VOA慢速英语2011--150 Years Later, US Still Debate Issues

IN THE NEWS - 150 Years Later, US Still Debate Issues That Fueled Civil War

This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
This Tuesday is the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the opening shots of the American Civil War. On April twelfth, eighteen sixty-one, Confederate soldiers fired on Union troops at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
A total of eleven southern states left the Union. They formed the Confederate States of America. They wanted to continue their economic system based on agriculture and slavery.
The War Between the States continued for four years until the Confederates surrendered. Six hundred twenty thousand Americans died during the war. President Abraham Lincoln was killed shortly after it ended.
One of the first battles took place at what is now Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia. Ray Brown from the National Park Service says two percent of the American population died in the Civil War.
Dave Chaltas is dressed as Confederate General Robert E. Lee during a re-enactment of the Battle of Aiken in South Carolina
RAY BROWN: "You can imagine the impact that this would have on whole communities throughout the country and why there would be such passions that have been passed on from generation to generation even at the remove of one hundred fifty years."
Marianne Lee brought her children to the historic battlefield for a history class.
MARIANNE LEE: "I think it is important to look back at this particular war, because it is what made our Union. We separated and yet managed to come back together."
David Blight¹ is a historian at Yale University in Connecticut and an expert on the Civil War. He says observances of the fiftieth anniversary centered on the sacrifices of the two sides.
DAVID BLIGHT: "What we did in this country is we suppressed having to talk about what caused that war or what its results or legacies² were, focusing largely on honoring the soldier."
Kevin Levin is a history teacher in Charlottesville, Virginia, who writes the blog Civil War Memory. He says Americans continued to ignore the issues at the one hundredth anniversary of the war.
President Abraham Lincoln, center, in Maryland after the Battle of Antietam in 1862
KEVIN LEVIN: "Americans, I think, were more interested in remembering a war that united Americans rather than divided Americans."
But in recent years, historians like David Blight at Yale have started to take a new look.
DAVID BLIGHT: "We do not want to sacrifice the military history story. That needs to be understood. But this time, we need to put the story of emancipation³ at the center of this narrative⁴, because what really transformed the United States, were not those battles. What really transformed the United States was the process by which four million slaves were freed that necessitated⁵ a recrafting of our Constitution."
The addition of the Thirteenth Amendment⁶ ended slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment gave citizenship⁷ to anyone born in the United States and guaranteed equal protection to all people. And the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed all citizens the right to vote.
But it took the civil rights movement of the nineteen fifties and sixties to enforce many of those promises.
Historian David Blight says Americans are still debating many of the same issues as they were a century and a half ago.
DAVID BLIGHT: "Every time Americans debate the problem of states' rights, the relationship of federal power to state power -- which we are indeed having a roiling⁸ debate again -- and every time we debate not only race relations, but the very idea of what it means to be an American, multi-racial, greatly diverse society, we are debating the direct legacies of the Civil War."
And that's IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. You can learn more about American history at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Christopher Cruise.
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Contributing: Susan Logue Koster

1 blight   

n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残

参考例句：

• The apple crop was wiped out by blight.枯萎病使苹果全无收成。
• There is a blight on all his efforts.他的一切努力都遭到挫折。

2 legacies   

n.遗产( legacy的名词复数 )；遗留之物；遗留问题；后遗症

参考例句：

• Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind. 书是伟大的天才留给人类的精神财富。 来自辞典例句
• General legacies are subject to the same principles as demonstrative legacies. 一般的遗赠要与指定数目的遗赠遵循同样的原则。 来自辞典例句

3 emancipation   

n.（从束缚、支配下）解放

参考例句：

• We must arouse them to fight for their own emancipation. 我们必须唤起他们为其自身的解放而斗争。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They rejoiced over their own emancipation. 他们为自己的解放感到欢欣鼓舞。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

5 necessitated   

使…成为必要，需要( necessitate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Recent financial scandals have necessitated changes in parliamentary procedures. 最近的金融丑闻使得议会程序必须改革。
• No man is necessitated to do wrong. 没有人是被迫去作错事的。

6 amendment   

n.改正，修正，改善，修正案

参考例句：

• The amendment was rejected by 207 voters to 143.这项修正案以207票对143票被否决。
• The Opposition has tabled an amendment to the bill.反对党已经就该议案提交了一项修正条款。

7 citizenship   

n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份)

参考例句：

• He was born in Sweden,but he doesn't have Swedish citizenship.他在瑞典出生，但没有瑞典公民身分。
• Ten years later,she chose to take Australian citizenship.十年后，她选择了澳大利亚国籍。

8 roiling   

v.搅混（液体）( roil的现在分词 )；使烦恼；使不安；使生气

参考例句：

• Now, all that could be seen was the roiling, lead--coloured sea, with its thunderously heaving waves. 狂风挟着暴雨如同弥漫大雾，排挞呼号，在海上恣意奔驶。 来自汉英文学 - 现代散文
• Rather, it is a roiling, seething cauldron of evanescent particles. 相反，它是一个不断翻滚、剧烈沸腾的大锅，内有逐渐消失的粒子。 来自互联网