LESSON 71

MASSACHUSETTS AND SOUTH CAROLINA

马萨诸塞人和南卡罗来纳

Daniel Webster, 1782-1852. This celebrated American statesman and orator was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire. His father, Ebenezer Webster, was a pioneer settler, a soldier in the Old French War and the Revolution, and a man of ability and strict integrity, Daniel attended the common school in his youth, and fitted for college under Rev. Samuel Wood, of Boseawen, graduating at Dartmouth in 1801. He spent a few months of his boyhood at “Phillips Academy,” Exeter, where he attained distinction as a student, but was so diffident that he could never give a declamation before his class. During his college course, and later, he taught school several terms in order to increase his slender finances. He was admitted to the bar in Boston in 1805. For the next eleven years, he practiced his profession in his native state. In 1812 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, and at once took his place as one of the most prominent men of that body. In 1816 he removed to Boston; and in 1827 he was elected to the United States Senate, where he continued for twelve years. In 1841 he was made Secretary of State, and soon after negotiated the famous “Ashburton Treaty” with England, settling the northern boundary of the United States. In 1845 he returned to the Senate; and in 1850 he was reappointed Secretary of State, and continued in office till his death. He died at his country residence in Marshfield, Massachusetts.

Mr. Webster’s fame rests chiefly on his state papers and his speeches in Congress; but he took a prominent part in some of the most famous law cases of the present century. Several of his public addresses on occasional themes are well known, also. As a speaker, he was dignified and stately, using clear, straightforward, pure English. He had none of the tricks of oratory. He was large of person, with a massive head, a swarthy complexion, and deep-set, keen, and lustrous eyes. His grand presence added much to his power as a speaker.

The eulogium pronounced on the character of the State of South Carolina by the honorable gentleman, for her Revolutionary and other merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me, in regard for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor; I partake in the pride of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one and all—the Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Marions—Americans all—whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by state lines than their talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits.

In their day and generation, they served and honored the country, and the whole country, and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman himself bears,—does he suppose me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his suffering, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light in Massachusetts, instead of South Carolina? Sir, does he suppose it in his power to exhibit in Carolina a name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom? No, sir,—increased gratification and delight rather. Sir, I thank God that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is said to be able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down.

When I shall be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit because it happened to spring up beyond the little limits of my own state or neighborhood; when I refuse for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or if I see an uncommon endowment of Heaven; if I see extraordinary capacity or virtue in any son of the South; and if, moved by local prejudice, or gangrened by state jealousy, I get up here to abate a tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!

Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts. She needs none. There she is; behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. And, sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it; if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it; if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary restraint, shall succeed to separate it from that Union, by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gathered around it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amid the proudest monuments of its glory and on the very spot of its origin.

【中文阅读】

那位令人尊敬的绅士对南卡罗来纳州的品格发表意见，阐述了她的革命和其他功绩，与我的想法不谋而合。我不认为这位来到我面前的尊敬的南卡罗来纳人，具有南卡罗来纳人的卓越才能和卓越品格。我以我的荣誉在此声明，我分享了她的那些伟大的人带给人们的骄傲。我宣布他们属于这个国家，那些伟大的人，每个人都是——劳伦斯们，拉特里奇们，平克尼们，萨姆特们，马里恩们——所有美国人，他们的名望同他们的才能和爱国情操一样，都不会被限定在同一狭隘的界限之内。

在他们生活的年代和同辈中，他们以为国家服务为荣，他们的声望是整个国家的宝藏。谁会把自己的荣誉让这位绅士分享——难道他认为我对他的爱国情操所能给予的感谢，或者对他的遭遇所给予的同情，要少于他最初从马萨诸塞人那里得到的，而不是南卡罗来纳？先生，难道他认为他对在卡罗莱纳显示她的影响力。不，先生——或多或少增加了几分感谢和快乐而已。先生，我感谢上帝，如果幸蒙上帝赐予我一种力量，据说能将凡人举到天上的话，那么我相信我就没有能将天使拉下凡间的其他力量了。

先生，有人说我在参议院或在别处，对公共美德进行讥笑，因为碰巧越过了我出生的州或相邻的州那小小的界限。当时我拒绝任何这样的理由，或者出于任何原因，向美国天才致敬，颂扬爱国主义，对自由和国家表示由衷的挚爱和忠诚。抑或要是我洞察到了上天非同寻常的赐予该有多好；要是我能洞察到南方人后代身上那特别的能力和德行；倘若受地方偏见影响，或者被嫉妒心态弄坏了心情的话，我在这里站起身就从他公正的品格和公正的名声上取下的一根头发课以什么税进行争论，我的舌头也许会与我嘴的顶部粘在一起的。

总统先生，在没有发表赞辞的情况下，我开始说说马萨诸塞州。实际上，她不需要任何溢美之词。所有的一切都显而易见。注视着她，由你自己做出判断。她的历史，世界都记在心里了。至少，过去的一切都是可靠的。波士顿、康科尔、莱克星顿，还有邦克山。它们会永远屹立在世人心中。先生，美国的自由精神在哪里发出最初的呐喊，那里的年轻人就会得到精神上的滋养，并将对自由的呐喊传承下去。还有一些生命，在他们的男子气概所彰显的力量中，充满了最初的精神。如果冲突与分裂伤害到它，如果党派之间的纷争和盲目的抱负抓住并撕扯它，如果愚蠢的行为和疯狂之举，如果有益的限制下所产生的不适，通过确保它的存在成为单独的现象而成功地将它从联邦里分离出来，到头来它将站在它的童年颠沛流离中的摇篮旁边；它会向前伸出胳膊，拼尽也许仅存的气力，够向围拢在四周的朋友。最终，它会倒在，如果它必然倒下的话，它的荣誉最值得骄傲自豪的纪念碑和记录它起源的特别之地中央。