This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
这里是美国之音慢速英语新闻报道。
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.
本周二是美国南北战争打响150周年纪念日。1861年4月12日，美国南部盟军士兵向南卡罗莱纳州萨姆特堡的联邦士兵开火。
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.
11个南方州脱离联邦，成立美利坚联盟国。他们希望继续以农业和奴隶制为基础的经济制度。
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.
美国各州之间的战争持续了4年，直到盟军投降。62万美国人在此次战争中丧生。战争结束后不久，总统亚伯拉罕·林肯（Abraham Lincoln）被刺杀。
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.
第一次战役发生在现在的弗吉尼亚州马纳萨斯国家战场遗址公园。公园管理处的雷·布朗（Ray Brown）表示，美国2％的人口在内战中丧生。
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."
布朗：“你能想象到这对全国所有社区的影响，以及为什么这种情绪会一代代传下来，即使在150年以后。”
Marianne Lee brought her children to the historic battlefield for a history class.
玛丽安·李（Marianne Lee）带着她的孩子来到战场遗址，给他们上一场历史课。
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."
玛丽安·李：“我认为回顾这次特殊战争是非常必要的。因为它铸就了美联邦。我们美联邦分裂开，然后又设法统一。”
David Blight 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.
大卫·布莱特（David Blight）是耶鲁大学历史学家，也是一名美国内战研究专家。他表示，150周年纪念活动聚焦于双方的牺牲上。
DAVID BLIGHT: "What we did in this country is we suppressed having to talk about what caused that war or what its results or legacies were, focusing largely on honoring the soldier."
布莱特：“我们一直所做的就是忍住不去谈论战争的成因、结果和影响。而主要聚焦于纪念士兵们。”
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.
凯文·莱文（Kevin Levin）是弗吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔的一名历史老师。他写了博客《内战记忆》。他说，美国人在150周年纪念上仍继续无视于这些问题。
KEVIN LEVIN: "Americans, I think, were more interested in remembering a war that united Americans rather than divided Americans."
莱文：“我认为美国人更乐于缅怀一场统一美国，而不是分裂美国的战争。”
But in recent years, historians like David Blight at Yale have started to take a new look.
但近年来，耶鲁大学像布莱特一类的历史学家开始重新审视这场战争。
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 emancipation at the center of this narrative, 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 necessitated a recrafting of our Constitution."
布莱特：“我们不希望廉价出售那些军事史实，它们需要被理解。但这一次，我们需要把解放这一史实放到叙述的中心。因为真正改变美国的，不是那些战役。真正改变美国的，是400万奴隶获得自由并迫使美国宪法重新修订的过程。”
The addition of the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment gave citizenship 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.
美国宪法第13修订案废除了奴隶制。第14修正案赋予任何出生在美国的人公民身份，并保证人人享有平等被保护权。第15修正案保障所有公民的投票权。
But it took the civil rights movement of the nineteen fifties and sixties to enforce many of those promises.
但直到上世纪五六十年代采取民权运动才实现了大部分承诺。
Historian David Blight says Americans are still debating many of the same issues as they were a century and a half ago.
历史学家布莱特表示，美国人还在为和一个半世纪以前相同的问题在争论。
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 roiling 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."
布莱特：“每一次美国人争论各州的权利，联邦权力与各州权力的关系，我们都确实又重回了争论的起点－－不仅每次我们争论的种族关系，还包括作为一个美国人意味着什么，多种族，多元化社会等观点。我们其实都是在争论南北战争的直接影响。”