2021年经济学人 美国内战--时代姐妹花(2)（在线收听）

But the civil war scattered them. Tubman went to South Carolina to establish a settlement for freed slaves and serve as a Union scout and spy. Seward spent time in Washington as the discontented wife of a cabinet member. Her household and Wright’s sent off?spring to fi?ght; both mothers anxiously awaited news of their fates. Yet in a quiet testament to her convictions, Wright told her son that he should die before helping return a slave to the South. So that Tubman could continue her indispensable work, Seward became a godmother of sorts to her ten-year-old niece.

但是美国内战把她们分散了。塔布曼去南卡罗来纳州为自由奴隶建立定居点，并担任联邦侦察员和间谍。苏厄德作为一名内阁成员的妻子在华盛顿度过了一段抑郁不满的时间。苏厄德和赖特的家人将她们的后代送到了战场；两位母亲都焦急地等待着有关孩子命运的消息。然而，赖特在遗嘱中默默地向自己的儿子传达自己的信念，宁死也不能把一名黑奴遣送回南方。就这样，塔布曼继续着她至关重要的工作，苏厄德成了她十岁侄女的教母。

Somewhat miraculously, the war claimed just one life in this network of families. The Seward and Wright boys completed their service safely; Tubman would live until 1913. But on the night of Lincoln’s assassination, a co-conspirator came for his secretary of state as well, grievously injuring William Seward and other members of the household. Yet it was not William but Frances who perished. Physically unscathed, she never recovered from the shock of the event and died two months later. “Our calamities do not make us unmindful of the great loss our country has sustained in the death of our good president,” she wrote before the end.

有点不可思议的是，内战只夺走了这三家人中的一条生命。苏厄德和赖特的儿子们安全地完成了服役；塔布曼活到1913年。但在林肯遇刺当晚，一名同谋者找到当时的国务卿，重伤威廉·苏厄德和其他家庭成员。然而，因此去世的不是威廉，而是弗朗西斯。虽然弗朗西斯的身体毫发无损，但她一直未能从这次震惊的事件中恢复过来，两个月后就去世了。她在临终前写道：“纵使我们身处灾难，但这不会使我们忽视伟大总统的去世给国家造成的巨大损失。”

By devoting ample space to family life, Ms Wickenden shows how domestic concerns both defined and constrained 19th-century women. Her subjects loved and wanted the best for their children, but were expected to range no further. Wright chafed at these limitations, as did Seward, whose activism created marital tension (particularly when her husband positioned himself as a moderate in the pre-war years). Yet neither Seward nor Wright went as far as their sometime collaborators Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, whose single-mindedness in pursuit of women’s equality eclipsed all else.

通过对家庭生活的充分描写，威肯登女士展示了家庭问题是如何定义和约束19世纪的女性的。她笔下的主人公疼爱孩子，并希望自己的孩子得到最好的东西，但家人却希望束缚住她们。赖特对这些限制感到恼火，苏厄德也是如此，苏厄德的行动激进甚至造成了婚姻关系的紧张（尤其是当她丈夫在内战前站队温和派时）。然而，苏厄德和赖特都没有像他们曾经的合作者苏珊B·安东尼和伊丽莎白·凯迪·斯坦顿那样成功，苏珊和伊丽莎白一心一意追求女性平等，无出其右。

The book’s weakness is conceptual. Including Tubman in the circle of friends will no doubt broaden this volume’s readership, but in every way she stands apart from her allies. Her risks and achievements so outweigh those of Seward and Wright as to place her on a different plane entirely. She belongs in the pantheon of the greatest Americans, not among genteel letter-writers sleeping warmly in their beds. Still, as Ms Wickenden observes, even Moses needed an entourage.

这本书的缺点在于其概念性。把塔布曼置于很多好友中无疑会扩大这本书的读者群，但她又处处比盟友出众。塔布曼面临的风险和成就都超越了苏沃德和赖特，以至于塔布曼的境界与其他二人也完全不同。她属于美国伟人之流，而不能和那些白天矫揉造作写信、晚上暖暖和和睡觉的人士混为一谈。然而，正如威肯登女士所观察到的，即使摩西也需要随从。