VOA慢速英語:紀念亞伯拉罕·林肯時期的生活

From VOA Learning English, welcome to This isAmerica. I'm Steve Ember. Today we tell aboutAbraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the UnitedStates.

“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of thisCongress and this administration will be remembered inspite of ourselves. No personal significance orinsignificance can spare one or another of us. The fierytrial through which we pass will light us down in honor ordishonor, to the latest generation. We – even we here –hold the power and bear the responsibility.”

That was actor Henry Fonda, speaking the words ofPresident Lincoln. This recitation is part of “A LincolnPortrait,” a work by American composer AaronCopland.

Today, we tell the story of this great American president. Come along with us.

The words we just heard were part of a speech President Lincoln gave to theUnited States Congress in 1862. At the time, he was leading the nation duringthe Civil War. This was the most serious crisis in American history. Lincolnspoke to lawmakers a month before he signed the EmancipationProclamation. The document declared the freedom of slaves in statescontrolled by rebel forces.

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky on February12th, 1809. He grew up in Illinois. His family was poorand had no education. Abraham Lincoln taught himselfwhat he needed to know. He became a lawyer. Heserved in the Illinois state legislature and in the UnitedStates Congress. In 1860, he was elected to thecountry's highest office.

President Lincoln helped end slavery in the nation. And he helped keep the American union from splitting apartduring the Civil War. Lincoln believed that democracycan be a lasting form of government.

In 1863, the president gave what became his mostfamous speech. Union armies of the north had wontwo great victories that year. They defeated the Confederate armies of thesouth at Vicksburg, Mississippi and at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Ceremonieswere held to honor the dead soldiers on the Gettysburg battlefield.

President Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg for only abouttwo minutes. But his speech has never been forgotten. Historians say it defined Americans as a people whobelieved in freedom, democracy and equality. Thespeech began:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers broughtforth on this continent, a new nation, conceived inliberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men arecreated equal.

The battleground at Gettysburg, where Lincolngave his famous speech

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or anynation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on agreat battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a finalresting place for those who died here, that the nation might live.”

Abraham Lincoln wrote some of the most memorablewords in American history. Lincoln was assassinatedin 1865. He was shot at Ford’s Theater in Washingtonwhile he and his wife were watching a play. He died afew days after the Civil War ended. Yet his words liveon.

In 1942, orchestra conductor Andre Kostelanetz askedthree leading American composers to write musicalportraits of famous Americans. One of the three wasAaron Copland. His compositions were often based ontraditional American music. In a conversation recordedat the Library of Congress in 1975, on his 75th birthday,Copland recalled:

“I picked Lincoln. And after I decided to do a musical portrait of Lincoln, Ibegan looking around at some of the biographies of him, and I found a veryinteresting one by an English lord, a man called Lord Charnwood, of all things, and it was in there that I found some of the quotes that I used in the workitself.”

A print showing President Lincoln on hisdeathbed

Aaron Copland wrote “A Lincoln Portrait” for speakerand symphony orchestra. The speaker recites wordstaken from Lincoln’s speeches, letters, and theGettysburg Address. In our conversation in 1975,Copland remembered the very first speaker.

“It was Carl Sandburg, the great biographer of Lincoln,so that one had full confidence that he knew what he was talking about.

And, did Copland have a favorite speaker over the manyyears “A Lincoln Portrait” had been performed?

“I’ve heard it done by so many different people, in somany different ways, that it’s hard for me really todecide, in my own mind, who has the perfect way. Obviously, if you get someone with Sandburg’s personality, whom oneconnects with Lincoln in some way or other, that helps a great deal.”

Copland added a “Note for the Speaker” to the score for “A Lincoln Portrait.” It reads that “the words are meantto be read simply and directly, without a trace ofexaggerated sentiment. It is the composer’s wish that the speaker depend for his effect not on his “acting”ability, but on his complete sincerity of manner.”

Aaron Copland, 1900-1990: His Music TaughtAmericans About Themselves

In 1968, Copland led the London Symphony Orchestra,with Henry Fonda speaking the words of Lincoln – injust the way the composer preferred.

“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.” That iswhat he said. That is what Abraham Lincoln said: “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of thisCongress and this administration will be remembered inspite of ourselves. No personal significance orinsignificance can spare one or another of us. The fierytrial through which we pass will light us down in honor ordishonor, to the latest generation. We – even we here –hold the power and bear the responsibility…”

He was born in Kentucky, raised in Indiana, and lived in Illinois. And this iswhat he said. This is what Abe Lincoln said:

“Dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. Theoccasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. Asour case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrallourselves and then we shall save our country.”

When standing erect, he was six feet four inches tall, and this is what he said. He said:

“It is the eternal struggle between two principles, right and wrong, throughoutthe world. It is the same spirit that says ‘You toil and work, and earn bread, and I’ll eat it,’ no matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of aking who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation, and live by the fruit oftheir labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race. It is the same tyrannical principle.”

Lincoln was a quiet man. Abe Lincoln was a quiet and a melancholy man. But, when he spoke of Democracy, this is what he said.

He said: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. Thisexpresses my idea of Democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extentof the difference, is no democracy.”

Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of these United States, is everlasting in thememory of his countrymen, for on the battleground at Gettysburg this is whathe said:

He said: “That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to thatcause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion: that we herehighly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nationunder God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of thepeople, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Henry Fonda with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by thecomposer in Aaron Copland’s “A Lincoln Portrait.”

Actor Henry Fonda

And that’s our program honoring a great American president in his birthdaymonth. I’m Steve Ember, inviting you to join us again next week for anotherThis Is America program from VOA Learning English.