美國的觀念 The American Idea

    美國是由一個觀念產生的國家；不是這地方，而是這觀念，締造了美國政府。

    西奧多‧H‧懷特，中文名字白修德，(1915─1986)是他那一代人中最有造詣的作家之一。他是記者、散文家兼歷史學家，尤其擅長敘述故事。懷特生於波士頓，大蕭條時期在貧困中長大。他靠獎學金就讀 於哈佛學院，接著任《時代》週刊駐華記者。在創作了兩部小說後，他轉而以小說的形式描寫總統競選運動。懷特的《總統的產生──1960》獲普利茲獎，嗣後又寫了一系列關於1964年、1968年和1972年總統選舉的同名書。

    懷特熱愛自己的祖國和努力使民主進程得以實現的人民。他1986年5月去世前夕正在為《紐約時報雜誌》撰寫紀念美國建國二百一十週年的文章。

    以下是他最後一篇文章的摘錄。

    這個觀念－開始便存在，早在托馬斯‧傑斐遜將它寫成文字之前便存在了──這觀念發出響亮的號召。

    當傑斐遜寫以下這段話時，他自己也無法想像在未來的歲月中他的號召在全世界的影響範圍之廣：

    "我們認為這些真理不言自明：人人生而平等，造物主賦予他們若幹不能出讓的權利，包括生活、自由和追求幸福的權利。"

    但是在隨後的兩個世紀中，這號召傳到愛爾蘭的馬鈴薯地、歐洲的猶太人聚居區和中國的稻田，鼓動農民離開他們的土地，市民放棄他們的職業，從而動搖了整個傳統文明。

    我們現在歌頌讚美的正是托馬斯‧傑斐遜的號召，它體現在俯瞰紐約港的偉大雕像上，體現在回應該號召的移民們身上。

    最早的歐洲血統的美國人之中，一些人來新大陸是為了能以自己的方式崇拜上帝，另一些人是為了尋找出路。但是在一個半世紀中，這新世界已改變了這些來到北美的歐洲人，尤其是英國人。無論皇帝、宮廷或教堂都不能延伸到大洋彼岸的陸地。為了生存，最初的移民不得不學會自我管理。但茫茫荒原增強了他們對更多自由的渴望。到傑斐遜起草宣言時，人們已在戰場上為那些新學到的自由作戰，同世界上訓練得最好，由世界上最強大的海軍支援的英國陸軍進行你死我活的搏鬥。唯人們值得為之獻出生命的東西才能使美國志願兵團結一心，堅持戰鬥──一個明確宣佈的事業，一面旗幟，一個他們能稱為自己的國家。

    當1776年7月4日殖民地領袖們聚集在費城大陸會議上投票贊成傑斐遜的獨立宣言，他們互相以"我們的生命、我們的財產和我們的神聖榮譽"發誓時，這誓言絕非誇海口說大話。除非他們的新"美利堅合眾國"打贏那場戰爭，不然那些參加大陸會議的人將會同戰場上那些服兵役期間的非正規兵一樣被無情地判決為叛國分子。而且盡人皆知英國法律允許對判國罪施以何種懲罰。受刑者可能被勒得奄奄一息，在尚未斷氣時內臟被挖出焚燒，屍體被肢解。

    新一代美國人乃是為了一個非常堅定的觀念而戰鬥的硬漢。至於他們如何打贏一場場戰役，那段往事載入了學校教科書，學者們對它深入研究，歷史學家和詩人們則給它裹上神話的外衣。

    但最重要的是有關這一觀念的故事，該觀念使他們成為一個國家，它具有人們在 1776年做夢也難以想像的爆炸力。

    其他國家都是在這樣的人民中形成的，他們出生在他們的家族自古以來繁衍生息的地方。不論他們的政府如何更迭，英國人是英國人，法國人是法國人，中國人是中國人；他們的民族國家可以分裂，再建而無損於它們的國家地位。而美國是由一個觀念產生的國家；不是這個地方，而是這個觀念締造了美國政府。

The idea was there at the very beginning, well before Thomas Jefferson put it into words－and the idea rang the call.

      Jefferson himself could not have imagined the reach of his call across the world in time to come when he wrote:

      "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

      But over the next two centuries the call would reach the potato patches of Ireland, the ghettoes of Europe, the paddyfields of China, stirring farmers to leave their lands and townsmen their trades and thus unsettling all traditional civilizations.

      It is the call from Thomas Jefferson, embodied in the great statue that looks down the Narrows of New York Harbor, and in the immigrants who answered the call, that we now celebrate.

      Some of the first European Americans had come to the new continent to worship God in their own way, others to seek their fortunes. But over a century-and-a-half, the new world changed those Europeans, above all the English- men who had come to North America. Neither King nor Court nor church could stretch over the ocean to the wild continent. To survive, the first emigrants had to learn to govern themselves. But the freedom of the wilderness whetted their appetites for more freedoms. By the time Jefferson drafted his call, men were in the field fighting for those new-learned freedoms, killing and being killed by English soldiers, the best-trained troops in the world, supplied by the world's greatest navy. Only something worth dying for could unite American volunteers and keep them in the field－ a stated cause, a flag, a nation they could call their own .

      When, on the Fourth of July, 1776, the colonial leaders who had been meeting as a Continental Congress in Philadelphia voted to approve Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, it was not puffed-up rhetoric for them to pledge to each other "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." Unless their new "United States of America" won the war, the Congressmen -would be judged traitors as relentlessly as would the irregulars-under-arms in the field. And all knew what English law allowed in the case of a traitor. The victim could be partly strangled; drawn, or disemboweled, while still alive, his entrails then burned and his body quartered.

      The new Americans were tough men fighting for a very tough idea. How they won their battles is a story for the schoolbooks, studied by scholars, wrapped in myths by historians and poets.

      But what is most important is the story of the idea that made them into a nation, the idea that had an explosive power undreamed of in 1776.

      All other nations had come into being among people whose families had lived for time out of mind on the same land where they were horn. Englishmen are English, Frenchmen are French, Chinese are Chinese, while their governments come and go; their national states can be torn apart and remade without losing their nationhood. But Americans are a nation born of an idea; not the place, but the idea, created the United States Government.