1、Unit 5 Text1 Lincoln in History1The annals of the past contain few accounts of truly good men. Historians are more used to analyzing a mixture of ingredients, good and bad intentions, success and failure, high endeavors threatened by flaws in execution, and to balance out the sums ending with a care
2、ful plus or minus.过去的那些历史，对伟人的描述不多。历史学家习惯于综合的来分析一个人，动机的好与坏，成功或失败，他很努力了，但是在执行的过程中也会有些小错误，他通过略加酌减来综合平衡，最终得出结论。2Lincoln is rare in providing much for history to ponder and reflect on but little to dispute with except in the shortcomings in the execution of his policies. He is the rarer for his absolute
3、 success through four years of bitter politics and bloody warfare.He sought power, without pretending otherwise, and exercised it to the full. But he is singular, perhaps unique in history, in that he was never corrupted by power. His ambition was tied not to personal gain but to a pair of succeedin
4、g and complementary principles; to restore a nation dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal” and to ensure that a union so recovered was purged of the great contradiction which had lain at the heart of its constitution.林肯提供给历史来思考的地方不多，除了在他执政过程中的一些缺憾，没有让人争论的东西。他通过四年艰苦的政治生涯和血腥战争，成
5、了少有的成功人士。他毫不掩饰的追求权力而且充分的执行他的权力。但是他是唯一的，也许是世界上独一无二的，他从来没有因为权力而腐败。他的政治抱负不在于个人获利，而在于相辅相成的原则，这个原则是：重建一个人人平等的国家，并且确保这个已经恢复过来的国家，它的内部矛盾已经被消除掉了。3His loyalty to government by consent required that he could only achieve his aims if his fellow citizens agreed with him and could be held to their purpose throug
6、h the darkest hours. In that art of persuasion, he was a consummate politician, subtly and ruthlessly working the levers of parties and politicians to achieve a balance between the fractions and factions of competing groups and ideas, whose particular interests threatened to destroy the precarious p
7、atriotism which sustained the army. He listened, avoided argument, kept his counsel, and then he made his decisions from which he could not diverge.他对政府的忠诚，需要能够在百姓和他意见一致，坚持他们的目标来度过最艰难的时期，达到他们的目标。他在劝说方面是一位高明的政客，他通过微妙和果断的方式让各个相互竞争的派系达到平衡。对于那些理想观点，尤其是来自军队，受危险的爱国主义威胁的观点，他认真倾听，避免争论，保持他的观点，然后做出一个不会引起各方分歧的
8、决定。4His skills in reconciling oppositions and commanding their respect grew from his apprenticeship in the little rural communities where he had learned to make his way though the full diversity of the world, and from his long reflective self-observation in times of depression, which gave him the sa
9、me sympathetic insight into the character of others that he had into himself. As the war continued and the casualty figures grew, the found a convinced agnostic faith that there was some divine purpose in the affairs of men, though he could not define or confine the deity within any Christian confes
10、sion. A man must observe the ebb and flow of events and act on what he can discern in the tides. He had no faith that man could deflect God from his course.他调解好反对者，并得到他们的尊重。这种能力来自于他在乡下小社区当学徒所经历的。在那里他学会了用他自己的方式经历了多样化的世界，同时在情绪低落的时期用自我审视的反思感同身受。随着战争的继续，伤亡人数不断的增加。在发生的这些事件中，他发现了一个信仰。尽管她不能确定具体的信仰是什么，但在事件中
11、确定了他自己的信念。一个人要看到世界的起起落落，他在起伏中来确定自己的行动。他坚信人是不能违背神的旨意的。5Lincolns humility about his own capabilities saved him from jealous rivalries or disputes; he saw sincerity even in the views of his bitterest critics and in the rebel leaders. He infuriated his supporters and enemies alike by his apparent dither
12、ing when decisive action was needed, but he turned their strictures into constructive advice from which, in the end, the evolved his decision. He had had to teach himself the job of being president in the most challenging moment in the nations history and as he learned so he commanded more and more
13、personal respect. He died with the noblest part of the great task achieved-the end of slavery. The very near religious veneration in which he was held at his death grew rapidly in the dark days of reconstruction when the new government attempted to complete the job by defining a meaning for freedom
14、and equality which now include all Americans. The legend as it grew obscured the real man but the core of the story is true and achievements of the greatest President remain unchallenged and untarnished. He ensured the survival of “the last best hope of earth”-popular government and the rule of the
15、law. Without Lincolns presidency, the fortunes of all other nations “so convinced in liberty” would have been at risk and the rest of the free world would have been left on its own to face the dark forces which ravaged the globe in the twentieth century.因为林肯的谦逊，把他从嫉妒他的对手中拯救出来。他在最严厉的批评家和反对派领导人那里看到了真诚
16、。但是当需要做出决定行为的时候，他很明显表现出来的犹疑不决让他的支持者和敌人很生气，但他把他们的指责转化成了有建设性的建议，最终完善了他的决定。在国家历史当中最具有挑战性的时候，他不得不自学如何当总统，他赢得了越来越多的个人声望。他在完成了最伟大的任务结束奴隶制度后，就被谋杀了。他死后受到了接近宗教般的敬仰，这种崇拜在国家重建的黑暗时期发展的非常快。在那个黑暗时期，想要完成一个所有的美国人都是自由、平等。当这个传奇在不断的发展过程中模糊了一个真正的人，但故事的核心是真实的，并且他的成就是无法挑战的，并且永远都是辉煌的。他确信世界上最希望存在的是一个受欢迎的政府和它的法律法规。如果没有林肯总统的执政，所有想要自由的别的国家就有风险了，同时，剩下的那些想要自由的国家就要独自面对二十世纪蹂躏全球的黑暗势力了。
