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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
On this Fourth of July, we have a reality about the United States. Sometimes this nation takes a step forward just when it seems to be stepping back.
NOEL KING, HOST:
Consider 242 years ago in 1776. A rebellion against British rule had broken out into war. Americans had differing motives2 to demand self-government. And for some, the motives were deeply ironic3.
INSKEEP: Recent scholars identified a reason some Americans sought independence. Britain was taking its first steps toward banning slavery, and some Americans feared they might be forced to give up their human property. And so it is said, they joined the fight for freedom to preserve their freedom to own other people.
KING: Now, that dark story had a remarkable4 result. In 1776, the Continental5 Congress assigned a young Virginian named Thomas Jefferson to draft a declaration of independence. Jefferson was a slave owner, but he considered slavery corrupt6, and in his declaration, he wrote a stirring phrase - that all men are created equal. That would become the nation's defining creed7.
INSKEEP: In time, that phrase would be used as a reason to free the very slaves whose bondage8 was said to be one motive1 for the declaration. Each July 4, we read the words the founders9 endorsed10 in 1776.
KING: If only they knew where those words would lead.
(SOUNDBITE OF ERIC WEINBERG'S "DAWN AT YORKTOWN")
INSKEEP: (Reading) When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the Earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel11 them to the separation.
RACHEL MARTIN, BYLINE12: (Reading) We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving13 their just powers from the consent of the governed.
DAVID GREENE, BYLINE: (Reading) That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.
KING: (Reading) Prudence14, indeed, will dictate15 that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. And accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: (Reading) But when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security.
DEBORAH AMOS, BYLINE: (Reading) Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies and such is now the necessity which constrains16 them to alter their former systems of government.
JOE PALCA, BYLINE: (Reading) The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid17 world.
AUDIE CORNISH, BYLINE: (Reading) He has refused his assent18 to laws, the most wholesome19 and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate20 and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained. And when so suspended, he has utterly21 neglected to attend to them.
SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: (Reading) He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish22 the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants24 only.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, BYLINE: (Reading) He has called together legislative25 bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing26 them into compliance27 with his measures.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: (Reading) He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly for opposing with manly28 firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: (Reading) He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected whereby the legislative powers, incapable29 of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: (Reading) He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing30 the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations31 hither and raising the conditions of new appropriations32 of lands.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: (Reading) He has obstructed33 the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure34 of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: (Reading) He has erected35 a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms36 of officers to harass37 our people and eat out their substance.
MICHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: (Reading) He has kept among us in times of peace standing38 armies without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected39 to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.
AYESHA RASCOE, BYLINE: (Reading) He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction40 foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation.
OFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON, BYLINE: (Reading) For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us, for protecting them by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, BYLINE: (Reading) For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world, for imposing41 taxes on us without our consent, for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury.
AILSA CHANG, BYLINE: (Reading) For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses42, for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies.
LINDA WERTHEIMER, BYLINE: (Reading) For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments, for suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate43 for us in all cases whatsoever44.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: (Reading) He has abdicated45 government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. He has plundered46 our seas, ravaged47 our coasts, burnt our towns and destroyed the lives of our people.
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: (Reading) He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy48 scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy the head of a civilized49 nation.
GENE50 DEMBY, BYLINE: (Reading) He has constrained51 our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren or to fall themselves by their hands.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: (Reading) He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages52, whose known rule of warfare53 is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress54 in the most humble55 terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: (Reading) A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant23 is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have we been wanting in the tensions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE: (Reading) We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity. And we have conjured56 them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably57 interrupt our connections and correspondence.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: (Reading) They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity58. We must therefore acquiesce59 in the necessity which denounces our separation and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war; in peace, friends.
COKIE ROBERTS, BYLINE: (Reading) We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in general Congress assembled appealing to the supreme60 judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions do in the name and by authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states.
GREENE: (Reading) That they are absolved61 from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.
R. MARTIN: (Reading) And that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy62 war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.
INSKEEP: (Reading) And for the support of this declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence63, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
(SOUNDBITE OF ERIC WEINBERG'S "DAWN AT YORKTOWN")
KING: Two-hundred-forty-two years ago today, church bells rang out over Philadelphia as the Continental Congress adopted this draft of the Declaration of Independence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ERIC WEINBERG'S "DAWN AT YORKTOWN")
1 motive | |
n.动机,目的;adv.发动的,运动的 | |
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2 motives | |
n.动机,目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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3 ironic | |
adj.讽刺的,有讽刺意味的,出乎意料的 | |
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4 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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5 continental | |
adj.大陆的,大陆性的,欧洲大陆的 | |
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6 corrupt | |
v.贿赂,收买;adj.腐败的,贪污的 | |
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7 creed | |
n.信条;信念,纲领 | |
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8 bondage | |
n.奴役,束缚 | |
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9 founders | |
n.创始人( founder的名词复数 ) | |
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10 endorsed | |
vt.& vi.endorse的过去式或过去分词形式v.赞同( endorse的过去式和过去分词 );在(尤指支票的)背面签字;在(文件的)背面写评论;在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品 | |
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11 impel | |
v.推动;激励,迫使 | |
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12 byline | |
n.署名;v.署名 | |
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13 deriving | |
v.得到( derive的现在分词 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
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14 prudence | |
n.谨慎,精明,节俭 | |
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15 dictate | |
v.口授;(使)听写;指令,指示,命令 | |
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16 constrains | |
强迫( constrain的第三人称单数 ); 强使; 限制; 约束 | |
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17 candid | |
adj.公正的,正直的;坦率的 | |
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18 assent | |
v.批准,认可;n.批准,认可 | |
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19 wholesome | |
adj.适合;卫生的;有益健康的;显示身心健康的 | |
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20 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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21 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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22 relinquish | |
v.放弃,撤回,让与,放手 | |
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23 tyrant | |
n.暴君,专制的君主,残暴的人 | |
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24 tyrants | |
专制统治者( tyrant的名词复数 ); 暴君似的人; (古希腊的)僭主; 严酷的事物 | |
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25 legislative | |
n.立法机构,立法权;adj.立法的,有立法权的 | |
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26 fatiguing | |
a.使人劳累的 | |
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27 compliance | |
n.顺从;服从;附和;屈从 | |
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28 manly | |
adj.有男子气概的;adv.男子般地,果断地 | |
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29 incapable | |
adj.无能力的,不能做某事的 | |
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30 obstructing | |
阻塞( obstruct的现在分词 ); 堵塞; 阻碍; 阻止 | |
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31 migrations | |
n.迁移,移居( migration的名词复数 ) | |
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32 appropriations | |
n.挪用(appropriation的复数形式) | |
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33 obstructed | |
阻塞( obstruct的过去式和过去分词 ); 堵塞; 阻碍; 阻止 | |
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34 tenure | |
n.终身职位;任期;(土地)保有权,保有期 | |
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35 ERECTED | |
adj. 直立的,竖立的,笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立,建立 | |
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36 swarms | |
蜂群,一大群( swarm的名词复数 ) | |
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37 harass | |
vt.使烦恼,折磨,骚扰 | |
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38 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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39 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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40 jurisdiction | |
n.司法权,审判权,管辖权,控制权 | |
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41 imposing | |
adj.使人难忘的,壮丽的,堂皇的,雄伟的 | |
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42 offenses | |
n.进攻( offense的名词复数 );(球队的)前锋;进攻方法;攻势 | |
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43 legislate | |
vt.制定法律;n.法规,律例;立法 | |
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44 whatsoever | |
adv.(用于否定句中以加强语气)任何;pron.无论什么 | |
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45 abdicated | |
放弃(职责、权力等)( abdicate的过去式和过去分词 ); 退位,逊位 | |
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46 plundered | |
掠夺,抢劫( plunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47 ravaged | |
毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 ); 蹂躏; 劫掠; 抢劫 | |
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48 perfidy | |
n.背信弃义,不忠贞 | |
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49 civilized | |
a.有教养的,文雅的 | |
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50 gene | |
n.遗传因子,基因 | |
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51 constrained | |
adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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52 savages | |
未开化的人,野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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53 warfare | |
n.战争(状态);斗争;冲突 | |
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54 redress | |
n.赔偿,救济,矫正;v.纠正,匡正,革除 | |
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55 humble | |
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低 | |
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56 conjured | |
用魔术变出( conjure的过去式和过去分词 ); 祈求,恳求; 变戏法; (变魔术般地) 使…出现 | |
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57 inevitably | |
adv.不可避免地;必然发生地 | |
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58 consanguinity | |
n.血缘;亲族 | |
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59 acquiesce | |
vi.默许,顺从,同意 | |
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60 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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61 absolved | |
宣告…无罪,赦免…的罪行,宽恕…的罪行( absolve的过去式和过去分词 ); 不受责难,免除责任 [义务] ,开脱(罪责) | |
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62 levy | |
n.征收税或其他款项,征收额 | |
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63 providence | |
n.深谋远虑,天道,天意;远见;节约;上帝 | |
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