第九章 美国的民主

Source / 原文：https://www.americanyawp.com/text/09-democracy-in-america/

I. Introduction

一、引言

On May 30, 1806, Andrew Jackson, a thirty-nine-year-old Tennessee lawyer, came within inches of death. A duelist’s bullet struck him in the chest, just shy of his heart (the man who fired the gun was purportedly the best shot in Tennessee). But the wounded Jackson remained standing. Bleeding, he slowly steadied his aim and returned fire. The other man dropped to the ground, mortally wounded. Jackson—still carrying the bullet in his chest—later boasted, “I should have hit him, if he had shot me through the brain.”

1806年5月30日，安德鲁·杰克逊，这位时年三十九岁的田纳西州律师，几乎与死神擦肩而过。 一颗决斗对手的子弹击中了他的胸膛，险些刺入心脏（据说开枪者是田纳西州最出色的射手）。然而，身负重伤的杰克逊依然站立着。他一边流血，一边缓缓稳住瞄准，随后还以一枪。对手应声倒地，身负致命伤。而杰克逊——胸口仍嵌着那颗子弹——后来自豪地说道：“即便他击中我的脑袋，我也能射中他。”

The duel in Logan County, Kentucky, was one of many that Jackson fought during the course of his long and highly controversial career. The tenacity, toughness, and vengefulness that carried Jackson alive out of that duel, and the mythology and symbolism that would be attached to it, would also characterize many of his later dealings on the battlefield and in politics. By the time of his death almost forty years later, Andrew Jackson would become an enduring and controversial symbol, a kind of cipher to gauge the ways that various Americans thought about their country.

这场发生在肯塔基州洛根县的决斗是杰克逊漫长而充满争议的一生中诸多决斗之一。支撑杰克逊走出这场决斗的坚韧、刚毅和复仇心，以及后来围绕此事形成的神话与象征意义，同样贯穿了他日后在战场和政治领域的许多行为。在他去世近四十年后，安德鲁·杰克逊已经成为一个耐人寻味的矛盾符号——人们常以此为镜，来衡量不同的美国人如何看待自己的国家。

II. Democracy in the Early Republic

二、早期共和国的民主

Today, most Americans think democracy is a good thing. We tend to assume the nation’s early political leaders believed the same. Wasn’t the American Revolution a victory for democratic principles? For many of the founders, however, the answer was no.

如今，大多数美国人认为民主是件好事。我们往往也理所当然地认为，这个国家早期的政治领袖们也抱有同样的信念。难道美国革命不是民主原则的胜利吗？然而，对许多建国之父来说，答案是否定的。

A wide variety of people participated in early U.S. politics, especially at the local level. But ordinary citizens’ growing direct influence on government frightened the founding elites. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Alexander Hamilton warned of the “vices of democracy” and said he considered the British government—with its powerful king and parliament—“the best in the world.” Another convention delegate, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who eventually refused to sign the finished Constitution, agreed. “The evils we experience flow from an excess of democracy,” he proclaimed.

各类人群都参与了美国早期的政治活动，尤其是在地方层面。然而，普通公民对政府日益直接的影响却令建国精英们感到恐惧。在1787年的制宪会议上，亚历山大·汉密尔顿警告说“民主的恶习”，并称他认为拥有强大国王和议会的英国政府是“世界上最好的”。另一位来自马萨诸塞州的与会代表埃尔布里奇·格里表示同意，他最终拒绝签署完成后的宪法，并宣称：“我们经历的弊端都源于过度的民主。”

Too much participation by the multitudes, the elite believed, would undermine good order. It would prevent the creation of a secure and united republican society. The Philadelphia physician and politician Benjamin Rush, for example, sensed that the Revolution had launched a wave of popular rebelliousness that could lead to a dangerous new type of despotism. “In our opposition to monarchy,” he wrote, “we forgot that the temple of tyranny has two doors. We bolted one of them by proper restraints; but we left the other open, by neglecting to guard against the effects of our own ignorance and licentiousness.”

精英阶层认为，大众参与过多将破坏良好的社会秩序，并阻碍一个稳定团结的共和社会的建立。例如，费城的医生兼政治家本杰明·拉什就察觉到革命掀起了一股民众反叛的浪潮，这可能引发一种危险的新型暴政。他写道：“在我们反对君主制的过程中，忽略了暴政之殿有两扇门。我们通过适当的约束锁上了一扇门；但却因未能防范我们自身的无知与放纵，而让另一扇门敞开着。”

Such warnings did nothing to quell Americans’ democratic impulses in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Americans who were allowed to vote (and sometimes those who weren’t) went to the polls in impressive numbers. Citizens also made public demonstrations. They delivered partisan speeches at patriotic holiday and anniversary celebrations. They petitioned Congress, openly criticized the president, and insisted that a free people should not defer even to elected leaders. In many people’s eyes, the American republic was a democratic republic: the people were sovereign all the time, not only on election day.

这些警告并未遏制十八世纪末至十九世纪初美国人对民主的热情。那些被允许投票的美国人（有时甚至包括一些未被允许的人）都踊跃参加投票。公民还通过公共示威表达立场。他们在爱国节日和周年庆典上发表党派演讲，向国会递交请愿书，公开批评总统，并坚称自由的人民不应向即便是民选的领导人低头。在许多人看来，美国共和国是一个民主共和国：人民始终是主权者，而不仅仅在选举日这一天。

The elite leaders of political parties could not afford to overlook “the cultivation of popular favour,” as Alexander Hamilton put it. Between the 1790s and 1830s, the elite of every state and party learned to listen—or pretend to listen—to the voices of the multitudes. And ironically, an American president, holding the office that most resembles a king’s, would come to symbolize the democratizing spirit of American politics.

正如亚历山大·汉密尔顿所说，政党的精英领导者无法忽视“对民众支持的争取”。在1790年代到1830年代之间，各州和各党派的精英都学会了倾听——或者假装倾听——民众的声音。具有讽刺意味的是，美国总统这一职位，与国王最为相似，却成为了美国政治民主化精神的象征。

III. The Missouri Crisis

三、密苏里危机

A more troubling pattern was also emerging in national politics and culture. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, American politics shifted toward “sectional” conflict among the states of the North, South, and West.

在全国政治和文化中，一个更令人不安的趋势也逐渐浮现。在十九世纪的头几十年间，美国政治开始转向北方、南方和西部各州之间的“地区性”冲突。

Since the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, the state of Virginia had wielded more influence on the federal government than any other state. Four of the first five presidents, for example, were from Virginia. Immigration caused by the market revolution, however, caused the country’s population to grow fastest in northern states like New York. Northern political leaders were becoming wary of what they perceived to be a disproportionate influence in federal politics by Virginia and other southern states.

自1789年宪法批准以来，弗吉尼亚州在联邦政府中比其他任何州都拥有更大的影响力。例如，最初的五位总统中有四位来自弗吉尼亚州。然而，由于市场革命引发的人口迁移，全国人口在北方各州（如纽约州）增长得更快。北方的政治领导人开始警惕他们所认为的弗吉尼亚州及其他南方州在联邦政治中不成比例的影响力。

Furthermore, many northerners feared that the southern states’ common interest in protecting slavery was creating a congressional voting bloc that would be difficult for “free states” to overcome. The North and South began to clash over federal policy as northern states gradually ended slavery but southern states came to depend even more on enslaved labor.

此外，许多北方人担忧，南方州对保护奴隶制的共同利益正在形成一个国会投票集团，使“自由州”难以抗衡。随着北方各州逐步废除奴隶制，而南方各州越来越依赖被奴役劳动，北方与南方在联邦政策上的冲突逐渐加剧。

The most important instance of these rising tensions erupted in the Missouri Crisis. When white settlers in Missouri, a new territory carved out of the Louisiana Purchase, applied for statehood in 1819, the balance of political power between northern and southern states became the focus of public debate. Missouri already had more than ten thousand enslaved labors and was poised to join the southern slave states in Congress.

这些日益加剧的紧张关系中最重要的一次爆发就是密苏里危机。1819年，当密苏里这片从路易斯安那购地中划出的新领地的白人定居者申请成为州时，北方与南方州之间的政治权力平衡成为公众辩论的焦点。密苏里已有超过一万名被奴役劳动者，准备加入国会中的南方蓄奴州阵营。

Accordingly, Congressman James Tallmadge of New York proposed an amendment to Missouri’s application for statehood. Tallmadge claimed that the institution of slavery mocked the Declaration of Independence and the liberty it promised to “all men.” He proposed that Congress should admit Missouri as a state only if bringing more enslaved people to Missouri were prohibited and children born to those enslaved there were freed at age twenty-five.

因此，纽约州国会议员詹姆斯·塔尔梅奇（James Tallmadge）提出了一项针对密苏里州申请建州的修正案。塔尔梅奇认为，奴隶制度嘲弄了《独立宣言》及其所承诺的“人人自由”。他提议国会应当仅在以下条件下批准密苏里建州：禁止将更多的奴隶带入密苏里，并规定在那里出生的奴隶子女在25岁时获得自由。

Congressmen like Tallmadge opposed slavery for moral reasons, but they also wanted to maintain a sectional balance of power. Unsurprisingly, the Tallmadge Amendment met with firm resistance from southern politicians. It passed in the House of Representatives because of the support of nearly all the northern congressmen, who had a majority there, but it was quickly defeated in the Senate.

像塔尔梅奇这样的国会议员反对奴隶制不仅出于道德原因，也为了维护区域之间的权力平衡。然而，毫不意外的是，塔尔梅奇修正案遭到了南方政客的坚决反对。这项修正案因为几乎所有北方国会议员的支持，在众议院获得通过，因北方在此拥有多数席位，但在参议院迅速被否决。

When Congress reconvened in 1820, a senator from Illinois, another new western state, proposed a compromise. Jesse Thomas hoped his offer would not only end the Missouri Crisis but also prevent any future sectional disputes over slavery and statehood. Henry Clay of Kentucky joined in promoting the deal, earning himself the nickname “the Great Compromiser.”

1820年，国会再次召开会议时，伊利诺伊州（另一个新兴的西部州）的一位参议员提出了一项妥协方案。杰西·托马斯（Jesse Thomas）希望他的提议不仅能结束密苏里危机，还能防止未来因奴隶制和建州问题而引发的区域冲突。来自肯塔基州的亨利·克莱（Henry Clay）也参与推动这一方案，因此获得了“伟大调解者”的绰号。

Their bargain, the Missouri Compromise of 1820, contained three parts. First, Congress would admit Missouri as a slave state. Second, Congress would admit Maine (which until now had been a territory of Massachusetts) as a free state, maintaining the balance between the number of free and slave states. Third, the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory would be divided along the 36°30’ line of latitude—or in other words, along the southern border of Missouri. Slavery would be prohibited in other new states north of this line, but it would be permitted in new states to the south. The compromise passed both houses of Congress, and the Missouri Crisis ended peacefully.

这一妥协方案，即1820年的《密苏里妥协》，包含三部分内容。首先，国会将承认密苏里为蓄奴州。其次，国会将承认缅因州（此前为马萨诸塞州的属地）为自由州，从而维持自由州与蓄奴州数量的平衡。第三，其余的路易斯安那购地领土将以北纬36°30′线划分，也就是密苏里州南部边界所在的纬线。在该线以北的新州将禁止奴隶制，而在以南的新州则允许奴隶制。妥协方案在国会两院均获通过，密苏里危机得以和平解决。

Not everyone, however, felt relieved. The Missouri Crisis made the sectional nature of American politics impossible to ignore. The Missouri Crisis split the Democratic-Republican party entirely along sectional lines, suggesting trouble to come.

然而，并非所有人都对此感到宽慰。密苏里危机让美国政治的区域性特质变得不容忽视。这场危机完全按照区域划分裂解了民主-共和党，预示着未来可能的麻烦。

Worse, the Missouri Crisis demonstrated the volatility of the slavery debate. Many Americans, including seventy-seven-year-old Thomas Jefferson, were alarmed at how readily some Americans spoke of disunion and even civil war over the issue. “This momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror,” Jefferson wrote. “I considered it at once as the [death] knell of the Union.”

更糟的是，密苏里危机暴露了奴隶制问题的高敏感性。许多美国人，包括时年77岁的托马斯·杰斐逊（Thomas Jefferson），对一些美国人如此轻易地谈论分裂甚至内战感到震惊。杰斐逊写道：“这个重要的问题，犹如夜晚的警钟，将我从梦中惊醒，并使我充满恐惧。我立即认为这是联邦的丧钟。”

For now, the Missouri Crisis did not result in disunion and civil war as Jefferson and others feared. But it also failed to settle the issue of slavery’s expansion into new western territories. The issue would cause worse trouble in years ahead.

目前，密苏里危机虽然没有如杰斐逊及其他人担忧的那样导致分裂和内战，但它也未能解决奴隶制扩展至西部新领土的问题。未来，这一问题将引发更严重的冲突

IV. The Rise of Andrew Jackson

四、安德鲁·杰克逊的崛起

The career of Andrew Jackson (1767–1845), the survivor of that backcountry Kentucky duel in 1806, exemplified both the opportunities and the dangers of political life in the early republic. A lawyer, enslaver, and general—and eventually the seventh president of the United States—he rose from humble frontier beginnings to become one of the most powerful Americans of the nineteenth century.

作为1806年在肯塔基州的那场决斗幸存者——安德鲁·杰克逊（1767-1845）的事业体现了早期共和国政治生活中的机遇与危险。他是律师、奴隶主和将军，最终也成为了美国第七任总统。他从贫困的边疆起步，最终成为19世纪最有权势的美国人之一。

Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767, on the border between North and South Carolina, to two immigrants from northern Ireland. He grew up during dangerous times. At age thirteen, he joined an American militia unit in the Revolutionary War. He was soon captured, and a British officer slashed at his head with a sword after he refused to shine the officer’s shoes. Disease during the war had claimed the lives of his two brothers and his mother, leaving him an orphan. Their deaths and his wounds had left Jackson with a deep and abiding hatred of Great Britain.

安德鲁·杰克逊于1767年3月15日出生在北卡罗来纳州和南卡罗来纳州的边界，由两位来自北爱尔兰的移民父母抚养长大。他在动荡的年代成长。13岁时，他加入了美军民兵，参加了美国独立战争。不久后，他被俘，一名英国军官因杰克逊拒绝为他擦鞋而用剑砍向他的头部。战争中的疾病夺去了他的两个兄弟和母亲的生命，使他成为孤儿。他们的去世和他的伤痛让杰克逊对大不列颠产生了深深的仇恨。

After the war, Jackson moved west to frontier Tennessee, where despite his poor education, he prospered, working as a lawyer and acquiring land and enslaved laborers. (He would eventually come to keep 150 enslaved laborers at the Hermitage, his plantation near Nashville.) In 1796, Jackson was elected as a U.S. representative, and a year later he won a seat in the Senate, although he resigned within a year, citing financial difficulties.

战争结束后，杰克逊西迁到边疆的田纳西州，尽管他的教育水平不高，但他依然凭借从事律师工作、积累土地和奴隶劳动力而获得了成功。（他最终在纳什维尔附近的赫米塔奇种植园拥有150名奴隶劳动力。）1796年，杰克逊当选为美国众议员，一年后他获得了参议员席位，尽管他因财务困境在不到一年后辞去了参议员职务。

Thanks to his political connections, Jackson obtained a general’s commission at the outbreak of the War of 1812. Despite having no combat experience, General Jackson quickly impressed his troops, who nicknamed him “Old Hickory” after a particularly tough kind of tree.

由于他的政治关系，杰克逊在1812年战争爆发时获得了将军的委任。尽管没有作战经验，杰克逊将军迅速赢得了部队的尊敬，士兵们给他起了个绰号：“老山核桃木”，因为他像一种特别坚韧的树木一样坚韧不拔。

Jackson led his militiamen into battle in the Southeast, first during the Creek War, a side conflict that started between different factions of Muskogee (Creek) fighters in present-day Alabama. In that war, he won a decisive victory at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. A year later, he also defeated a large British invasion force at the Battle of New Orleans. There, Jackson’s troops—including backwoods militiamen, free African Americans, Native Americans, and a company of slave-trading pirates—successfully defended the city and inflicted more than two thousand casualties against the British, sustaining barely three hundred casualties of their own. The Battle of New Orleans was a thrilling victory for the United States, but it actually happened several days after a peace treaty was signed in Europe to end the war. News of the treaty had not yet reached New Orleans.

杰克逊带领他的民兵参加了东南部的战斗，首先是在克里克战争期间，这是一场发生在今天阿拉巴马州的穆斯科吉（克里克）部落不同派系之间的冲突。在这场战争中，杰克逊在1814年的霍士胡湾战役中取得了决定性的胜利。一年后，他还在新奥尔良战役中击败了一支大规模的英国入侵军队。在那场战斗中，杰克逊的部队——包括边疆民兵、自由非裔美国人、印第安人和一支奴隶贸易海盗队——成功地守住了城市，并对英国军队造成了两千多人的伤亡，而自己仅损失了不到三百人。新奥尔良战役是美国的一场激动人心的胜利，但实际上，这场战斗发生时，欧洲已签署了和平条约，战争早已结束，但新奥尔良尚未收到和平条约的消息。

The end of the War of 1812 did not end Jackson’s military career. In 1818, as commander of the U.S. southern military district, Jackson also launched an invasion of Spanish-owned Florida. He was acting on vague orders from the War Department to break the resistance of the region’s Seminole people, who protected runaway enslaved people and attacked American settlers across the border. On Jackson’s orders in 1816, U.S. soldiers and their Creek allies had already destroyed the “Negro Fort,” a British-built fortress on Spanish soil, killing 270 formerly enslaved people and executing some survivors. In 1818, Jackson’s troops crossed the border again. They occupied Pensacola, the main Spanish town in the region, and arrested two British subjects, whom Jackson executed for helping the Seminoles. The execution of these two Britons created an international diplomatic crisis.

1812年战争的结束并未结束杰克逊的军事生涯。1818年，作为美国南方军事区的指挥官，杰克逊发起了对西属佛罗里达的入侵。他根据战争部模糊的命令，打算消除该地区塞米诺尔部落的抵抗，这些部落保护逃亡的奴隶，并袭击美国边境的定居者。1816年，杰克逊命令美军和他们的克里克盟友摧毁了“黑人堡垒”，这是一座由英国人建造的位于西属土地上的堡垒，造成270名曾为奴隶的人死亡，并处决了一些幸存者。1818年，杰克逊的部队再次越过边界，他们占领了西属佛罗里达的主要城市彭萨科拉，并逮捕了两名英国公民，杰克逊以这两人协助塞米诺尔人而将他们处决。这两名英国人的处决引发了一场国际外交危机。

Most officials in President James Monroe’s administration called for Jackson’s censure. But Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, the son of former president John Adams, found Jackson’s behavior useful. He defended the impulsive general, arguing that he had been forced to act. Adams used Jackson’s military successes in this First Seminole War to persuade Spain to accept the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, which gave Florida to the United States.

詹姆斯·门罗总统政府中的大多数官员都要求对杰克逊进行谴责。但国务卿约翰·昆西·亚当斯（前总统约翰·亚当斯的儿子）认为杰克逊的行为是有用的。他为这位冲动的将军辩护，认为他被迫采取行动。亚当斯利用杰克逊在第一次塞米诺尔战争中的军事胜利，促使西班牙接受1819年的亚当斯-奥尼斯条约，将佛罗里达割让给美国。

Any friendliness between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, however, did not survive long. In 1824, four nominees competed for the presidency in one of the closest elections in American history. Each came from a different part of the country—Adams from Massachusetts, Jackson from Tennessee, William H. Crawford from Georgia, and Henry Clay from Kentucky. Jackson won more popular votes than anyone else. But with no majority winner in the Electoral College, the election was thrown into the House of Representatives. There, Adams used his political clout to claim the presidency, persuading Clay to support him. After his election, Adams then named Henry Clay the Secretary of State, a position that had often been held by politicians before winning the presidency. Jackson would never forgive Adams, whom his supporters accused of engineering a “corrupt bargain” with Clay to circumvent the popular will.

然而，约翰·昆西·亚当斯与安德鲁·杰克逊之间的友好关系并未持续多久。1824年，四名候选人在美国历史上最为接近的选举中角逐总统。每个候选人都来自不同地区——亚当斯来自马萨诸塞州，杰克逊来自田纳西州，威廉·H·克劳福德来自乔治亚州，亨利·克莱来自肯塔基州。杰克逊获得了最多的普选票。但由于选举人团没有产生多数获胜者，选举结果被提交给了众议院。在那里，亚当斯利用自己的政治影响力宣称自己当选总统，并说服克莱支持他。选举之后，亚当斯将亨利·克莱任命为国务卿，这一职位通常由赢得总统选举的政治人物担任。杰克逊永远不会原谅亚当斯，他的支持者指责亚当斯与克莱勾结，设计了一个“腐败交易”，以绕过民意。

Four years later, in 1828, Adams and Jackson squared off in one of the dirtiest presidential elections to date. Pro-Jackson partisans accused Adams of elitism and claimed that while serving in Russia as a diplomat he had offered the Russian emperor an American prostitute. Adams’s supporters, on the other hand, accused Jackson of murder and attacked the morality of his marriage, pointing out that Jackson had unwittingly married his wife Rachel before the divorce on her prior marriage was complete. This time, Andrew Jackson won the election easily, but Rachel Jackson died suddenly before his inauguration. Jackson would never forgive the people who attacked his wife’s character during the campaign.

四年后，1828年，亚当斯和杰克逊在美国历史上最肮脏的总统选举之一中再次对决。亲杰克逊的支持者指责亚当斯是精英主义者，并声称他曾在俄罗斯担任外交官时向俄罗斯皇帝提供了一名美国妓女。亚当斯的支持者则指责杰克逊犯有谋杀罪，并攻击他婚姻的道德问题，指出杰克逊在与妻子瑞秋的婚姻还未完全解除之前，不知情地与她结婚。这次，安德鲁·杰克逊轻松赢得了选举，但瑞秋·杰克逊在他就职前突然去世。杰克逊永远不会原谅那些在竞选期间攻击他妻子品格的人。

In 1828, Jackson’s broad appeal as a military hero won him the presidency. He was “Old Hickory,” the “Hero of New Orleans,” a leader of plain frontier folk. His wartime accomplishments appealed to many voters’ pride. Over the next eight years, he would claim to represent the interests of ordinary white Americans, especially from the South and West, against the country’s wealthy and powerful elite. This attitude would lead him and his allies into a series of bitter political struggles.

1828年，杰克逊作为军事英雄的广泛吸引力帮助他赢得了总统职位。他是“老山核桃木”，是“新奥尔良的英雄”，是普通边疆人民的领袖。他在战时的成就激发了许多选民的自豪感。在接下来的八年里，他声称自己代表普通白人美国人的利益，尤其是来自南方和西方的人们，反对国家的富裕和强大的精英阶层。这种态度将引领他和他的盟友进入一系列激烈的政治斗争。

V. The Nullification Crisis

五、废止危机

Nearly every American had an opinion about President Jackson. To some, he epitomized democratic government and popular rule. To others, he represented the worst in a powerful and unaccountable executive, acting as president with the same arrogance he had shown as a general in Florida. One of the key issues dividing Americans during his presidency was a sectional dispute over national tax policy that would come to define Jackson’s no-holds-barred approach to government.

几乎每个美国人对杰克逊总统都有自己的看法。对一些人来说，他是民主政府和民众统治的典范；而对另一些人来说，他代表了强大且无法问责的行政权力，像他在佛罗里达担任将军时那样，以傲慢的态度担任总统。在他总统任期内，分裂美国人的一个关键问题是关于国家税收政策的区域性争议，这场争议最终定义了杰克逊不拘一格的治国方式。

Once Andrew Jackson moved into the White House, most southerners expected him to do away with the hated Tariff of 1828, the so-called Tariff of Abominations. This import tax provided protection for northern manufacturing interests by raising the prices of European products in America. Southerners, however, blamed the tariff for a massive transfer of wealth. It forced them to purchase goods from the North’s manufacturers at higher prices, and it provoked European countries to retaliate with high tariffs of their own, reducing foreign purchases of the South’s raw materials.

安德鲁·杰克逊入主白宫后，大多数南方人期望他废除那项备受痛恨的1828年关税法案，也就是所谓的“憎恶关税”。这项进口税通过提高欧洲商品在美国的价格来保护北方的制造业利益。然而，南方人却将这项关税归咎于财富的大规模转移。它迫使他们以更高的价格从北方制造商购买商品，并且引发了欧洲国家的报复，实施高额关税，减少了对南方原材料的购买。

Only in South Carolina, though, did the discomfort turn into organized action. The state was still trying to shrug off the economic problems of the Panic of 1819, but it had also recently endured the Denmark Vesey slave conspiracy, which convinced white South Carolinians that antislavery ideas put them in danger of a massive uprising.

然而，只有南卡罗来纳州的不满情绪转变为有组织的行动。该州仍在努力摆脱1819年经济恐慌带来的问题，但它也刚刚经历了丹麦·维西奴隶阴谋事件，这使得南卡罗来纳州的白人居民认为，反奴隶制的思想将使他们面临大规模起义的危险。

Elite South Carolinians were especially worried that the tariff was merely an entering wedge for federal legislation that would limit slavery. Andrew Jackson’s own vice president, John C. Calhoun, who was from South Carolina, asserted that the tariff was “the occasion, rather than the real cause of the present unhappy state of things.” The real fear was that the federal government might attack “the peculiar domestick institution of the Southern States”—meaning slavery. When Jackson failed to act against the tariff, Vice President Calhoun was caught in a tight position.

南卡罗来纳州的精英阶层尤其担心，关税只是联邦立法的突破口，未来可能限制奴隶制。安德鲁·杰克逊的副总统约翰·C·卡尔霍恩，来自南卡罗来纳州，他声称，关税“是目前不幸局势的导火索，而非真正的根源”。真正的恐惧在于，联邦政府可能会攻击“南方各州独特的家庭制度”——即奴隶制。当杰克逊未采取行动对抗关税时，副总统卡尔霍恩陷入了困境。

In 1828, Calhoun secretly drafted the “South Carolina Exposition and Protest,” an essay and set of resolutions that laid out the doctrine of nullification.” Drawing from the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799, Calhoun argued that the United States was a compact among the states rather than among the whole American people. Since the states had created the Union, he reasoned, they were still sovereign, so a state could nullify a federal statute it considered unconstitutional. Other states would then have to concede the right of nullification or agree to amend the Constitution. If necessary, a nullifying state could leave the Union.

1828年，卡尔霍恩秘密起草了《南卡罗来纳州声明与抗议》，这是一篇文章和一套决议，阐述了“废止”理论。他引用了1798年和1799年《弗吉尼亚与肯塔基决议》，并主张美国是各州之间的契约，而非全体美国人民的契约。卡尔霍恩认为，由于各州创造了联邦，他们仍然保持主权，因此一个州可以废除它认为违宪的联邦法令。其他州必须承认废止的权利，或者同意修改宪法。如有必要，废止的州可以脱离联邦。

When Calhoun’s authorship of the essay became public, Jackson was furious, interpreting it both as a personal betrayal and as a challenge to his authority as president. His most dramatic confrontation with Calhoun came in 1832 during a commemoration for Thomas Jefferson. At dinner, the president rose and toasted, “Our Federal Union: it must be preserved.” Calhoun responded with a toast of his own: “The Union: next to our Liberty the most dear.” Their divorce was not pretty. Martin Van Buren, a New York political leader whose skill in making deals had earned him the nickname “the Little Magician,” replaced Calhoun as vice president when Jackson ran for reelection in 1832.

当卡尔霍恩的这篇文章的作者身份被公开时，杰克逊愤怒不已，将其视为个人背叛，并认为这是对他作为总统权威的挑战。他与卡尔霍恩最戏剧性的对抗发生在1832年，期间举行了托马斯·杰斐逊的纪念活动。在晚宴上，总统起身并祝酒道：“我们的联邦联盟：它必须被保留。”卡尔霍恩回应道：“联盟：除了我们的自由，它最为珍贵。”他们的分裂并不和谐。在1832年杰克逊竞选连任时，来自纽约的政治领袖马丁·范布伦，以其出色的交易技巧获得了“小魔术师”的绰号，取代卡尔霍恩成为副总统。

Calhoun returned to South Carolina, where a special state convention nullified the federal tariffs of 1828 and 1832. It declared them unconstitutional and therefore “null, void, and no law” within South Carolina. The convention ordered South Carolina customs officers not to collect tariff revenue and declared that any federal attempt to enforce the tariffs would cause the state to secede from the Union.

卡尔霍恩回到南卡罗来纳州，州特别大会宣布废除1828年和1832年的联邦关税。大会宣称这些关税违宪，因此在南卡罗来纳州内“无效且不具法律效力”。大会命令南卡罗来纳州的海关官员停止征收关税，并声明任何联邦政府试图执行这些关税的行为，将导致该州脱离联邦。

President Jackson responded dramatically. He denounced the ordinance of nullification and declared that “disunion, by armed force, is TREASON.” Vowing to hang Calhoun and any other nullifier who defied federal power, he persuaded Congress to pass a Force Bill that authorized him to send the military to enforce the tariffs. Faced with such threats, other southern states declined to join South Carolina. Privately, however, Jackson supported the idea of compromise and allowed his political enemy Henry Clay to broker a solution with Calhoun. Congress passed a compromise bill that slowly lowered federal tariff rates. South Carolina rescinded nullification for the tariffs but nullified the Force Bill.

杰克逊总统做出了戏剧性的回应。他谴责废止条例，宣称“通过武力分裂是叛国行为”。他发誓要绞死卡尔霍恩和任何其他违抗联邦权力的废止者，并说服国会通过了一项授权他动用军事力量执行关税的强制法案。在面对这样的威胁时，其他南方州选择不支持南卡罗来纳州。然而，私下里，杰克逊支持妥协，并允许他的政治敌人亨利·克莱与卡尔霍恩谈判解决方案。国会通过了一项妥协法案，逐步降低了联邦关税税率。南卡罗来纳州撤回了废止关税的决定，但废止了强制法案。

The legacy of the Nullification Crisis is difficult to sort out. Jackson’s decisive action seemed to have forced South Carolina to back down. But the crisis also united the ideas of secession and states’ rights, two concepts that had not necessarily been linked before. Perhaps most clearly, nullification showed that the immense political power of enslavers was matched only by their immense anxiety about the future of slavery. During later debates in the 1840s and 1850s, they would raise the ideas of the Nullification Crisis again.

废止危机的遗产很难理清。杰克逊的果断行动似乎迫使南卡罗来纳州退让。但这场危机也将分裂与州权的思想结合在一起，这两种概念之前并不一定是相互关联的。也许最明显的是，废止危机表明奴隶主们的巨大政治权力，只能与他们对奴隶制未来的巨大焦虑相匹配。在随后的1840年代和1850年代的辩论中，他们会再次提起废止危机的思想。

VI. The Eaton Affair and the Politics of Sexuality
六、伊顿事件与涉性政治

Meanwhile, a more personal crisis during Jackson’s first term also drove a wedge between him and Vice President Calhoun. The Eaton Affair, sometimes insultingly called the “Petticoat Affair,” began as a disagreement among elite women in Washington, D.C., but it eventually led to the disbanding of Jackson’s cabinet.

同时，在杰克逊的第一任期内，一场更为个人化的危机也加深了他与副总统卡尔霍恩之间的裂痕。这场被有时侮辱性地称为“衬裙风波”的事件，起初是华盛顿D.C.精英女性之间的争执，但最终导致了杰克逊内阁的解散。

True to his backwoods reputation, when he took office in 1829, President Jackson chose mostly provincial politicians, not Washington veterans, to serve in his administration. One of them was his friend John Henry Eaton, a senator from Tennessee, whom Jackson nominated to be his secretary of war.

忠于他“边区人”形象，杰克逊在1829年上任时，选择了多数地方性政治家，而非华盛顿的资深政治人物，来担任他的政府职务。其中一位是他的朋友约翰·亨利·伊顿，来自田纳西州的参议员，杰克逊提名他担任战争部长。

A few months earlier, Eaton had married Margaret O’Neale Timberlake, the recent widow of a navy officer. She was the daughter of Washington boardinghouse proprietors, and her humble origins and combination of beauty, outspokenness, and familiarity with so many men in the boardinghouse had led to gossip. During her first marriage, rumors had circulated that she and John Eaton were having an affair while her husband was at sea. When her first husband’s death was originally (but incorrectly) labeled a suicide, and she married Eaton just nine months later, the society women of Washington had been scandalized. One wrote that Margaret Eaton’s reputation had been “totally destroyed.”

几个月前，伊顿与玛格丽特·奥尼尔·廷伯雷克结婚，后者是海军军官的遗孀。她是华盛顿一家寄宿公寓老板娘的女儿，她的低调出身、出众的美貌、直率的性格以及与寄宿公寓中许多男性的熟识，导致了流言四起。在她的第一次婚姻中，曾有传闻称她和约翰·伊顿在她的丈夫出海期间有染。她第一任丈夫的死亡最初被（错误地）认为是自杀，而她在丈夫去世仅九个月后便与伊顿结婚，这让华盛顿的社交圈妇女感到震惊。有位女士写道，玛格丽特·伊顿的名誉已经“彻底毁掉”。

John Eaton was now secretary of war, but other cabinet members’ wives refused have anything to do with his wife. No respectable lady who wanted to protect her own reputation could exchange visits with her, invite her to social events, or be seen chatting with her. Most importantly, the vice president’s wife, Floride Calhoun, shunned Margaret Eaton, spending most of her time in South Carolina to avoid her. Even Jackson’s own niece, Emily Donelson, visited Eaton once and then refused to have anything more to do with her.

约翰·伊顿如今是战争部长，但其他内阁成员的妻子拒绝与他的妻子交往。任何想要保护自己名誉的有身份的女士，都不可能拜访她、邀请她参加社交活动，或与她交谈。最重要的是，副总统夫人弗洛里德·卡尔霍恩避开了玛格丽特·伊顿，将大部分时间都待在南卡罗来纳州以避免与她接触。甚至连杰克逊自己的侄女艾米莉·多内尔森也曾探访过伊顿一次，但随后就拒绝再与她有任何交往。

Although women could not vote or hold office, they played an important role in politics as people who controlled influence. They helped hold official Washington together. And according to one local society woman, “the ladies” had “as much rivalship and party spirit, desire of precedence and authority” as male politicians had. These women upheld a strict code of femininity and sexual morality. They paid careful attention to the rules that governed personal interactions and official relationships.

尽管女性无法投票或担任公职，她们在政治中扮演着重要角色，尤其是作为控制影响力的人物。她们帮助维系华盛顿的官方社交圈。根据一位当地社交界女士的说法，这些“女士们”拥有和男性政治家一样的“竞争心和党派精神，渴望获得优先地位和权威”。这些女性遵循着严格的女性气质和性道德规范。她们非常注重个人互动和正式关系中遵循的规则。

Margaret Eaton’s social exclusion thus greatly affected Jackson, his cabinet, and the rest of Washington society. At first, President Jackson blamed his rival Henry Clay for the attacks on the Eatons. But he soon perceived that Washington women and his new cabinet had initiated the gossip. Jackson scoffed, “I did not come here to make a cabinet for the ladies of this place,” and claimed that he “had rather have live vermin on my back than the tongue of one of these Washington women on my reputation.” He began to blame the ambition of Vice President Calhoun for Floride Calhoun’s actions, deciding “it was necessary to put him out of the cabinet and destroy him.”

因此，玛格丽特·伊顿的社交排斥对杰克逊、他的内阁以及整个华盛顿社会产生了重大影响。最初，杰克逊将攻击伊顿夫妇的责任归咎于他的对手亨利·克莱。但他很快意识到，是华盛顿的女性和他的新内阁成员引发了这些流言蜚语。杰克逊讥讽道，“我不是来这里为这个地方的女士们组建内阁的”，并声称，“我宁愿背上有活的害虫，也不愿背负这些华盛顿女人对我名誉的闲言碎语。”他开始将副总统卡尔霍恩的野心视为弗洛里德·卡尔霍恩行为的根源，决定“有必要将他赶出内阁，彻底毁掉他。”

Jackson was so indignant because he had recently been through a similar scandal with his late wife, Rachel. Her character, too, had been insulted by leading politicians’ wives because of the circumstances of her marriage. Jackson believed that Rachel’s death had been caused by those slanderous attacks. Furthermore, he saw the assaults on the Eatons as attacks on his authority.

杰克逊之所以如此愤怒，是因为他最近经历了与已故妻子瑞秋的类似丑闻。瑞秋的品格也因她婚姻的特殊情况而遭到杰出政治人物妻子的侮辱。杰克逊认为，瑞秋的死亡正是那些诽谤攻击所导致的。此外，他将对伊顿夫妇的攻击视为对他个人权威的挑战。

In one of the most famous presidential meetings in American history, Jackson called together his cabinet members to discuss what they saw as the bedrock of society: women’s position as protectors of the nation’s values. There, the men of the cabinet debated Margaret Eaton’s character. Jackson delivered a long defense, methodically presenting evidence against her attackers. But the men attending the meeting—and their wives—were not swayed. They continued to shun Margaret Eaton, and the scandal was resolved only with the resignation of four members of the cabinet, including Eaton’s husband.

在美国历史上最著名的总统会议之一中，杰克逊召集内阁成员讨论他们所认为的社会基石：女性作为国家价值观捍卫者的地位。在这次会议上，内阁成员们辩论了玛格丽特·伊顿的品格。杰克逊进行了长时间的辩护，系统地展示了反对她的攻击者的证据。然而，参加会议的内阁成员和他们的妻子并未改变立场。他们继续排斥玛格丽特·伊顿，而这场丑闻最终通过四名内阁成员的辞职得以解决，其中包括伊顿的丈夫。

VII. The Bank War

七、银行战争

Andrew Jackson’s first term was full of controversy. For all of his reputation as a military and political warrior, however, the most characteristic struggle of his presidency was financial. As president, he waged a “war” against the Bank of the United States.

安德鲁·杰克逊的第一个任期充满了争议。然而，尽管他以军事和政治斗士的形象著称，他总统任期内最具代表性的斗争却是金融方面的。作为总统，他发起了对美国银行的“战争”。

The charter of the controversial national bank that Congress established under Alexander Hamilton’s financial plan had expired in 1811. But five years later, Congress had given a new charter to the Second Bank of the United States. Headquartered in Philadelphia, the bank was designed to stabilize the growing American economy. By requiring other banks to pay their debts promptly in gold, it was supposed to prevent them from issuing too many paper banknotes that could drop suddenly in value. Of course, the Bank of the United States was also supposed to reap a healthy profit for its private stockholders, like the Philadelphia banker Stephen Girard and the New York merchant John Jacob Astor.

美国国会根据亚历山大·汉密尔顿的金融计划设立的那家具有争议的国有银行的特许经营权在1811年到期。然而，五年后，国会为第二家美国银行重新授予了特许经营权。这家银行总部设在费城，旨在稳定不断增长的美国经济。通过要求其他银行及时以黄金偿还债务，它本应防止这些银行发行过多纸币，这些纸币的价值可能会突然暴跌。当然，美国银行还应该为其私人股东带来可观的利润，如费城银行家斯蒂芬·吉拉德和纽约商人约翰·雅各布·阿斯特。

Though many Democratic-Republicans had supported the new bank, some never gave up their Jeffersonian suspicion that such a powerful institution was dangerous to the republic. Andrew Jackson was one of the skeptics. He and many of his supporters blamed the bank for the Panic of 1819, which had become a severe economic depression. The national bank had made that crisis worse, first by lending irresponsibly and then, when the panic hit, by hoarding gold currency to save itself at the expense of smaller banks and their customers. Jackson’s supporters also believed the bank had corrupted many politicians by giving them financial favors.

尽管许多民主-共和党人曾支持新银行，但仍有一些人没有放弃他们对这种强大机构可能对共和国构成危险的杰斐逊主义怀疑。安德鲁·杰克逊就是其中之一。他和许多支持者将1819年的经济危机归咎于该银行，这场危机后来演变成为严重的经济萧条。美国银行通过不负责任地放贷，使这场危机更加严重，然后，在经济恐慌爆发时，它通过囤积黄金货币自保，牺牲了较小的银行及其客户。杰克逊的支持者还认为，这家银行通过提供金融优惠腐化了许多政治家。

In 1829, after a few months in office, Jackson set his sights on the bank and its director, Nicholas Biddle. Jackson became more and more insistent over the next three years as Biddle and the bank’s supporters fought to save it. A visiting Frenchman observed that Jackson had “declared a war to the death against the Bank,” attacking it “in the same cut-and-thrust style” with which he had once fought Native Americans and the British. For Jackson, the struggle was a personal crisis. “The Bank is trying to kill me,” he told Martin Van Buren, “but I will kill it!”

在1829年，杰克逊上任几个月后，便将目标瞄准了美国银行及其行长尼古拉斯·比德尔。在接下来的三年里，随着比德尔和银行的支持者竭力维护这家银行，杰克逊变得越来越坚持不懈。一位来访的法国人观察到，杰克逊“宣布与银行展开生死之战”，并以“曾经对抗印第安人和英国人的那种切割式攻击”来攻击它。对杰克逊而言，这场斗争是一次个人危机。他告诉马丁·范布伦：“银行想要杀了我，但我会杀了它！”

The bank’s charter was not due for renewal for several years, but in 1832, while Jackson was running for reelection, Congress held an early vote to reauthorize the Bank of the United States. The president vetoed the bill.

虽然银行的特许经营权还需要几年才到期，但在1832年，正值杰克逊竞选连任期间，国会提前举行了重新授权美国银行的投票。总统行使了否决权。

In his veto message, Jackson called the bank unconstitutional and “dangerous to the liberties of the people.” The charter, he explained, didn’t do enough to protect the bank from its British stockholders, who might not have Americans’ interests at heart. In addition, Jackson wrote, the Bank of the United States was virtually a federal agency, but it had powers that were not granted anywhere in the Constitution. Worst of all, the bank was a way for well-connected people to get richer at everyone else’s expense. “The rich and powerful,” the president declared, “too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.” Only a strictly limited government, Jackson believed, would treat people equally.

在他的否决信中，杰克逊称该银行违宪，并且“对人民的自由构成危险”。他解释道，特许经营权没有充分保护银行免受其英国股东的影响，这些股东可能并不关心美国的利益。此外，杰克逊还写道，美国银行实际上是一个联邦机构，但它拥有宪法中并未赋予的权力。最糟糕的是，这家银行是有权让那些有关系的人通过其他人支付的代价变得更富有。“富人和有权势的人，”总统宣称，“为了他们的私利而歪曲政府行为。”杰克逊认为，只有一个严格限制的政府，才能平等地对待每一个人。

Although its charter would not be renewed, the Bank of the United States could still operate for several more years. So in 1833, to diminish its power, Jackson also directed his cabinet to stop depositing federal funds in it. From now on, the government would do business with selected state banks instead. Critics called them Jackson’s “pet banks.”

尽管美国银行的特许经营权不会被续期，但它仍然可以继续运营几年。因此，在1833年，为了削弱其权力，杰克逊还指示他的内阁停止将联邦资金存入美国银行。从此，政府将与选定的州银行进行交易。这些银行被批评者称为杰克逊的“宠物银行”。

Jackson’s bank veto set off fierce controversy. Opponents in Philadelphia held a meeting and declared that the president’s ideas were dangerous to private property. Jackson, they said, intended to “place the honest earnings of the industrious citizen at the disposal of the idle”—in other words, redistribute wealth to lazy people—and become a “dictator.” A newspaper editor said that Jackson was trying to set “the poor against the rich,” perhaps in order to take over as a military tyrant. But Jackson’s supporters praised him. Pro-Jackson newspaper editors wrote that he had kept a “monied aristocracy” from conquering the people.

杰克逊的银行否决权引发了激烈的争议。费城的反对者召开会议，声明总统的观点对私人财产构成危险。他们说，杰克逊打算“将勤劳公民的诚实收入交给懒人支配”——换句话说，就是将财富重新分配给懒人——并成为一个“独裁者”。一位报纸编辑表示，杰克逊试图将“穷人与富人对立起来”，或许是为了自己成为一名军事暴君。但杰克逊的支持者给予他称赞。亲杰克逊的报纸编辑写道，他阻止了“金钱贵族”征服人民。

By giving President Jackson a vivid way to defy the rich and powerful, or at least appear to do so, the Bank War gave his supporters a specific “democratic” idea to rally around. More than any other issue, opposition to the national bank came to define their beliefs. And by leading Jackson to exert executive power so dramatically against Congress, the Bank War also helped his political enemies organize.

银行战争为杰克逊提供了一个生动的方式，去挑战富人和有权势的人，或者至少显得如此，给他的支持者提供了一个具体的“民主”思想，来团结起来。反对国有银行，成为他们信仰的标志。通过让杰克逊如此戏剧性地行使行政权力对抗国会，银行战争也帮助了他的政治敌人组织起来。

Increasingly, supporters of Andrew Jackson referred to themselves as Democrats. Under the strategic leadership of Martin Van Buren, they built a highly organized national political party, the first modern party in the United States. Much more than earlier political parties, this Democratic Party had a centralized leadership structure and a consistent ideological program for all levels of government. Meanwhile, Jackson’s enemies, mocking him as “King Andrew the First,” named themselves after the patriots of the American Revolution, the Whigs.

越来越多的杰克逊支持者称自己为“民主党人”。在马丁·范布伦的战略领导下，他们建立了一个高度组织化的全国性政党——美国历史上的第一个现代政党。与早期的政治党派相比，这个民主党有一个集中领导的结构，并且为各级政府提供了一个一致的意识形态纲领。与此同时，杰克逊的敌人讽刺他为“安德鲁一世国王”，并以美国独立战争的爱国者命名自己为辉格党。

VIII. The Panic of 1837

八、1837年经济危机

Unfortunately for Jackson’s Democrats (and most other Americans), their victory over the Bank of the United States worsened rather than solved the country’s economic problems.

不幸的是，对于杰克逊的民主党人（以及大多数其他美国人）来说，他们在战胜美国银行后，国家的经济问题不仅没有得到解决，反而变得更糟。

Things looked good initially. Between 1834 and 1836, a combination of high cotton prices, freely available foreign and domestic credit, and an infusion of specie (“hard” currency in the form of gold and silver) from Europe spurred a sustained boom in the American economy. At the same time, sales of western land by the federal government promoted speculation and poorly regulated lending practices, creating a vast real estate bubble.

最初的情况看起来不错。从1834年到1836年，棉花价格的上涨、国内外信贷的充裕以及来自欧洲的金银硬通货注入，推动了美国经济的持续繁荣。与此同时，联邦政府的西部土地销售促进了投机活动和不受监管的贷款行为，导致了一个巨大的房地产泡沫。

Meanwhile, the number of state-chartered banks grew from 329 in 1830 to 713 just six years later. As a result, the volume of paper banknotes per capita in circulation in the United States increased by 40 percent between 1834 and 1836. Low interest rates in Great Britain also encouraged British capitalists to make risky investments in America. British lending across the Atlantic surged, raising American foreign indebtedness from $110 million to $220 million over the same two years.

与此同时，州特许银行的数量从1830年的329家增加到六年后的713家。结果，美国流通中的纸币数量在1834年到1836年间增加了40%。英国的低利率也鼓励了英国资本家对美国进行高风险投资。跨大西洋的英国贷款激增，使得美国的外债从1.1亿美元增加到2.2亿美元，短短两年间几乎翻了一番。

As the boom accelerated, banks became more careless about the amount of hard currency they kept on hand to redeem their banknotes. And although Jackson had hoped his bank veto would reduce bankers’ and speculators’ power over the economy, it actually made the problems worse.

随着经济繁荣的加速，银行变得越来越疏忽，未能保持足够的硬通货储备来赎回他们的纸币。尽管杰克逊曾希望通过否决银行法案来减少银行家和投机者对经济的控制，但这一决定实际上使问题变得更加严重。

Two further federal actions late in the Jackson administration also worsened the situation. In June 1836, Congress decided to increase the number of banks receiving federal deposits. This plan undermined the banks that were already receiving federal money, since they saw their funds distributed to other banks. Next, seeking to reduce speculation on credit, the Treasury Department issued an order called the Specie Circular in July 1836, requiring payment in hard currency for all federal land purchases. As a result, land buyers drained eastern banks of even more gold and silver.

在杰克逊政府后期，还有两项联邦行动加剧了这一局面。1836年6月，国会决定增加接受联邦存款的银行数量。这一计划削弱了已经接受联邦资金的银行，因为它们看到自己的资金被分配给了其他银行。接着，为了减少基于信用的投机行为，财政部在1836年7月发布了一项名为“硬币令”（Specie Circular）的命令，要求所有联邦土地购买必须以硬通货支付。因此，土地购买者从东部的银行提取了更多的黄金和白银。

By late fall in 1836, America’s economic bubbles began to burst. Federal land sales plummeted. The New York Herald reported that “lands in Illinois and Indiana that were cracked up to $10 an acre last year, are now to be got at $3, and even less.” The newspaper warned darkly, “The reaction has begun, and nothing can stop it.”

到1836年秋末，美国的经济泡沫开始破裂。联邦土地销售急剧下降。《纽约先驱报》报道说，“去年在伊利诺伊州和印第安纳州被炒作至每英亩10美元的土地，如今只需3美元，甚至更低。”该报警告称，“反弹已经开始，没人能够阻止它。”

Runs on banks began in New York on May 4, 1837, as panicked customers scrambled to exchange their banknotes for hard currency. By May 10, the New York banks, running out of gold and silver, stopped redeeming their notes. As news spread, banks around the nation did the same. By May 15, the largest crowd in Pennsylvania history had amassed outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, denouncing banking as a “system of fraud and oppression.”

1837年5月4日，纽约的银行开始发生挤兑，恐慌的顾客纷纷抢着将银行票据兑换成硬通货。到5月10日，纽约的银行因金银耗尽，停止赎回纸币。随着消息的传播，全国各地的银行纷纷效仿。到5月15日，宾夕法尼亚州历史上最大的人群聚集在费城的独立厅外，谴责银行业为“欺诈与压迫的制度”。

The Panic of 1837 led to a general economic depression. Between 1839 and 1843, the total capital held by American banks dropped by 40 percent as prices fell and economic activity around the nation slowed to a crawl. The price of cotton in New Orleans, for instance, dropped 50 percent.

1837年的金融危机导致了普遍的经济衰退。1839年至1843年间，美国银行的总资本下降了40%，物价下跌，全国经济活动几乎停滞。例如，新奥尔良的棉花价格下降了50%。

Traveling through New Orleans in January 1842, a British diplomat reported that the country “presents a lamentable appearance of exhaustion and demoralization.” Over the previous decade, the American economy had soared to fantastic new heights and plunged to dramatic new depths.

1842年1月，一位英国外交官在经过新奥尔良时报告称，该国“呈现出一种令人痛心的疲惫和堕落的景象。”在过去的十年里，美国经济经历了极其迅猛的飞跃和剧烈的衰退。

Normal banking activity did not resume around the nation until late 1842. Meanwhile, two hundred banks closed, cash and credit became scarce, prices declined, and trade slowed. During this downturn, eight states and a territorial government defaulted on loans made by British banks to finance internal improvements.

直到1842年底，全国的正常银行业务才逐渐恢复。与此同时，约有200家银行关闭，现金和信贷变得稀缺，物价下降，贸易放缓。在这次经济低迷期间，八个州和一个地区政府未能偿还英国银行为其提供的贷款，这些贷款本用于资助内部基础设施建设。

IX. Rise of the Whigs

九、辉格党的崛起

The disaster of the Panic of 1837 created an opportunity for the Whig Party, which had grown partly out of the political coalition of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay and opposed Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party. The National Republicans, a loose alliance concentrated in the Northeast, had become the core of a new anti-Jackson movement. But Jackson’s enemies were a varied group; they included pro-slavery southerners angry about Jackson’s behavior during the Nullification Crisis as well as antislavery Yankees.

1837年金融危机的灾难为辉格党提供了机会。辉格党部分起源于约翰·昆西·亚当斯和亨利·克莱的政治联盟，反对安德鲁·杰克逊及其民主党。全国共和党是一个松散的联盟，主要集中在东北部，逐渐成为反杰克逊运动的核心。但杰克逊的敌对群体非常多样化，既包括因杰克逊在废除危机中的行为而愤怒的亲奴隶制南方人，也有反奴隶制的北方人。

After they failed to prevent Andrew Jackson’s reelection, this fragile coalition formally organized as a new party in 1834 “to rescue the Government and public liberty.” Henry Clay, who had run against Jackson for president and was now serving again as a senator from Kentucky, held private meetings to persuade anti-Jackson leaders from different backgrounds to unite. He also gave the new Whig Party its anti-monarchical name.

在未能阻止安德鲁·杰克逊连任后，这一脆弱的联盟于1834年正式组建为一个新党派，旨在“拯救政府与公共自由”。亨利·克莱曾与杰克逊竞选总统，现在再次担任肯塔基州的参议员，他举行了私下会议，劝说来自不同背景的反杰克逊领导人联合起来。他还为新的辉格党取了一个反君主制的名字。

At first, the Whigs focused mainly on winning seats in Congress, opposing “King Andrew” from outside the presidency. They remained divided by regional and ideological differences. The Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Martin Van Buren, easily won election as Jackson’s successor in 1836. But the Whigs gained significant public support after the Panic of 1837, and they became increasingly well organized. In late 1839, they held their first national convention in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

最初，辉格党的主要目标是赢得国会席位，站在总统职位之外反对“安德鲁国王”。他们在地区和意识形态上存在分歧。民主党的总统候选人、副总统马丁·范布伦轻松当选为杰克逊的继任者。然而，在1837年金融危机后，辉格党获得了显著的公众支持，组织也越来越健全。1839年底，他们在宾夕法尼亚州哈里斯堡举行了第一次全国大会。

To Henry Clay’s disappointment, the convention voted to nominate not him but General William Henry Harrison of Ohio as the Whig candidate for president in 1840. Harrison was known primarily for defeating Shawnee warriors led by Tecumseh before and during the War of 1812, most famously at the Battle of Tippecanoe in present-day Indiana. Whig leaders viewed him as a candidate with broad patriotic appeal. They portrayed him as the “log cabin and hard cider” candidate, a plain man of the country, unlike the easterner Martin Van Buren. To balance the ticket with a southerner, the Whigs nominated a slave-owning Virginia senator, John Tyler, for vice president. Tyler had been a Jackson supporter but had broken with him over states’ rights during the Nullification Crisis.

令亨利·克莱失望的是，1840年辉格党全国大会投票提名的总统候选人并不是他，而是俄亥俄州的威廉·亨利·哈里森将军。哈里森主要因在1812年战争期间以及之前击败了由特库姆塞领导的肖尼部落而闻名，最著名的战役是今天印第安纳州的提皮卡努战役。辉格党领导人视他为一位具有广泛爱国吸引力的候选人。他们将他描绘为“住在小木屋里喝着苹果酒”的候选人，强调他是一位朴实的乡下人，与东部的马丁·范布伦截然不同。为了使选票更加平衡，辉格党提名了来自弗吉尼亚的奴隶主参议员约翰·泰勒担任副总统。泰勒曾是杰克逊的支持者，但在废除危机中因州权问题与杰克逊决裂。

Although “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” easily won the presidential election of 1840, this choice of ticket turned out to be disastrous for the Whigs. Harrison became ill (for unclear reasons, though tradition claims he contracted pneumonia after delivering a nearly two-hour inaugural address without an overcoat or hat) and died after just thirty-one days in office. Harrison thus holds the ironic honor of having the longest inaugural address and the shortest term in office of any American president. Vice President Tyler became president and soon adopted policies that looked far more like Andrew Jackson’s than like a Whig’s. After Tyler twice vetoed charters for another Bank of the United States, nearly his entire cabinet resigned, and the Whigs in Congress expelled “His Accidency” from the party.

尽管“提皮卡努与泰勒”组合轻松赢得了1840年的总统选举，但这一选票选择最终证明对辉格党是灾难性的。哈里森因不明原因生病（虽然传统上认为他在没有外套和帽子的情况下发表了近两小时的就职演讲后感染了肺炎）并在上任仅三十天后去世。因此，哈里森既拥有美国历史上最长的就职演讲，也是任期最短的总统。副总统泰勒继任为总统，并迅速采纳了许多与安德鲁·杰克逊更为相似的政策，而非辉格党的政策。在泰勒两度否决设立美国第二银行的法案后，几乎整个内阁辞职，国会中的辉格党成员也将泰勒驱逐出党。

The crisis of Tyler’s administration was just one sign of the Whig Party’s difficulty uniting around issues besides opposition to Democrats. The Whig Party succeeded in electing one more president but remained deeply divided. Its problems grew as the issue of slavery strained the Union in the 1850s. Unable to agree on a consistent national position on slavery, and unable to find another national issue to rally around, the Whigs broke apart by 1856.

泰勒政府的危机只是辉格党在团结方面面临困难的一个表现。辉格党成功选举了另一位总统，但始终未能克服内部的深刻分裂。随着奴隶制问题在1850年代日益紧张，辉格党未能就奴隶制问题形成一致的全国立场，也未能找到其他能够凝聚全国共识的议题，最终在1856年分裂解散。

X. Anti-Masons, Anti-Immigrants, and the Whig Coalition

十、反共济会、反移民和辉格党联盟

The Whig coalition drew strength from several earlier political movements, including two that harnessed American political paranoia. The Anti-Masonic Party formed in the 1820s for the purpose of destroying the Freemasons. Later, anti-immigrant sentiment formed the American Party, also called the Know-Nothings. The American Party sought and won office across the country in the 1850s, but nativism had already been an influential force, particularly in the Whig Party, whose members could not fail to notice that urban Irish Catholics strongly tended to support Democrats.

辉格党的联盟从多个早期的政治运动中汲取了力量，其中包括两股发挥了美国政治偏执的力量。反共济会党于1820年代成立，旨在摧毁共济会。随后，反移民情绪催生了美国党，也被称为“不知者”。美国党在1850年代赢得了全国范围的选举，但本土主义已经成为一个重要的政治力量，尤其在辉格党内部，辉格党成员注意到城市中的爱尔兰天主教徒强烈倾向于支持民主党。

Freemasonry, an international network of social clubs with arcane traditions and rituals, seems to have originated in medieval Europe as a trade organization for stonemasons. By the eighteenth century, however, it had outgrown its relationship with the masons’ craft and had become a general secular fraternal order that proclaimed adherence to the ideals of the Enlightenment.

共济会是一个具有神秘传统和仪式的国际性社交俱乐部网络。它似乎起源于中世纪的欧洲，最初是石匠的行会。然而，到18世纪，共济会已经超越了与石匠工艺的联系，成为一个普遍的世俗兄弟会，宣扬启蒙思想的理念。

Freemasonry was an important part of the social life of men in the new republic’s elite. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Jackson, and Henry Clay all claimed membership. Prince Hall, a free leather worker in Boston, founded a separate branch of the order for African American men. However, the Masonic brotherhood’s secrecy, elitism, rituals, and secular ideals generated a deep suspicion of the organization among many Americans.

共济会在新共和国精英阶层的社交生活中占有重要地位。乔治·华盛顿、本杰明·富兰克林、安德鲁·杰克逊和亨利·克莱等人都声称是共济会成员。波士顿的黑人皮革工人普林斯·霍尔创立了一个独立的共济会分支，供非裔美国男性加入。然而，尽管共济会成员中不乏社会名流，其组织的神秘性、精英主义、仪式和世俗理想还是在许多美国人中激起了深深的不信任。

In 1820s upstate New York, which was fertile soil for new religious and social reform movements, anti-Masonic suspicion would emerge for the first time as an organized political force. The trigger for this was the strange disappearance and probable murder of William Morgan. Morgan announced plans to publish an exposé called Illustrations of Masonry. This book purported to reveal the order’s secret rites, and it outraged other local Freemasons. They launched a series of attempts to prevent the book from being published, including an attempt to burn the press and a conspiracy to have Morgan jailed for alleged debts. In September, Morgan disappeared. He was last seen being forced into a carriage by four men later identified as Masons. When a corpse washed up on the shore of Lake Ontario, Morgan’s wife and friends claimed at first that it was his.

在1820年代的纽约上州，这一地区本是新兴宗教和社会改革运动的沃土，反对共济会的情绪首次作为一种有组织的政治力量出现。触发这一切的事件是威廉·摩根的离奇失踪和可能的谋杀。摩根曾宣布计划出版一本名为《共济会插图》的书，书中声称将揭示共济会的秘密仪式，这引起了当地其他共济会成员的强烈反感。他们采取了一系列措施试图阻止该书的出版，其中包括企图焚烧印刷厂，并密谋让摩根因所谓的债务问题入狱。9月，摩根失踪了。最后一次有人看到他时，他被四个后来被确认是共济会成员的男子强行推上马车。当一具尸体被冲上安大略湖的岸边时，摩根的妻子和朋友们一开始声称那就是他的遗体。

The Morgan story convinced many people that Masonry was a dangerous influence in the republic. The publicity surrounding the trials transformed local outrage into a political movement that, though small, had significant power in New York and parts of New England. This movement addressed Americans’ widespread dissatisfaction about economic and political change by giving them a handy explanation: the republic was controlled by a secret society.

摩根事件使得许多人相信，共济会在美国的影响力是危险的。围绕此事件的广泛报道，将当地人的愤怒转变为一场政治运动，尽管该运动的规模较小，但在纽约和新英格兰地区具有显著的影响力。这个运动通过提供一个简单的解释，回应了美国人对经济和政治变革的广泛不满：他们认为国家正被一个秘密社团所控制。

In 1827, local anti-Masonic committees began meeting across the state of New York, committing not to vote for any political candidate who belonged to the Freemasons. This boycott grew, and in 1828, a convention in the town of LeRoy produced an “Anti-Masonic Declaration of Independence,” the basis for an Anti-Masonic Party. In 1828, Anti-Masonic politicians ran for state offices in New York, winning 12 percent of the vote for governor.

1827年，纽约州的反共济会委员会开始在各地召开会议，承诺不投票支持任何属于共济会的候选人。这场抵制活动逐渐扩大，1828年，在莱罗伊镇召开的大会上，发布了《反共济会独立宣言》，成为反共济会党派的基础。1828年，反共济会的政治人物在纽约州竞选州级职务，获得了12%的州长选票。

In 1830, the Anti-Masons held a national convention in Philadelphia. But after a dismal showing in the 1832 presidential elections, the leaders of the Anti-Masonic Party folded their movement into the new Whig Party. The Anti-Masonic Party’s absorption into the Whig coalition demonstrated the importance of conspiracy theories in American politics. Just as Andrew Jackson’s followers detected a vast foreign plot in the form of the Bank of the United States, some of his enemies could detect it in the form of the Freemasons. Others, called nativists, blamed immigrants.

1830年，反共济会党在费城召开了全国大会。但在1832年总统选举中遭遇惨败后，反共济会党领导人将其运动并入了新兴的辉格党。反共济会党被吸纳进辉格党联盟，显示了阴谋论在美国政治中的重要性。正如安德鲁·杰克逊的支持者在美国银行中看到了一个庞大的外国阴谋，一些杰克逊的敌人则在共济会中发现了同样的阴谋。另一些被称为本土主义者的人则将责任归咎于移民。

Nativists detected many foreign threats, but Catholicism may have been the most important. Nativists watched with horror as more and more Catholic immigrants (especially from Ireland and Germany) arrived in American cities. The immigrants professed different beliefs, often spoke unfamiliar languages, and participated in alien cultural traditions. Just as importantly, nativists remembered Europe’s history of warfare between Catholics and Protestants. They feared that Catholics would bring religious violence with them to the United States.

本土主义者发现了许多外来威胁，但天主教可能是最为重要的一个。本土主义者对越来越多的天主教移民（尤其是来自爱尔兰和德国的移民）涌入美国城市感到震惊。这些移民宣称信仰不同，通常讲着不熟悉的语言，并参与着异国的文化传统。同样重要的是，本土主义者还记得欧洲天主教徒和新教徒之间的历史战争。他们担心天主教徒会将宗教暴力带到美国。

In the summer of 1834, a mob of Protestants attacked a Catholic convent near Boston. The rioters had read newspaper rumors that a woman was being held against her will by the nuns. Angry men broke into the convent and burned it to the ground. Later, a young woman named Rebecca Reed, who had spent time in the convent, published a memoir describing abuses she claimed the nuns had directed toward novices and students. The convent attack was among many eruptions of nativism, especially in New England and other parts of the Northeast, during the early nineteenth century.

1834年夏天，一群新教徒袭击了波士顿附近的一座天主教修道院。暴徒们看到了报纸上关于一名女子被修女扣押的传闻。愤怒的男子闯入修道院，将其焚烧殆尽。随后，一位名叫丽贝卡·里德的年轻女子，曾在该修道院待过，出版了一本回忆录，描述了她声称修女对新修道士和学生的虐待。这起修道院袭击事件是19世纪初新英格兰及其他东北部地区本土主义情绪爆发中的一起。

Many Protestants saw the Catholic faith as a superstition that deprived individuals of the right to think for themselves and enslaved them to a dictator, the pope, in Rome. They accused Catholic priests of controlling their parishioners and preying sexually on young women. They feared that Catholicism would overrun and conquer the American political system, just as their ancestors had feared it would conquer England.

许多新教徒将天主教视为一种迷信，认为它剥夺了个人独立思考的权利，并将信徒奴役在罗马教皇这个独裁者的统治之下。他们指责天主教神父控制信徒，甚至性侵年轻女性。他们担心天主教会会像他们的祖先曾经担心的那样，侵占并征服美国的政治体系，就像天主教曾威胁要征服英格兰一样。

The painter and inventor Samuel F. B. Morse, for example, warned in 1834 that European tyrants were conspiring together to “carry Popery through all our borders” by sending Catholic immigrants to the United States. If they succeeded, he predicted, Catholic dominance in America would mean “the certain destruction of our free institutions.” Around the same time, the Protestant minister Lyman Beecher lectured in various cities, delivering a similar warning. “If the potentates of Europe have no design upon our liberties,” Beecher demanded, then why were they sending over “such floods of pauper emigrants—the contents of the poorhouse and the sweepings of the streets—multiplying tumults and violence, filling our prisons, and crowding our poorhouses, and quadrupling our taxation”—not to mention voting in American elections?

例如，画家和发明家塞缪尔·F·B·摩尔斯在1834年警告称，欧洲的暴君们正在联合策划，通过向美国送来天主教移民来“将天主教传遍我们的国境”。如果他们成功了，他预言，天主教在美国的主导地位将意味着“我们自由制度的必然毁灭”。与此同时，新教牧师莱曼·比彻（Lyman Beecher）也在多个城市发表了类似的警告。他质问道：“如果欧洲的统治者没有侵犯我们自由的打算，那他们为什么要送来如此多的贫困移民——那些救济院的居民和街头的流浪者——制造骚乱和暴力，填满我们的监狱，挤满我们的救济院，四倍增加我们的税负——更别提这些人还要参与美国的选举投票？”

XI. Race and Jacksonian Democracy

十一、种族与杰克逊式民主

More than anything else, however, it was racial inequality that exposed American democracy’s limits. The most deadly racist policy of the era is discussed in chapter twelve–Jackson’s seizure of Native American lands culminating in the Trail of Tears. But other racist policies also attacked the purported ideas of American democracy, eroding freedom for Black Americans even as it expanded them for poor white people. Over several decades, state governments had lowered their property requirements so poorer men could vote. But as northern states ended slavery, whites worried that free Black men could also go to the polls in large numbers. In response, they adopted new laws that made racial discrimination the basis of American democracy.

然而，最能揭示美国民主局限性的，还是种族不平等。在第十二章中将讨论这一时期最致命的种族主义政策——杰克逊征用美洲原住民土地，最终导致“眼泪之路”。但其他种族主义政策同样挑战了美国民主的基本理念，削弱了黑人美国人的自由，尽管这些政策在某种程度上扩展了贫苦白人阶层的自由。在几十年间，州政府放宽了财产要求，让更多贫穷男性能够投票。然而，随着北方各州废除奴隶制，白人担心自由黑人男性也会大量进入选举。作为回应，他们通过了新的法律，以种族歧视为基础，构建美国民主。

At the time of the Revolution, only two states explicitly limited Black voting rights. By 1839, almost all states did. (The four exceptions were all in New England, where the Democratic Party was weakest.) For example, New York’s 1821 state constitution enfranchised nearly all white male taxpayers but only the richest Black men. In 1838, a similar constitution in Pennsylvania prohibited Black voting completely.

在独立战争时期，只有两个州明确限制了黑人选举权。到1839年，几乎所有州都实行了这种限制（四个例外州都在新英格兰地区，那里的民主党势力最弱）。例如，纽约州1821年制定的州宪法赋予了几乎所有白人男性纳税人选举权，但只有最富有的黑人男性才享有选举权。1838年，宾夕法尼亚州制定的类似宪法则完全禁止黑人投票。

The new Pennsylvania constitution disenfranchised even one of the richest people in Philadelphia. James Forten, a free-born sailmaker who had served in the American Revolution, had become a wealthy merchant and landowner. He used his wealth and influence to promote the abolition of slavery, and after the 1838 constitution, he undertook a lawsuit to protect his right to vote. But he lost, and his voting rights were terminated. An English observer commented sarcastically that Forten wasn’t “white enough” to vote, but “he has always been considered quite white enough to be taxed.”

新的宾夕法尼亚州宪法剥夺了即使是费城最富有的一个人——詹姆斯·福特恩（James Forten）的选举权。福特恩是一位自由出生的帆布工人，曾参与美国独立战争，后来成为了一位富有的商人和地主。他利用自己的财富和影响力推动废奴运动，但在1838年宪法颁布后，他提起诉讼以保护自己的选举权。然而，他败诉了，失去了选举权。一位英国观察家讽刺地评论道，福特恩“不够白”无法投票，但“他一直被认为足够白，来缴纳税款。”

During the 1830s, furthermore, the social tensions that had promoted Andrew Jackson’s rise also worsened race relations. Almost four hundred thousand free Black people lived in America by the end of the decade. In the South and West, Native Americans stood in the way of white expansion. And the new Irish Catholic immigrants, along with native working-class whites, often despised nonwhites as competitors for scarce work, housing, and status.

此外，1830年代，推动安德鲁·杰克逊崛起的社会紧张局势也加剧了种族关系的恶化。到那个十年结束时，美国几乎有四十万名自由黑人。在南方和西部，美洲原住民阻碍了白人的扩张。而新来的爱尔兰天主教移民以及本地的工薪阶层白人，常常将有色人种视为稀缺工作、住房和地位的竞争者，彼此间充满了敌视。

Racial and ethnic resentment thus contributed to a wave of riots in American cities during the 1830s. In Philadelphia, thousands of white rioters torched an antislavery meeting house and attacked Black churches and homes. Near St. Louis, abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy was murdered as he defended his printing press. Contemplating the violence, another journalist wondered, “Does it not appear that the character of our people has suffered a considerable change for the worse?”

因此，种族和民族的怨恨助长了1830年代美国城市中的一波骚乱。在费城，数千名白人暴徒纵火烧毁了一个废奴集会所，并袭击了黑人教堂和住宅。在圣路易斯附近，废奴报纸编辑伊莱贾·洛夫乔伊在捍卫他的印刷机时被谋杀。面对暴力，另一位记者感慨道：“难道不觉得我们的人民性格已经发生了显著的恶化吗？”

Racial tensions also influenced popular culture. The white actor Thomas Dartmouth Rice appeared on stage in Blackface, singing and dancing as a clownish enslaved man named “Jim Crow.” Many other white entertainers copied him. Borrowing from the work of real Black performers but pandering to white audiences’ prejudices, they turned cruel stereotypes into one of antebellum America’s favorite forms of entertainment.

种族紧张关系也影响了流行文化。白人演员托马斯·达特茅斯·赖斯（Thomas Dartmouth Rice）在舞台上化上黑人面具，扮演一位滑稽的奴隶角色“吉姆·克罗”，并为观众演唱跳舞。许多其他白人艺人模仿了他的表演。虽然他们借鉴了真正的黑人表演者的作品，却迎合白人观众的偏见，将残酷的刻板印象转化为美国南北战争前的流行娱乐形式。

Some whites in the 1830s, however, joined free Black activists in protesting racial inequality. Usually, they lived in northern cities and came from the class of skilled laborers, or in other words, the lower middle class. Most of them were not rich, but they expected to rise in the world.

然而，在1830年代，一些白人和自由黑人活动家一起抗议种族不平等。他们通常生活在北方城市，来自技术工人阶层，或者说是下层中产阶级。他们大多数并不富裕，但他们期望在社会中有所上升。

In Boston, for example, the Female Anti-Slavery Society included women whose husbands sold coal, mended clothes, and baked bread, as well as women from wealthy families. In the nearby village of Lynn, many abolitionists were shoemakers. They organized boycotts of consumer products like sugar that came from slave labor, and they sold their own handmade goods at antislavery fund-raising fairs. For many of them, the antislavery movement was a way to participate in “respectable” middle-class culture, a way for both men and women to have a say in American life.

例如，在波士顿，女性废奴协会的成员包括一些丈夫从事煤炭销售、衣物修补和面包烘焙工作的妇女，以及一些来自富裕家庭的妇女。在附近的林恩村，许多废奴主义者是鞋匠。他们组织抵制来自奴隶劳动的消费品，如糖，并在废奴募捐集会上销售自己手工制作的商品。对于许多人来说，废奴运动是参与“体面”中产阶级文化的方式，是男性和女性都能在美国社会中发声的途径。

Debates about slavery, therefore, reflected wider tensions in a changing society. The ultimate question was whether American democracy had room for people of different races as well as religions and classes. Some people said yes and struggled to make American society more welcoming. But the vast majority, whether Democrats or Whigs, said no.

因此，关于奴隶制的辩论反映了社会变革中的广泛紧张局势。最终的问题是，美国的民主是否能容纳不同种族、宗教和阶级的人。一些人回答“可以”，并努力让美国社会变得更具包容性。但绝大多数人，无论是民主党人还是辉格党人，回答“不能”。