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Most people had a sense of the American West that was essentially infinite
当时大部分人心目中的美国西部基本上是广袤无垠的
they didn't know where it ended. They knew there were deserts and great plains,
似乎没有边界 他们知道那里有沙漠和大平原
they knew there were mountains,
那里有崇山峻岭
but it was the sheer vastness of that West that gave everybody a sense of limitlessness and future and hope.
正是西部那全然的广漠 给予每个人无限的可能 未来 希望
The annexation of Texas and war with Mexico in the 1840s had opened up the West,
1840年代德克萨斯州的归附 以及对墨西哥之战争 都扩宽了西部边疆
raising the possibility of the nation advancing all the way to the Pacific coast.
这个国家得以向太平洋海岸一路推进
There's this continental mentality, sometimes called manifest destiny,
这就是所谓的大陆心态 有时又称为上帝天命论
this idea that American expansion is just ordained by God, you know,
这种想法认为美国人的扩张是上帝的命令 你知道
that we will dominate this entire continent and that is the divine will,
因此我们将会支配整个大陆 这是上帝的神圣意志
and that creates this kind of ebullient spirit of expansionism.
这也创造了一种令人热血沸腾的扩张主义精神
But westward expansion brought to the fore the issue that had divided the country ever since Independence - slavery.
但是西部拓荒运动也激化了 自独立以来就困扰并分化这个国家的不和谐因素 奴隶制
By the middle of the 19th century, a fault line ran across America,
到十九世纪中叶 一道断层线横跨美国
dividing the slave-owning South from the free states in the North where the practice had ended.
将其分裂成蓄奴的南方州和北方自由州 在那里蓄奴被严令禁止
But year by year, the increasing value of Southern cotton
但是一年年地 随着南方棉花价格的不断上扬
and the thought of the even larger fortunes it could generate if slavery were to spread West
以及将奴隶制扩张到西部以获取更多财富的想法
slowly undermined the sense of union that bound the states together.
渐渐地侵蚀着各个州 进而对中央产生了压力
