管怎样，在11：17分，他耸了耸肩，好像说为什么不呢？开门，大门打开了。

The Iron Curtain did not unravel at that moment, but that night the possibility of cautious, incremental change ceased to exist, if it had ever really existed at all. The wall fell because of those thousands of pressing bodies, and because of that border guard’s shrug.

铁幕在当时并没有完全被打破，但是那个晚上，任何小步走的可能性就不复存在了，即使曾经存在过。柏林墙因为上万人的挤压倒了，也因为那位长官耸着肩做出的决定。

In the very first months of the Civil War — after Baker, Mallory and Townsend breached their own wall, and Butler shrugged — slavery’s iron curtain began falling all across the South. Lincoln’s secretaries John Hay and John Nicolay, in their biography of the president, would say of the three slaves’ escape, “Out of this incident seems to have grown one of the most sudden and important revolutions in popular thought which took place during the whole war.”

在三名逃离者逃到北方阵营的最初几个月内，Butler也是耸了耸肩，奴隶制的铁幕就开始了崩溃的进程。林肯的秘书Hay和Micolay在他们写的总统传记中会这样说，”这一件小事却孕育了战争中最重要的一次革命，也是非常出乎意料的。“

Within weeks after the first contrabands’ arrival at Fort Monroe, slaves were reported flocking to the Union lines just about anywhere there were Union lines: in Northern Virginia, on the Mississippi, in Florida. It is unclear how many of these escapees knew of Butler’s decision, but probably quite a few did. Edward Pierce, a Union soldier who worked closely with the contrabands, marveled at “the mysterious spiritual telegraph which runs through the slave population,” though he most likely exaggerated just a bit when he continued, “Proclaim an edict of emancipation in the hearing of a single slave on the Potomac, and in a few days it will be known by his brethren on the gulf.”

第一批敌人的财产到达Monroe要塞的几周内，奴隶们如潮水般涌进北方军的边界，在北弗吉尼亚，在密西西比，在佛罗尼达。不清楚到底有多少人知道这是Butler的决定导致了这一点，但是很可能还是有不少人知道的。Edward，是一位和敌人的财产们联系紧密的北方士兵，他说，简直就是精神电报，在黑人奴隶中传播神速。令人惊叹。可能有些夸张，他说，在Potomac做出的一个黑奴命运的解放决定就可以在几天之内传到Gulf的弟兄中去。

In August, Lincoln’s War Department tried to bring some clarity to the chaos by asking Union commanders to collect detailed information on each fugitive: not just name and physical description but “the name and the character, as loyal or disloyal, of the master” — since whether the master supported the Union or the Confederacy was, of course, essential to determining whether the particular man or woman counted as legitimate contraband. Such a system would let the federal government assure slaveholders that their “rights” were protected, and possibly return the slaves to their proper owners once the rebel states had rejoined the Union.

8月，林肯的战争部要求各地指挥官收集关于每个逃离者更加详细的信息，不仅仅是姓名和外貌特征，还应包括性格，他们的主人是不是忠于联邦事业，这样做可以让混乱的状态变清晰一点。因为这些奴隶主是忠于南方还是北方对于决定逃离者是不是合法的敌人的财产是至关重要的。通过这样一个制度，奴隶主们也可以确信他们的权利是受到保护的，如果反叛各州重新加入联邦，奴隶们是要被归还的。

But how were officers supposed to tell whether a master they had never laid eyes on was loyal or disloyal — even assuming that the slave was telling the truth in identifying him? Besides, didn’t the military have more pressing business at the moment, like fighting the war? The new contraband doctrine was utterly unenforceable almost from the moment it was devised, but it became hugely influential precisely because it was so unenforceable: it did not open the floodgates in theory, but it did so in practice.

但是官员们如何判断他们重来没有见过的奴隶主是忠于南方还是北方呢？他们怎们相信奴隶是在说实话呢？并且战事紧张，他们也不能把此项事件作为唯一任务呀。这一新的关于敌人的财产的理论是完全不能够执行的，从它出台之日起就注定如此，但正因为不能执行才那样富有影响力，它没有打开理论前进的阀门，却在实践中做到了这一点。

And it did so with very little political risk to the Lincoln administration. Indeed, preposterous as the contraband doctrine was as a piece of law, it was also — albeit inadvertently — a masterstroke of politics; indeed, it satisfied nearly every potential theoretical and political objection while being completely unworkable in the long run. “There is often great virtue in such technical phrases in shaping public opinion,” Pierce observed. “The venerable gentleman, who wears gold spectacles and reads a conservative daily, prefers confiscation to emancipation. He is reluctant to have slaves declared freemen but has no objection to their being declared contrabands.”

并且其取得的成果对于林肯政府来说几乎没有政治的风险。尽管作为一项法律条纹，敌人的财产理论非常荒谬，但是又是政治的智慧杰作。它让理论上政治上的反对者都可以接受，尽管在长时期内又完全不能实施。Pierce观察到，这样一个技术性的提法往往能够有推动公共舆论的重大作用，一个德高望重的绅士，金色胡须，每天读保守派的报纸更加愿意接受没收一词，而不接受解放一词。他不愿看到奴隶们被宣布是自由人，但是对宣布为敌人的财产，他没有异议。

The system was eminently practical in other terms. Regiments needed labor: extra hands to cook meals, wash clothes and dig latrines. When black men and women were willing to do these things, whites were happy not to ask inconvenient questions — not the first or the last time that the allure of cheap labor would trump political principles in America.

这一安排在其它方面也非常实用。部队需要劳动力，需要人手做饭，洗衣，挖茅厕。当黑人奴隶愿意承担这一任务，白人也非常高兴，并且他们还可以回避另一些让他们左右为难的问题，比如使用廉价劳动力是不是违背了美国的政治原则呢？

Blacks were contributing to the Union cause in larger ways. Not just at Fort Monroe but also throughout the South they provided Northerners with valuable intelligence and expert guidance. When Lincoln’s master spy, Allan Pinkerton, traveled undercover through the Confederacy, he wrote, “My best source of information was the colored men. . . . I mingled freely with them, and found them ever ready to answer questions and to furnish me with every fact which I desired to possess.” They were often the only friends the Yankees encountered as they groped their way anxiously through hostile territory.

黑人们还为北方的联邦事业在更大的领域做出贡献，不仅在Monroe要塞，在整个南方都是如此，他们给北方人士提供了有价值的资讯和专业向导。林肯政府的首席间谍，阿里烂在南方控制领地潜伏，他说，黑人是我最好的信息来源，我自由的和他们接触，他们随时准备回答我的问题，告诉我任何想要知道的信息，他们是北方人士在这片敌对领土上所能遇到的唯一朋友。

Just as influential was what did not happen: the terrible moment — long feared among whites — when slaves would rise up and slaughter their masters. It soon became apparent from the behavior of the contrabands that the vast majority of slaves did not want vengeance: they simply wanted to be free and to enjoy the same rights and opportunities as other Americans. Many were even ready to share in the hardships and dangers of the war. Millions of white Americans realized they did not actually have to fear a bloodbath if the slaves were suddenly set free. This awareness in itself was a revolution.

还有更加有影响力的是，很多白人害怕黑奴会起来屠杀他们的主人，但是很快白人们看到这些敌人的财产，他们只想要自由，只想要和美国人一样的权利和机会。很多人愿意在战争中风险，不惧艰险。数百万美国白人认识到即使黑人自由了也不用担心血腥事件发生，这样的认识本身也是革命。

Most important, though, was the revolution in the minds of the slaves themselves. Within little more than a year, the stream of a few hundred contrabands at Fort Monroe became a river of tens — probably even hundreds — of thousands. They “flocked in vast numbers — an army in themselves — to the camps of the Yankees,” a Union chaplain wrote. “The arrival among us of these hordes was like the oncoming of cities.”

最重要的是，黑人们自己思想上的革命。在不到一年的时间内，涌入Monroe要塞的几百个黑人形成的涓涓溪流就变成了上千上万的黑人涌入北方控制区域的大江大河。他们大量的涌入北方老控制的营地，有点像涌向城市的浪潮。

When Lincoln finally unveiled the Emancipation Proclamation in the fall of 1862, he framed it in Butleresque terms, not as a humanitarian gesture but as a stratagem of war.On the September day of Lincoln’s edict, a Union colonel ran into William Seward, the president’s canny secretary of state, on the street in Washington and took the opportunity to congratulate him on the administration’s epochal act.

林肯在1862年最后签署了解放黑奴的法令，法令还是以Butler式的术语写的，没有人道主义的色彩，只是作为战争的策略。在林肯签署法令后九月的一天，一位上校seward碰到了总统的国务卿，他不失时机祝贺这一划时代意义的法令。

Seward snorted. “Yes,” he said, “we have let off a puff of wind over an accomplished fact.”

Seward回答说，我们只是在已经既成事实上吹了一阵风而已。

“What do you mean, Mr. Seward?” the officer asked.

这是什么意思呢？上校问道。

“I mean,” the secretary replied, “that the Emancipation Proclamation was uttered in the first gun fired at Sumter, and we have been the last to hear it.”

我的意思是说，解放黑奴在Sumter打响了第一枪，而我们是最后听到枪声的人。

This article is adapted from “1861: The Civil War Awakening,” by Adam Goodheart (agoodheart2@washcoll.edu), published by Knopf this month. Mr. Goodheart is the author of “1861: The Civil War Awakening,” from which his article in this issue is adapted. He is director of Washington College’s C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, and contributes frequently to The Times’s online Civil War series, “Disunion.” Editor: Sheila Glaser (s.glaser-MagGroup@nytimes.com).

本文节选自“1861，民权觉醒”一书，该书作者AdamGoodheart，本月由Knopf出版。

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原文信息

• 标题：How Slavery Really Ended in America
• 来源：http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/magazine/mag-03CivilWar-t.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print
• 推荐者： itranslate
• 原文作者： By ADAM GOODHEART
• 原文日期： 2011-04-03
• 原文语言： 英语
• 原文分类： 文化

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