Thank you. Please, be seated. Thank you very much. 谢谢。请就座。非常感谢大家。
Madam Speaker, Leader Reid, members of Congress, dear friends, former colleagues: 议长女士、里德领袖、各位国会议员、亲爱的朋友们、昔日的同仁们：
It is a great honor to be here -- a place where Lincoln served, was inaugurated, and where the nation he saved bid him a last farewell. As we mark the bicentennial of our 16th President's birth, I cannot claim to know as much about his life and works as many who are also speaking today, but I can say that I feel a special gratitude to this singular figure who in so many ways made my own story possible -- and in so many ways made America's story possible. 能来到这里是我莫大的荣幸——这里是林肯曾效力、曾宣誓就职的地方，也是他拯救的国家向他作最后告别的地方。在我们纪念第16任总统诞辰200周年之际，我不敢说像今天在座的许多发言者那样了解林肯的生平与业绩，但我可以说，我对这位独特的人物怀有一种特别的感激之情——他以许多方式使我自己的故事成为可能，也以许多方式使美国的故事成为可能。
It is fitting that we are holding this celebration here at the Capitol, for the life of this building is bound ever so closely to the times of this immortal President. Built by artisans and craftsmen, but also immigrants and slaves, it was here, in the rotunda, that Union soldiers received help from a makeshift hospital; it was downstairs, in the basement, that they were baked bread to give them strength; and it was in the Senate and House chambers where they slept at night and spent some of their days. 我们今天在国会山举行这场庆祝活动是再合适不过的，因为这座建筑的生命与这位不朽总统所处的时代紧密相连。它由工匠和手艺人建造，也由移民和奴隶建造；正是在这圆形大厅里，联邦士兵在一座临时医院中得到照料；正是在楼下的地下室里，有人为他们烤面包以补充体力；也正是在参众两院的会议厅里，他们夜晚安睡，白天度日。
What those soldiers saw when they looked on this building was a very different sight than the one we see today, for it remained unfinished until the end of the war. The laborers who built the dome came to work wondering each day whether that would be their last; whether the metal they were using for its frame would be requisitioned for the war and melted down into bullets. But each day went by without any orders to halt construction, and so they kept on working, and kept on building. 那些士兵望向这座建筑时，所见到的景象与我们今天所见截然不同，因为直到战争结束它都未完工。建造穹顶的工人们每天来上班时都在想，今天会不会是他们的最后一天；他们所用的金属框架会不会被征用于战争、熔化成子弹。但日子一天天过去，没有收到任何停工的命令，于是他们继续工作，继续建造。
And when President Lincoln was finally told of all the metal being used here, his response was short and clear: That is as it should be. The American people needed to be reminded, he believed, that even in a time of war, the work would go on; the people's business would continue; that even when the nation itself was in doubt, its future was being secured; and that on that distant day, when the guns fell silent, a national capitol would stand, with a statue of freedom at its peak, as a symbol of unity in a land still mending its divisions. 当林肯总统最终被告知此处所用的一切金属时，他的回答简短而明确：理当如此。他认为，美国人民需要被提醒：即便在战争时期，工作仍将继续；人民的事业不会中断；即便国家本身前途未卜，其未来仍在被守护；在遥远的将来，当炮火沉寂之时，一座国家首都将巍然屹立，穹顶之上立着自由雕像，作为这片仍在弥合分裂的土地上团结的象征。
It is this sense of unity, this ability to plan for a shared future even at a moment where our nation was torn apart, that I reflect on today. And while there are any number of moments that reveal that particular side of this extraordinary man, Abraham Lincoln -- that particular aspect of his leadership -- there's one that I'd like to share with you today. 正是这种团结的意识，这种即便在国家四分五裂之际仍能为共同未来谋划的能力，是我在今日所反思的。尽管有无数时刻可以展现这位非凡人物——亚伯拉罕·林肯——的这一面，展现他领导力的这一维度，但今天我想与大家分享其中一个故事。
In the war's final weeks, aboard Grant's flagship, The River Queen, President Lincoln was asked what was to be done with the rebel armies once General Lee surrendered. With victory at hand, Lincoln could have sought revenge. He could have forced the South to pay a steep price for their rebellion. But despite all the bloodshed and all the misery that each side had exacted upon the other, and despite his absolute certainty in the rightness of the cause of ending slavery, no Confederate soldier was to be punished, Lincoln ordered. 在战争的最后几周，在格兰特将军的旗舰"河上女王号"上，有人问林肯总统，一旦李将军投降，该如何处置叛军。在胜利在握之际，林肯本可以寻求报复。他本可以迫使南方为其叛乱付出沉重代价。但尽管双方彼此造成了无数流血与苦难，尽管他坚信废除奴隶制事业的正义性，林肯却下令：不得惩处任何一名邦联士兵。
They were to be treated, as he put it, "liberally all round." What Lincoln wanted was for Confederate troops to go back home and return to work on their farms and in their shops. He was even willing, he said, to "let them have their horses to plow and their guns to shoot crows with." 正如他所说，他们应当受到"宽宏大量的对待"。林肯希望邦联部队回家，回到他们的农场和店铺工作。他甚至表示愿意，他说，"让他们留下马去耕地，留下枪去打乌鸦。"
That was the only way, Lincoln knew, to repair the rifts that had torn this country apart. It was the only way to begin the healing that our nation so desperately needed. What Lincoln never forgot, not even in the midst of civil war, was that despite all that divides us -- north and south, black and white -- we were, at heart, one nation and one people, sharing a bond as Americans that could bend but would not break. 林肯知道，那是修补撕裂这个国家的裂痕的唯一途径。那是开启我们国家迫切需要的治愈的唯一途径。即便身处内战之中，林肯也从未忘记：尽管存在种种分裂我们的因素——北方与南方、黑人与白人——我们本质上是一个国家、一个民族，共享着作为美国人的纽带，这纽带可以弯曲，却不会折断。
And so even as we meet here today, in a moment when we are far less divided than in Lincoln's day, but when we are once again debating the critical issues of our time -- and debating them sometimes fiercely -- let us remember that we are doing so as servants of the same flag, as representatives of the same people, and as stakeholders in a common future. That is the most fitting tribute we can pay -- the most lasting monument we can build -- to that most remarkable of men, Abraham Lincoln. 因此，即便我们今天在此相聚——在我们远不如林肯时代那般分裂的时刻，但当我们又一次就时代的重大议题展开辩论——有时辩论还颇为激烈——让我们铭记，我们之所以如此，是作为同一面旗帜的仆人，作为同一群人民的代表，作为共同未来的利益攸关者。这是我们能够向那位最杰出的人物——亚伯拉罕·林肯——致以的最恰当的敬意，也是我们能够筑起的最持久的丰碑。
Thank you. 谢谢大家。
