INTRODUCTION 引言
Is America’s past a tale of racism, sexism, and bigotry? Is it the story of the conquest and rape of a
continent? Is U.S. history the story of white slave owners who perverted the electoral process for
their own interests? Did America start with Columbus’s killing all the Indians, leap to Jim Crow
laws and Rockefeller crushing the workers, then finally save itself with Franklin Roosevelt’s New
Deal? The answers, of course, are no, no, no, and NO.
美国的过去是一个种族主义，性别歧视和偏执狂的奇谈怪论吗？是征服和强奸新大陆的故事吗？美国历史是白人奴隶主为了自己的利益为所欲为改变选举程序的故事吗？美国是从哥伦布杀害所有印第安人开始，然后一步跨到吉姆·克罗（Jim Crow） 法和镇压工人的洛克菲勒，最终凭借富兰克林·罗斯福（Franklin Roosevelt）新政而挽救的吗？答案当然是绝对否定的。
One might never know this, however, by looking at almost any mainstream U.S. history textbook.
Having taught American history in one form or another for close to sixty years between us, we are
aware that, unfortunately, many students are berated with tales of the Founders as self-interested
politicians and slaveholders, of the icons of American industry as robber-baron oppressors, and of
every American foreign policy initiative as imperialistic and insensitive. At least Howard Zinn’s A
People’s History of the United States honestly represents its Marxist biases in the title!
然而，几乎所有主流美国历史教科书是永远不会让人们知道这一点。我们近乎六十年教授过各种各样美国历史之后，我们是清醒的，不幸的是，许多学生却被灌输以谬论：建国之父是自私的政治家和奴隶主，美国工业巨擘是强盗恶霸式的压迫者，美国每一项外交政策举措都是帝国主义和冷漠的。至少霍华德·辛恩（Howard Zinn）的“美国人民史”在标题中诚实地代表了马克思主义的偏见！
What is most amazing and refreshing is that the past usually speaks for itself. The evidence is there
for telling the great story of the American past honestly—with flaws, absolutely; with
shortcomings, most definitely. But we think that an honest evaluation of the history of the United
States must begin and end with the recognition that, compared to any other nation, America’s past
is a bright and shining light. America was, and is, the city on the hill, the fountain of hope, the
beacon of liberty. We utterly reject “My country right or wrong”—what scholar wouldn’t? But in
the last thirty years, academics have taken an equally destructive approach: “My country, always
wrong!” We reject that too.
最令人惊奇和令人耳目一新的是，历史通常可以自我澄清。证据就在那里，并诚实地讲述美国人过去的伟大故事-绝对有缺陷，肯定有不足。 但是我们认为，对美国历史的诚实评估自始自终必需承认，与任何其它国家相比，美国的历史是一束明亮而闪耀之光。美国过去和现在都是山巅之市，希望源泉， 自由灯塔。我们完全拒绝“我的国家是对还是错” –什么学者不会？但是，在过去的三十年，学者们采取了同样具有破坏性的方法：“我的国家，永远错误！”我们也拒绝这一观点。
Instead, we remain convinced that if the story of America’s past is told fairly, the result cannot be
anything but a deepened patriotism, a sense of awe at the obstacles overcome, the passion invested,
the blood and tears spilled, and the nation that was built. An honest review of America’s past would
note, among other observations, that the same Founders who owned slaves instituted numerous
ways—political and intellectual—to ensure that slavery could not survive; that the concern over not
just property rights, but all rights, so infused American life that laws often followed the practices of
the common folk, rather than dictated to them; that even when the United States used her military
power for dubious reasons, the ultimate result was to liberate people and bring a higher standard of
living than before; that time and again America’s leaders have willingly shared power with those
who had none, whether they were citizens of territories, former slaves, or disenfranchised women.
And we could go on.
相反，我们仍然坚信，如果公正地讲述美国过去的故事，其结果不外乎加深爱国情怀，对阻碍的克服，对激情的投入， 对撒的血泪，对建立的国家感到一种敬畏。除其它发现外，诚实回顾美国的过去会让人注意到，拥有奴隶的同一建国之父们在政治和思想层面制定了许多方法以确保奴隶制无法继续存在；不只是对财产权，而是对所有权利的忧虑充斥美国生活，以至于法律经常遵循普通民众做法，而不是命令他们；即使美国出于暧昧的原因使用武力，最终结果是解放人民并带来了比以前更高的生活标准；美国领导人一次又一次地与那些无权无势的人分享权力，不管他们是领地的公民，曾经的奴隶，还是被剥夺权利的妇女。 这些例子举不胜举。
The reason so many academics miss the real history of America is that they assume that ideas don’t
matter and that there is no such thing as virtue. They could not be more wrong. When John D.
Rockefeller said, “The common man must have kerosene and he must have it cheap,” Rockefeller
was already a wealthy man with no more to gain. When Grover Cleveland vetoed an insignificant
seed corn bill, he knew it would hurt him politically, and that he would only win condemnation
from the press and the people—but the Constitution did not permit it, and he refused.
如此多的学者都认为思想是无关紧要的，美德是不存在的，因此他们对美国的真实历史视而不见。他们已变得愚蠢至极。当约翰·洛克菲勒说：“普通人必须有煤油，而且必须便宜。” 洛克菲勒已经是一个富有的人，不必去争利了。当格罗弗·克利夫兰否决了微不足道的种子玉米法案时，他知道这会在政治上伤害到他，而且他只会受到媒体和人民的谴责，但是宪法不允许这样做，他否决了。
Consider the scene more than two hundred years ago when President John Adams—just voted out
of office by the hated Republicans of Thomas Jefferson—mounted a carriage and left Washington
even before the inauguration. There was no armed struggle. Not a musket ball was fired, nor a
political opponent hanged. No Federalists marched with guns or knives in the streets. There was no
guillotine. And just four years before that, in 1796, Adams had taken part in an equally momentous
event when he won a razor-thin close election over Jefferson and, because of Senate rules, had to
count his own contested ballots. When he came to the contested Georgia ballot, the great
Massachusetts revolutionary, the “Duke of Braintree,” stopped counting. He sat down for a moment
to allow Jefferson or his associates to make a challenge, and when he did not, Adams finished the
tally, becoming president. Jefferson told confidants that he thought the ballots were indeed in
dispute, but he would not wreck the country over a few pieces of paper. As Adams took the oath of
office, he thought he heard Washington say, “I am fairly out and you are fairly in! See which of us
will be the happiest!”1 So much for protecting his own interests! Washington stepped down freely
and enthusiastically, not at bayonet point. He walked away from power, as nearly each and every
American president has done since.
想想两百多年前约翰·亚当斯（John Adams）总统刚刚被可恶的托马斯·杰斐逊（Thomas Jefferson）共和党人选下台的一幕。他坐上马车，在就职典礼之前离开华盛顿。没有武装斗争。没有发射火枪，也没有 政治对手被绞死。没有联邦主义者在街上带枪或刀游行。没有断头台。就在此前四年，1796年，亚当斯经历了同样重要的事件，他在参议员的选举中对杰斐逊（Jefferson）以微弱优势获胜，但由于规定，他需要统计自己有争议的选票。当他去佐治亚州统计有争议的选票时， 马萨诸塞州革命者“布伦特里公爵”停止计数。他坐了一会儿，让杰斐逊或其同伴提出挑战。当他拒绝挑战时，亚当斯完成了计票，并成为总统。杰斐逊告诉支持者，他认为选票确实存在争议，但他不会因为几张纸而破坏整个国家。当亚当斯宣誓执政，他似乎听到华盛顿说：“我公平卸任，你公平就职！看看我们哪个将是最幸福的！” 这就是所谓保护自己的利益！华盛顿不是在刺刀底下，而是自愿，热情洋溢地卸任。他放弃了权利，从此之后，几乎每位美国总统都这样做了。
These giants knew that their actions of character mattered far more to the nation they were creating
than mere temporary political positions. The ideas they fought for together in 1776 and debated in
1787 were paramount. And that is what American history is truly about—ideas. Ideas such as “All
men are created equal”; the United States is the “last, best hope” of earth; and America “is great,
because it is good.”
这些巨人知道，他们的品格行为比起仅是临时的政治职位对他们所创造的国家的影响更大 。他们在1776年共同奋斗并在 1787年争论的理念至高无上。这就是美国历史真谛—理念。诸如“人生而平等”；美国是地球的“最终，最好的希望”。美国“很伟大， 因为她很优秀。”
Honor counted to founding patriots like Adams, Jefferson, Washington, and then later, Lincoln and
Teddy Roosevelt. Character counted. Property was also important; no denying that, because with
property came liberty. But virtue came first. Even J. P. Morgan, the epitome of the so-called robber
baron, insisted that “the first thing is character…before money or anything else. Money cannot buy
it.”
对于立国爱国者，如亚当斯，杰斐逊，华盛顿，及后来的林肯和 泰迪·罗斯福来说，荣誉很有价值。品格很有价值。财产也很重要；不可否认，因为财产带来自由。但美德至上。甚至是摩根大通，所谓强盗大亨缩影， 都坚持认为“在金钱或其他任何东西之前品格第一。金钱都买不到。”
It is not surprising, then, that so many left-wing historians miss the boat (and miss it, and miss it,
and miss it to the point where they need a ferry schedule). They fail to understand what every
colonial settler and every western pioneer understood: character was tied to liberty, and liberty to
property. All three were needed for success, but character was the prerequisite because it put the
law behind property agreements, and it set responsibility right next to liberty. And the surest way to
ensure the presence of good character was to keep God at the center of one’s life, community, and
ultimately, nation. “Separation of church and state” meant freedom to worship, not freedom from
worship. It went back to that link between liberty and responsibility, and no one could be taken
seriously who was not responsible to God. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” They
believed those words.
因此，毫不奇怪的是，如此多的左翼历史学家错过了这艘船（他们彻底丢失了他们所需轮渡时间表）。他们不明白每位殖民定居者和每位西部拓荒者都明白的道理：品格与自由息息相关。 自由与财产相互相乘。这三者是成功的必要条件，但品格是前提，因为品格支持财产协议背后的法律，将责任和自由紧密相联系。而确保良好品格存在的最可靠方法是将上帝置于个人生活，社区及国家的中心位置。 “教堂和政府分离”是指崇拜自由，而非避免崇拜。对上帝不负责的人是不会有责任感的。 “上帝的灵在哪里，哪里就有自由。”他们相信那些话。
As colonies became independent and as the nation grew, these ideas permeated the fabric of the
founding documents. Despite pits of corruption that have pockmarked federal and state politics—
some of them quite deep—and despite abuses of civil rights that were shocking, to say the least, the
concept was deeply imbedded that only a virtuous nation could achieve the lofty goals set by the
Founders. Over the long haul, the Republic required virtuous leaders to prosper.
随着殖民地的独立和国家的发展，这些思想渗透到立国文献的机理。尽管腐败，一些甚至很深的腐败，玷污联邦和州政治，尽管对公民权利的侵犯，有些至少是令人震惊的，但先贤的理念已根深蒂固，只有一个有良知的民族才能实现立国者所设定的崇高目标。 长远来看，强盛的共和国需要品德优良的领导人。
Yet virtue and character alone were not enough. It took competence, skill, and talent to build a
nation. That’s where property came in: with secure property rights, people from all over the globe
flocked to America’s shores. With secure property rights, anyone could become successful, from an
immigrant Jew like Lionel Cohen and his famous Lionel toy trains to an Austrian bodybuilderturned-millionaire actor and governor like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Carnegie arrived penniless; Ford’s company went broke; and Lee Iacocca had to eat crow on national TV for his company’smistakes. Secure property rights not only made it possible for them all to succeed but, moreimportant, established a climate of competition that rewarded skill, talent, and risk taking.
然而，仅凭美德和品格还不够。建立一个国家需要能力，技能和天赋。这就需要财产：有了安全的财产权，来自世界各地的人们涌向美国海岸。有了安全的财产权，任何人都可能成功，如，犹太移民昂内尔·科恩（Lionel Cohen），以及他著名的莱昂内尔（Lionel）玩具，如，成为亿万富翁的奥地利健美演员和州长，阿诺德·施瓦辛格（Arnold Schwarzenegger）。卡内基来到美国时身无分文。 福特的公司破产了；李·艾柯卡（Lee Iacocca）为他公司错误不得不被国家电视台侮辱。安全的产权不仅使所有人都有可能获得成功，而且，更重要的是，建立了一种奖励技能、才华和冒险精神的竞争风气。
Political skill was essential too. From 1850 to 1860 the United States was nearly rent in half by
inept leaders, whereas an integrity vacuum nearly destroyed American foreign policy and shattered
the economy in the decades of the 1960s and early 1970s. Moral, even pious, men have taken the
nation to the brink of collapse because they lacked skill, and some of the most skilled politicians in
the world—Henry Clay, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton—left legacies of frustration and corruption
because their abilities were never wedded to character.
政治技巧也是必不可少的。从1850年到1860年，无能的领导人几乎使美国一分为二，而1960年代到1970年代初期的十几年，道德真空几乎摧毁了美国的外交政策，瓦解了经济。因为一些有道德，甚至虔诚的领导人缺乏技巧，他们将国家带到崩溃边缘的。一些世界上最有手腕的政治家，如亨利·克莱（Henry Clay），理查德·尼克松（Richard Nixon）和比尔·克林顿（Bill Clinton），由于缺乏品格，他们只留下了沮丧和腐败的遗产。
Throughout much of the twentieth century, there was a subtle and, at times, obvious campaign to
separate virtue from talent, to divide character from success. The latest in this line of attack is the
emphasis on diversity—that somehow merely having different skin shades or national origins
makes America special. But it was not the color of the skin of people who came here that made
them special, it was the content of their character. America remains a beacon of liberty, not merely
because its institutions have generally remained strong, its citizens free, and its attitudes tolerant,
but because it, among most of the developed world, still cries out as a nation, “Character counts.”
Personal liberties in America are genuine because of the character of honest judges and attorneys
who, for the most part, still make up the judiciary, and because of the personal integrity of large
numbers of local, state, and national lawmakers.
在整个20世纪的大部分时间里，都有一种微妙的，有时是明显的将美德与才能分离，将品格与成功切割的思潮 。最新的一轮攻击是强调多样性-某种程度上仅仅具有不同的肤色或民族血统使美国独具一格。但这并不是来到这里来的人的肤色使他们很特别，而是他们性格的内容。美国仍然是自由的灯塔， 不仅因为她的机构总体上保持优势，她的公民拥有自由，她的态度呈现宽容， 而是因为在大多数发达国家中，她仍然是一个民族，“品格很重要”。 由于构成司法系统的大部分法官和律师仍具有诚实的品格，由于大量的地方，州和国家立法者秉承正义，美国的个人自由真实确切的。
No society is free from corruption. The difference is that in America, corruption is viewed as the
exception, not the rule. And when light is shown on it, corruption is viciously attacked. Freedom
still attracts people to the fountain of hope that is America, but freedom alone is not enough.
Without responsibility and virtue, freedom becomes a soggy anarchy, an incomplete licentiousness.
This is what has made Americans different: their fusion of freedom and integrity endows
Americans with their sense of right, often when no other nation in the world shares their perception.
没有社会能够摆脱腐败。不同之处在于，在美国，腐败被视为例外，不是规则。当腐败被曝光时，就会受到恶意攻击。自由仍然吸引着人们来到希望之泉的美国，但是光靠自由是不够的。没有责任和美德，自由就变成了无政府状态泥潭，近乎完全的放纵。 这就是使美国人与众不同的原因：尤其在世界上其他国家持有不同看法时，自由和诚信融合赋予美国人具有正义感。
Yet that is as telling about other nations as it is our own; perhaps it is that as Americans, we alone
remain committed to both the individual and the greater good, to personal freedoms and to public
virtue, to human achievement and respect for the Almighty. Slavery was abolished because of the
dual commitment to liberty and virtue—neither capable of standing without the other. Some
crusades in the name of integrity have proven disastrous, including Prohibition. The most recent
serious threats to both liberty and public virtue (abuse of the latter damages both) have come in the
form of the modern environmental and consumer safety movements. Attempts to sue gun makers,
paint manufacturers, tobacco companies, and even Microsoft “for the public good” have made
distressingly steady advances, encroaching on Americans’ freedoms to eat fast foods, smoke, or
modify their automobiles, not to mention start businesses or invest in existing firms without fear of
retribution.
但这就像讲述其它国家历史一样，我们本国历史并非有所不同。也许作为美国人，只有我们继续对个体和更大善行的承诺，对个人自由和公众美德的承诺，对人类成就和对全能上帝尊重的承诺。奴隶制被废除是因为对自由和美德的双重承诺-没有一方另一方就不能成立。一些以诚信为名的宣传攻势已被证明是灾难性的，包括禁止令。现代环境和消费者安全的运动最近已对自由和公众美德都构成了严重威胁（滥用后者都会损害两者）。“为了公益”试图不停地起诉枪支制造商， 油漆制造商，烟草公司，甚至微软，这种趋势令人沮丧，它侵犯了美国人吃快餐，吸烟或改装汽车的自由，更不用说开办企业或投资现有公司而不必担心惩罚。
The Founders—each and every one of them—would have been horrified at such intrusions on
liberty, regardless of the virtue of the cause, not because they were elite white men, but because
such actions in the name of the public good were simply wrong. It all goes back to character: the
best way to ensure virtuous institutions (whether government, business, schools, or churches) was
to populate them with people of virtue. Europe forgot this in the nineteenth century, or by World
War I at the latest. Despite rigorous and punitive face-saving traditions in the Middle East or Asia,
these twin principles of liberty and virtue have never been adopted. Only in America, where one
was permitted to do almost anything, but expected to do the best thing, did these principles
germinate.
不论这些运动自诩如何，每一位建国之父都会为这样对自由的侵犯感到震惊，不是因为他们是白人精英，而是因为以公益为名的这种行为是完全错误的。一切都归结为品格： 确保良性机构（政府，企业，学校或教堂）的最佳方法是让具备美德人任职。欧洲在19世纪或最近到第一次世界大战就忘记了这一点 。尽管在中东或亚洲有严厉而惩罚性的讲面子传统， 自由和美德这两个双重原则从未得到采用。只有在被准许做几乎所有事情，但是期望做最好事情的美国，这些准则得以发芽。
To a great extent, that is why, on March 4, 1801, John Adams would have thought of nothing other
than to turn the White House over to his hated foe, without fanfare, self-pity, or complaint, and
return to his everyday life away from politics. That is why, on the few occasions where very thin
electoral margins produced no clear winner in the presidential race (such as 1824, 1876, 1888,
1960, and 2000), the losers (after some legal maneuvering, recounting of votes, and occasional
whining) nevertheless stepped aside and congratulated the winner of a different party. Adams may
have set a precedent, but in truth he would do nothing else. After all, he was a man of character.
A Patriot’s History of the United States
在很大程度上，这就是为什么约翰·亚当斯在1801年3月4日毫不犹豫地将白宫交给其仇敌，没有张扬，没有自怜或抱怨，并且回归远离政治的日常生活。这就是为什么在少数情况下总统选举中微弱的选举人差距并没有产生明显的赢家（如1824年、1876年、1888年， 1960年和2000年）时，失败者（经过一些法律运作，重新计算票数和偶尔牢骚）还是会退出，并恭喜另一党的赢家。亚当斯可能开了一个先例，但实际上他什么也没做。他终究是一个有品格的人。 美国爱国者历史
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