How America Ends
美国如何终结? 人口结构变化触发民主危机
A tectonic demographic shift is under way. Can the country hold together?
目前美国的人口结构转变正在发生。美国人民能否共渡难关？
原文：The Atlantic https://tinyurl.com/v9tk5ea
作者： Yoni Appelbaum
译文：法意
http://dy.163.com/v2/article/detail/F4JDVVC70514C2L0.html
[法意导言]美国总统大选在即，两党将进入新一轮的竞争。极具个人特色的川普总统上台
以来，美国社会已经见证许多前所未有的变革。川普主义以强势的姿态为全世界带来影响
。川普或共和党是否能够成功连任，这一问题决定着美国民主的走向。本文从美国社会人
口结构的转变入手，结合美国两党政治角逐的史实，分析川普主义的利弊以及目前共和党
所面临的政治形势，且指出美国中右翼力量对政治的选择才是促进美国民主社会向前发展
的关键。本文为2019年12月发表在《大西洋月刊》（The Atlantic）上的专栏文章。作者
约尼·阿佩尔鲍姆（Yoni Appelbaum）是美国社会和文化历史学家，今为《大西洋月刊》
的专栏作者，曾于哈佛大学教授历史与文学。
Democracy depends on the consent of the losers. For most of the 20th century,
parties and candidates in the United States have competed in elections with
the understanding that electoral defeats are neither permanent nor
intolerable. The losers could accept the result, adjust their ideas and
coalitions, and move on to fight in the next election. Ideas and policies
would be contested, sometimes viciously, but however heated the rhetoric got,
defeat was not generally equated with political annihilation. The stakes
could feel high, but rarely existential. In recent years, however, beginning
before the election of Donald Trump and accelerating since, that has changed.
民主取决于败者的妥协。二十世纪，美国政党和总统候选人们清楚地知道，选举失败既不
是永恒的也不是不可容忍的。输家承认失败，调整计画、重组联盟，然后走向下一场选举
。思想和政见会遭到反驳，也会遭遇恶毒的攻击。但无论辩论有多激烈，失败也并不总是
意味着政治上的毁灭。但是，近些年来，自唐纳德·川普（Donald Trump）上台后，这样
的情况已经改变了。
“Our radical Democrat opponents are driven by hatred, prejudice, and rage,”
Trump told the crowd at his reelection kickoff event in Orlando in June. “
They want to destroy you and they want to destroy our country as we know it.”
This is the core of the president’s pitch to his supporters: He is all that
stands between them and the abyss.
“那些激进的民主党人被仇恨、偏见和愤怒教唆。”川普在6月于奥兰多举行的连任竞选
活动中对群众说，“他们想摧毁你们，他们想摧毁我们的国家。”这是川普向支持者宣传
的核心观点：他是阻止他们走向深渊的人。
In October, with the specter of impeachment looming, he fumed on Twitter, “
What is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take
away the Power of the People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second
Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a
Citizen of The United States of America!” For good measure, he also quoted a
supporter’s dark prediction that impeachment “will cause a Civil War like
fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.”
今年十月，川普面临弹劾危机，他生气地在推特上发言：“这不是一次弹劾，这是一场政
变，这些人想夺走人民的权力、选举权、自由，破坏宪法第二修正案，他们想夺走人们的
宗教自由、围墙、以及成为美利坚合众国公民的神圣权利。”他还引用了一个支持者的阴
谋预言，称弹劾“会导致美国内战，国家将因此产生不可愈合的裂痕。”
Trump’s apocalyptic rhetoric matches the tenor of the times. The body
politic is more fractious than at any time in recent memory. Over the past 25
years, both red and blue areas have become more deeply hued, with Democrats
clustering in cities and suburbs and Republicans filling in rural areas and
exurbs. In Congress, where the two caucuses once overlapped ideologically,
the dividing aisle has turned into a chasm.
川普的这段话反映了时代的困境。民主政体比历史上任何时候都要脆弱。过去二十五年里
，红蓝派之间的对抗加剧，民主党人主要聚集在城市和城郊，共和党人者则占据农村和周
边郊区。国会里，两党过去曾在意识形态上达成一致，如今业已被巨大鸿沟所隔绝。
As partisans have drifted apart geographically and ideologically, they’ve
become more hostile toward each other. In 1960, less than 5 percent of
Democrats and Republicans said they’d be unhappy if their children married
someone from the other party; today, 35 percent of Republicans and 45 percent
of Democrats would be, according to a recent Public Religion Research
Institute/Atlantic poll—far higher than the percentages that object to
marriages crossing the boundaries of race and religion. As hostility rises,
Americans’ trust in political institutions, and in one another, is
declining. A study released by the Pew Research Center in July found that
only about half of respondents believed their fellow citizens would accept
election results no matter who won. At the fringes, distrust has become
centrifugal: Right-wing activists in Texas and left-wing activists in
California have revived talk of secession.
随着政客们在地理上与意识形态上逐渐分离，他们对彼此的敌意也与日俱增。1960年，不
到5%的民主党人或共和党人会因自己的子女与他党人结婚而感到不快；如今，根据一项调
查，35%共和党人及45%民主党人会因此事生气，这个数字甚至远超对跨宗族和宗教结婚抱
有不满的人。两党对抗的增加也导致美国民众对政治制度的信任度下降。皮尤研究中心（
Pew Research Center）于七月公布一份研究，称只有一半受访者认为人们并不排斥由两
党中的谁担任总统。在一些边缘选区，人们的不信任逐渐显现：德克萨斯州的右翼分子和
加利福尼亚州的左翼分子又开始主张州独立。
Recent research by political scientists at Vanderbilt University and other
institutions has found both Republicans and Democrats distressingly willing
to dehumanize members of the opposite party. “Partisans are willing to
explicitly state that members of the opposing party are like animals, that
they lack essential human traits,” the researchers found. The president
encourages and exploits such fears. This is a dangerous line to cross. As the
researchers write, “Dehumanization may loosen the moral restraints that
would normally prevent us from harming another human being.”
范德比尔特大学和其他机构的政治学家最近研究发现，“政客都称对方党派像动物一样，
缺乏人性。”总统却鼓励甚至推动这样的状况发展。这是十分危险的，研究者说到，“这
容易导致道德约束力的下降，而道德约束是阻止人们伤害他人的防线。”
Outright political violence remains considerably rarer than in other periods
of partisan divide, including the late 1960s. But overheated rhetoric has
helped radicalize some individuals. Cesar Sayoc, who was arrested for
targeting multiple prominent Democrats with pipe bombs, was an avid Fox News
watcher; in court filings, his lawyers said he took inspiration from Trump’s
white-supremacist rhetoric. “It is impossible,” they wrote, “to separate
the political climate and [Sayoc’s] mental illness.” James Hodgkinson, who
shot at Republican lawmakers (and badly wounded Representative Steve Scalise)
at a baseball practice, was a member of the Facebook groups Terminate the
Republican Party and The Road to Hell Is Paved With Republicans. In other
instances, political protests have turned violent, most notably in
Charlottesville, Virginia, where a Unite the Right rally led to the murder of
a young woman. In Portland, Oregon, and elsewhere, the left-wing “antifa”
movement has clashed with police. The violence of extremist groups provides
ammunition to ideologues seeking to stoke fear of the other side.
如今，彻底的政治暴动仍比政党分裂时期（包括二十世纪六十年代晚期）要少得多。但过
激的言论氛围也使得某些人变得偏激。塞萨尔·萨约克因为用炸弹瞄准多个知名民主党人
而被捕，他是个热衷于福克斯新闻（Fox News）的人。在法庭文件中，他的律师表示，萨
约克从川普充满白人至上意味的言论中获得了行动的灵感。律师称：“政治气氛和（萨约
克的）精神疾病有密切关系。”此外，在某些地区，政治抗议已经转变为政治暴力。在弗
吉尼亚州的夏洛茨维尔地区，那里举办的一场“团结右翼”集会导致一名年轻妇女被谋杀
。这些极端主义团体的暴力行为让他们的反对者有更多攻击的话柄。
What has caused such rancor? The stresses of a globalizing, postindustrial
economy. Growing economic inequality. The hyperbolizing force of social
media. Geographic sorting. The demagogic provocations of the president
himself. As in Murder on the Orient Express, every suspect has had a hand in
the crime.
这些仇恨从何而来？是全球化、后工业时代经济所带来的压力、经济上的不平等、社交媒
体的渲染、地理上的分裂、以及总统本人的煽动。正如《东方快车谋杀案》中的情节那样
，每一位嫌疑人都参与到犯罪中。
But the biggest driver might be demographic change. The United States is
undergoing a transition perhaps no rich and stable democracy has ever
experienced: Its historically dominant group is on its way to becoming a
political minority—and its minority groups are asserting their co-equal
rights and interests. If there are precedents for such a transition, they lie
here in the United States, where white Englishmen initially predominated, and
the boundaries of the dominant group have been under negotiation ever since.
Yet those precedents are hardly comforting. Many of these renegotiations
sparked political conflict or open violence, and few were as profound as the
one now under way.
但最大的推动力可能是人口变化。美国正在经历一场发达稳定的民主国家从未经历过的转
变：历史上占主导的团体日益成为政治上的少数派，而曾经的少数派团体如今能够捍卫自
己的平等权和利益。如果要寻找这种转变的先例，可能要回溯美国历史。当时，英国白人
最初占据主导地位，而后主流团体不断被重新定义。但这些先例最终都演变为政治暴力，
很少能如今日一样影响深远。
Within the living memory of most Americans, a majority of the country’s
residents were white Christians. That is no longer the case, and voters are
not insensate to the change—nearly a third of conservatives say they face “
a lot” of discrimination for their beliefs, as do more than half of white
evangelicals. But more epochal than the change that has already happened is
the change that is yet to come: Sometime in the next quarter century or so,
depending on immigration rates and the vagaries of ethnic and racial
identification, nonwhites will become a majority in the U.S. For some
Americans, that change will be cause for celebration; for others, it may pass
unnoticed. But the transition is already producing a sharp political
backlash, exploited and exacerbated by the president. In 2016, white
working-class voters who said that discrimination against whites is a serious
problem, or who said they felt like strangers in their own country, were
almost twice as likely to vote for Trump as those who did not. Two-thirds of
Trump voters agreed that “the 2016 election represented the last chance to
stop America’s decline.” In Trump, they’d found a defender.
许多美国人印象中，国家居民大多数是白人基督徒。但如今情况已不如昨，人们对这样的
变化也并不敏感。将近三分之一的保守党认为他们的信仰遭遇“许多”歧视，二分之一的
福音派教众也有此感。但是，与已经发生的变化相比，尚未发生的变化更具有划时代的意
义：在下一个二十五年，根据移民率以及民族和种族认同的变化，非白人将成为美国的多
数。对某些美国人而言，这是可喜的变化；而对另一些人来说，则不值得关注。但这样的
转变已经引起政治上的强烈反应，而总统则对此加以助推和利用。2016年，白人工人阶级
选民认为，对白人的阶级歧视是个严重的问题，这让他们在最熟悉的国度反而成为陌生人
。这些人投票给川普的可能性是其他白人群体的两倍之多。三分之二的川普支持者认为，
“2016年选举是阻止美国衰退的最后机会”。他们认为川普是那个对的人。
In 2002, the political scientist Ruy Teixeira and the journalist John Judis
published a book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, which argued that
demographic changes—the browning of America, along with the movement of more
women, professionals, and young people into the Democratic fold—would soon
usher in a “new progressive era” that would relegate Republicans to
permanent minority political status. The book argued, somewhat triumphally,
that the new emerging majority was inexorable and inevitable. After Barack
Obama’s reelection, in 2012, Teixeira doubled down on the argument in The
Atlantic, writing, “The Democratic majority could be here to stay.” Two
years later, after the Democrats got thumped in the 2014 midterms, Judis
partially recanted, saying that the emerging Democratic majority had turned
out to be a mirage and that growing support for the GOP among the white
working class would give the Republicans a long-term advantage. The 2016
election seemed to confirm this.
2002年，政治科学家鲁·特谢拉（Ruy Teixeira）和记者约翰·朱迪斯（John Judis）出
版书籍《新兴的民主多数派》（The Emerging Democratic Majority）。书中谈及，人口
变化是美国的褐变。更多女性、专业人士以及年轻人将加入民主党，很快将迎来“新的发
展时代”，而共和党将成为永久的政治少数派。此外，该书认为，新兴的民主多数派是不
可阻挡的。2012年巴拉克·欧巴马（Barack Obama）连任后，特谢拉在《大西洋月刊》发
表文章称，“民主多数派将成为主流。”两年后，民主党在2014年中期选举中受挫，朱迪
斯似乎有点退缩，称新兴民主多数派可能只是海市蜃楼，白人工人阶级对共和党的支持会
让共和党人长期占据优势。2016年选举结果似乎证实了这一点。
But now many conservatives, surveying demographic trends, have concluded that
Teixeira wasn’t wrong—merely premature. They can see the GOP’s sinking
fortunes among younger voters, and feel the culture turning against them,
condemning them today for views that were commonplace only yesterday. They
are losing faith that they can win elections in the future. With this come
dark possibilities.
但许多保守派在调查人口变化趋势时发现，特谢拉说的话没错，只是当时时机未熟。他们
可以看到共和党在年轻选民中的颓势，并感受到新的文化与他们背道而驰，并指责他们仍
然停留在过去。他们正在失去能够在未来赢得选举的信心，随之而来的是暗淡无望。
The Republican Party has treated Trump’s tenure more as an interregnum than
a revival, a brief respite that can be used to slow its decline. Instead of
simply contesting elections, the GOP has redoubled its efforts to narrow the
electorate and raise the odds that it can win legislative majorities with a
minority of votes. In the first five years after conservative justices on the
Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, 39
percent of the counties that the law had previously restrained reduced their
number of polling places. And while gerrymandering is a bipartisan sin, over
the past decade Republicans have indulged in it more heavily. In Wisconsin
last year, Democrats won 53 percent of the votes cast in state legislative
races, but just 36 percent of the seats. In Pennsylvania, Republicans tried
to impeach the state Supreme Court justices who had struck down a GOP attempt
to gerrymander congressional districts in that state. The Trump White House
has tried to suppress counts of immigrants for the 2020 census, to reduce
their voting power. All political parties maneuver for advantage, but only a
party that has concluded it cannot win the votes of large swaths of the
public will seek to deter them from casting those votes at all.
共和党人将川普的当选视为一种过渡性的统治而非复兴，这种短暂的喘息可以减缓国家的
衰退。共和党人不只是简单的参与选举，他们努力缩小选民的范围，提高以少数选票获得
选举胜利的可能。最高院的保守派法官于2013年将《选举法》的关键条文无效化后，五年
里39%的县减少了投票站的数量（此前法律限制这样的行为）。此外，尽管嫁祸对方是两
党都常用的手段，但过去十年里共和党人显然更耽于此道。在威斯康星州，去年民主党人
赢得州选举53%的选票，却只占了36%的议会席位。宾夕法尼亚洲，共和党人试图弹劾州法
院的法官，因为这个法官阻止了共和党人在国会选区贿赂选举的企图。川普和他的内阁试
图压缩2020年人口普查时移民的人数，削弱移民的选举权。任何政党都会追逐自身利益，
但只有认为自己无法在选举中获胜的政党才会设法阻止选民投票。
The history of the United States is rich with examples of once-dominant
groups adjusting to the rise of formerly marginalized populations—sometimes
gracefully, more often bitterly, and occasionally violently. Partisan
coalitions in the United States are constantly reshuffling, realigning along
new axes. Once-rigid boundaries of faith, ethnicity, and class often prove
malleable. Issues gain salience or fade into irrelevance; yesterday’s rivals
become tomorrow’s allies.
一度占优的群体不得不适应新生代，这在美国历史上很常见。这个适应过程可能是体面的
，也可能是痛苦的，甚至是通过暴力实现的。美国政党不断改革，沿着新的宗旨不断自我
调整。从前严守的信仰、伦理和阶级边界如今不断被重塑。同一事物时而重要时而次要，
昔日的敌人成为明天的盟友。
But sometimes, that process of realignment breaks down. Instead of reaching
out and inviting new allies into its coalition, the political right hardens,
turning against the democratic processes it fears will subsume it. A
conservatism defined by ideas can hold its own against progressivism, winning
converts to its principles and evolving with each generation. A conservatism
defined by identity reduces the complex calculus of politics to a simple
arithmetic question—and at some point, the numbers no longer add up.
有时候，自我调整会被打断。这时候，政党非但不会迎接新盟友加入，甚至反对民主进程
。思想上的保守主义可以接纳进步主义，并更新自身的规则，实现代际的发展。而身份上
的保守主义则只能将复杂的政治演算化为简单的算术问题。
Trump has led his party to this dead end, and it may well cost him his chance
for reelection, presuming he is not removed through impeachment. But the
president’s defeat would likely only deepen the despair that fueled his
rise, confirming his supporters’ fear that the demographic tide has turned
against them. That fear is the single greatest threat facing American
democracy, the force that is already battering down precedents, leveling
norms, and demolishing guardrails. When a group that has traditionally
exercised power comes to believe that its eclipse is inevitable, and that the
destruction of all it holds dear will follow, it will fight to preserve what
it has—whatever the cost.
川普和他的政党如今走进了死胡同，这可能导致他连任失败（假设他没有被弹劾）。但总
统的失败只会加剧选民的绝望心态，让支持者更加恐惧人口转变会带来不利影响。这样的
恐惧是目前美国民主的最大威胁，美国民主正在违背先例，抬高社会标准，破坏“护栏”
。当曾经掌权的团体意识到自己将不可避免地被取代，手中的一切将要被摧毁，他们会付
出一切代价捍卫自己的权益。
Adam Przeworski, a political scientist who has studied struggling democracies
in Eastern Europe and Latin America, has argued that to survive, democratic
institutions “must give all the relevant political forces a chance to win
from time to time in the competition of interests and values.” But, he adds,
they also have to do something else, of equal importance: “They must make
even losing under democracy more attractive than a future under
non-democratic outcomes.” That conservatives—despite currently holding the
White House, the Senate, and many state governments—are losing faith in
their ability to win elections in the future bodes ill for the smooth
functioning of American democracy. That they believe these electoral losses
would lead to their destruction is even more worrying.
政治学家亚当·普热沃斯基（Adam Przeworski）研究东欧以及拉美地区的民主实践。他
认为民主制度如希望长久存在，“必须让所有政治力量能够在利益和价值的竞争中角逐掌
权的机会”。除此之外，民主制度也应当追求平等。“他们要让失败的民主看起来也比不
民主的未来更具有吸引力。”尽管保守派如今掌控着白宫，参议院和许多州政府的席位，
他们也在怀疑自己是否能赢得选举。这预示著美国民主目前面临的跌宕。保守派甚至认为
选举失败将带来党派的毁灭，这是更令人担忧的。
We should be careful about overstating the dangers. It is not 1860 again in
the United States—it is not even 1850. But numerous examples from American
history—most notably the antebellum South—offer a cautionary tale about how
quickly a robust democracy can weaken when a large section of the population
becomes convinced that it cannot continue to win elections, and also that it
cannot afford to lose them.
我们要警惕是否夸大了事情的危险性。1860或1850年的状况不会再重现，但美国历史上有
诸多例子（其中最著名的是南北战争）警示我们，当占主流的团体认为自己无法赢得选举
且无法承受失败的后果时，繁荣民主社会的萧条只在顷刻之间。
The collapse of the mainstream Republican Party in the face of Trumpism is at
once a product of highly particular circumstances and a disturbing echo of
other events. In his recent study of the emergence of democracy in Western
Europe, the political scientist Daniel Ziblatt zeroes in on a decisive factor
distinguishing the states that achieved democratic stability from those that
fell prey to authoritarian impulses: The key variable was not the strength or
character of the political left, or of the forces pushing for greater
democratization, so much as the viability of the center-right. A strong
center-right party could wall off more extreme right-wing movements, shutting
out the radicals who attacked the political system itself.
面对川普主义，占主流的共和党的垮台既是现时美国社会状况的产物，也有着过往事件残
留的影响。政治学家丹尼尔·兹布拉特（Daniel Ziblatt）在他近来对西欧民主兴起的研
究中讨论了区分政治稳定的民主政体和威权国家的决定性因素：关键变量并不是左翼的权
力或人格，或者促进民主化的动力，而是中右翼的力量。一个强大的中右翼政党可以阻止
激进的右翼运动，同时也将攻击政体的激进分子拦在门外。
The left is by no means immune to authoritarian impulses; some of the worst
excesses of the 20th century were carried out by totalitarian left-wing
regimes. But right-wing parties are typically composed of people who have
enjoyed power and status within a society. They might include
disproportionate numbers of leaders—business magnates, military officers,
judges, governors—upon whose loyalty and support the government depends. If
groups that traditionally have enjoyed privileged positions see a future for
themselves in a more democratic society, Ziblatt finds, they will accede to
it. But if “conservative forces believe that electoral politics will
permanently exclude them from government, they are more likely to reject
democracy outright.”
左翼力量很容易沦为威权主义的工具。二十世纪那些最糟糕的运动都来自于极权左翼势力
。但极右翼党派是由掌握权力和社会地位的人组成的。他们中可能有商业领袖、军官、法
官和政府官员，这些都是政府赖以生存的社会力量的代表。如果这些享受特权的群体在民
主社会中看到自己的未来发展机会，他们会支持这样的社会发展。但“如果保守力量认为
选举政治会夺走他们在政府的位置，那他们很可能会强烈抵制民主。”
Ziblatt points to Germany in the 1930s, the most catastrophic collapse of a
democracy in the 20th century, as evidence that the fate of democracy lies in
the hands of conservatives. Where the center-right flourishes, it can defend
the interests of its adherents, starving more radical movements of support.
In Germany, where center-right parties faltered, “not their strength, but
rather their weakness” became the driving force behind democracy’s collapse.
兹布拉特指出，20世纪30年代德国呈现出一个民主国家最灾难性的崩溃——民主的命运掌
握在保守派手中。在那里，中右翼蓬勃发展，捍卫其追随者的利益，饿死更激进的运动。
在中右翼政党摇摇欲坠的德国，“不是他们的强项，而是他们的弱点”成为民主崩溃的动
力。
Of course, the most catastrophic collapse of a democracy in the 19th century
took place right here in the United States, sparked by the anxieties of white
voters who feared the decline of their own power within a diversifying nation.
当然，19世纪最灾难性的民主崩溃发生在美国，这是由白人选民的焦虑引发的，他们担心
自己的权力在多元化的国家中下降。
The slaveholding South exercised disproportionate political power in the
early republic. America’s first dozen presidents—excepting only those named
Adams—were slaveholders. Twelve of the first 16 secretaries of state came
from slave states. The South initially dominated Congress as well, buoyed by
its ability to count three-fifths of the enslaved persons held as property
for the purposes of apportionment.
在早期的共和政体中，奴隶制南方掌控著不成比例的政治权力。美国的头十几位总统——
除了那些叫亚当斯的总统——是奴隶主。在最初的16位国务卿中，有12位来自奴隶国。南
方起初也是国会的主要成员，但它有能力将五分之三的被奴役者作为财产分配。
Politics in the early republic was factious and fractious, dominated by
crosscutting interests. But as Northern states formally abandoned slavery,
and then embraced westward expansion, tensions rose between the states that
exalted free labor and the ones whose fortunes were directly tied to slave
labor, bringing sectional conflict to the fore. By the mid-19th century,
demographics were clearly on the side of the free states, where the
population was rapidly expanding. Immigrants surged across the Atlantic,
finding jobs in Northern factories and settling on midwestern farms. By the
outbreak of the Civil War, the foreign-born would form 19 percent of the
population of the Northern states, but just 4 percent of the Southern
population.
在早期的共和国，政治是专横的，而且是由交叉的利益支配。但当北方各州正式放弃奴隶
制，然后接受向西扩张时，那些崇尚自由劳动的州和那些命运与奴隶劳动直接相关的州之
间的紧张关系加剧，从而导致了地区冲突。到了19世纪中叶，人口统计显然站在自由国家
一边，那里的人口正在迅速膨胀。移民涌过大西洋，在北方工厂找到工作，在中西部农场
定居。到内战爆发时，外国出生的人占北方各州人口的19%，但只占南方人口的4%。
The new dynamic was first felt in the House of Representatives, the most
democratic institution of American government—and the Southern response was
a concerted effort to remove the topic of slavery from debate. In 1836,
Southern congressmen and their allies imposed a gag rule on the House,
barring consideration of petitions that so much as mentioned slavery, which
would stand for nine years. As the historian Joanne Freeman shows in her
recent book, The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil
War, slave-state representatives in Washington also turned to bullying,
brandishing weapons, challenging those who dared disparage the peculiar
institution to duels, or simply attacking them on the House floor with fists
or canes. In 1845, an antislavery speech delivered by Ohio’s Joshua Giddings
so upset Louisiana’s John Dawson that he cocked his pistol and announced
that he intended to kill his fellow congressman. In a scene more Sergio Leone
than Frank Capra, other representatives—at least four of them with guns of
their own—rushed to either side, in a tense standoff. By the late 1850s, the
threat of violence was so pervasive that members regularly entered the House
armed.
新的动力首先出现在众议院这个美国政府最民主的机构，而南方的反应却是一致地拒绝辩
论奴隶制的话题。1836年，南方国会议员及其盟友对众议院实施了一项禁言规则，禁止审
议像提到奴隶制那样严重的请愿，这持续了九年。正如历史学家乔安妮·弗里曼在最近的
著作《血的领域：国会和南北战争之路中的暴力》中所展示的那样，华盛顿的奴隶州代表
也转向欺凌，挥舞武器，挑战那些敢于贬低这一特殊制度的人，或者干脆用拳头或手杖在
众议院地板上攻击他们。1845年，俄亥俄州的乔舒亚·吉丁斯发表了一次反奴隶制的演讲
，使路易斯安那州的约翰·道森心烦意乱，他举起手枪，宣布他打算杀死他的议员同胞。
在更像西部片而非励志片的场景中，代表们