Gentlemen of the Congress: 尊敬的各位议员：
I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making. 我召集国会召开特别会议，是因为我们面临着严峻的、非常严峻的政策抉择，这些抉择必须立即做出。按照宪法，我无权自行承担做出这些抉择的责任。
On the third of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. 今年2月3日，我正式向各位通报了德意志帝国政府的特别声明：从2月1日起，德国将抛开一切法律和人道的约束，使用潜艇击沉所有企图接近大不列颠和爱尔兰港口、欧洲西海岸或地中海内敌方控制港口的船只。
That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. 这似乎是德国潜艇战在战争初期的目标，但自去年4月以来，帝国政府根据当时对我们做出的承诺，对其潜艇指挥官采取了一定的克制措施——承诺不击沉客轮，并对潜艇可能攻击的其他船只发出适当警告；当对方不抵抗或不试图逃跑时，确保船员至少有公平的机会乘敞篷船逃生。
The precautions taken were meager and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed. The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. 这些预防措施虽然在残酷无情的战争过程中一次又一次地被证明是微不足道且杂乱无章的，但毕竟还是采取了一定程度的克制。而新政策则将所有限制一扫而空。各类船只，无论其旗帜、性质、货物、目的地或使命，都被无情地击沉，事先毫无警告，船上人员的死活也无人顾及。友好中立国的船只与交战国的船只一同被击沉。
Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle. 甚至连医院船和向比利时遭受重创的人民运送救援物资的船只——尽管后者持有德国政府颁发的禁航区通行证并带有明确的身份标识——也遭到了同样冷酷无情的击沉。
I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. 有一段时间，我无法相信这样的事情竟然会被任何一个迄今为止遵守文明国家人道惯例的政府付诸实施。国际法的起源是为了在海洋上建立一套得到尊重和遵守的法律，因为海洋不属于任何国家的管辖范围，是世界的自由通道。
By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meager enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded. 国际法经过一个又一个艰难的阶段才建立起来，尽管最终成果有限，但至少始终清楚地体现了人类内心和良知的要求。
This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is employing them without throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world. 德国政府以报复和必要为由，将这一最低限度的权利抛诸脑后。因为它在海上除了这些武器之外别无他物可用，而使用这些武器必然会抛弃所有的人道顾虑和对本应作为世界交往基础的谅解的尊重。
I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. 我现在所考虑的不是所涉及的财产损失——尽管损失巨大且严重——而是对非战斗人员生命的肆意和大规模毁灭，这些男女老少从事的活动，即使在现代历史上最黑暗的时期，也一直被认为是无辜和合法的。财产可以补偿；但和平无辜人民的生命却无法挽回。
The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind. 当前德国针对商业的潜艇战是对人类的战争。
It is war against all nations. 这是对所有国家的战争。
American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. 美国的船只被击沉，美国人民的生命被夺走，得知这些消息让我们深感痛心。但其他中立国和友好国家的船只和人民也以同样的方式在水中被击沉和吞没。没有任何区别对待。这是对全人类的挑战。
Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion. 每个国家都必须自行决定如何应对。我们为自己做出的选择必须以符合我们国家品格和动机的审慎态度和温和判断来做出。我们必须抛开激动的情绪。我们的动机不是报复或胜利地展示国家的武力，而是维护权利，维护人权，我们只是人权的众多捍卫者之一。
When I addressed the Congress on the twenty-sixth of February last I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. 今年2月26日我在国会发表讲话时，曾认为以武装方式维护我们的中立权利就足够了——包括我们在海上免受非法干涉的权利，以及保护我们人民免受非法暴力侵害的权利。但现在看来，武装中立是行不通的。
Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. 因为当德国潜艇像这样被用于攻击商船时，它们实际上就成了法外之徒。国际法假设商船可以在公海上对抗私掠船或巡洋舰等可见船只，但要防御潜艇的攻击则是不可能的。在这种情况下，努力在它们显示意图之前将其摧毁，不仅是审慎之举，更是严峻的必要。如果要对付它们，就必须在发现时立即行动。
The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. 德国政府否认中立国在其划定的海域内使用武器的权利，即使是为了捍卫任何现代国际法学家从未质疑过的权利。德国暗示，我们在商船上部署的武装警卫将被视为法律之外的人，像海盗一样被对待。
Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. 武装中立本身就已经足够无效；在这种情况下，面对这种主张，它更是雪上加霜——它很可能只会产生它本想防止的结果；实际上肯定会让我们在没有交战国权利或效力的情况下卷入战争。
There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs: they cut to the very roots of human life. 有一个选择我们不能做，也做不到：我们不会选择屈服的道路，让我们国家和人民最神圣的权利被忽视或侵犯。我们现在所要对抗的不是普通的侵害：它们触及人类生命的根本。
With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States; 我深知我正在采取的这一步骤具有庄严甚至悲剧性的性质，也深知它所涉及的重大责任。但我毫不迟疑地遵守我认为的宪法职责，建议国会宣布德意志帝国政府最近的行径实际上无异于对美国政府和人民的战争；
that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war. 建议国会正式接受强加于我们的交战国地位；并建议国会立即采取措施，不仅使国家处于更充分的防御状态，还要动用其全部力量和资源，迫使德意志帝国政府接受条件并结束战争。
What this will involve is clear. 这将涉及的内容是清楚的。
It will involve the utmost practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs. 这将涉及与目前正在与德国作战的各国政府在咨询和行动上进行最大限度的切实合作，并为此向这些政府提供最宽松的财政信贷，以便我们的资源尽可能地补充它们的资源。
It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. 这将涉及组织和动员国家的所有物质资源，以最充足、最经济高效的方式供应战争物资并满足国家的附带需求。
It will involve the immediate full equipment of the navy in all respects but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines. 这将涉及立即全面装备海军，特别是为其提供对付敌方潜艇的最佳手段。
It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least five hundred thousand men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training. 这将涉及立即在法律规定的战时兵力基础上至少增加五十万人，我认为这些人应根据普遍服役义务的原则征召，并授权在需要且训练条件允许时随后追加同等规模的兵力。
It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well conceived taxation. 这当然还将涉及向政府提供充足的信贷。我希望，这些信贷在公平可行的范围内应由当代人通过精心设计的税收来承担。
I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation because it seems to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits which will now be necessary entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most respectfully urge, to protect our people so far as we may against the very serious hardships and evils which would be likely to arise out of the inflation which would be produced by vast loans. 我说通过税收在公平可行的范围内承担，是因为我认为完全依靠借款来提供现在所需的信贷是极不明智的。我最恭敬地敦促，我们有责任尽可能保护我们的人民免受巨额贷款可能引发的通货膨胀所带来的严重困难和祸害。
In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of our own military forces with the duty -- for it will be a very practical duty -- of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the materials which they can obtain only from us or by our assistance. They are in the field and we should help them in every way to be effective there. 在执行实现这些目标的措施时，我们应始终牢记，在为已与德国交战的国家提供物资方面——这将是一项非常实际的任务——我们应尽可能少地干涉我们自己的准备工作和军事力量的装备。他们已经在战场上，我们应该尽一切努力帮助他们发挥效力。
I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several executive departments of the government, for the consideration of your committees, measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as having been framed after very careful thought by the branch of the Government upon which the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguarding the nation will most directly fall. 我将通过政府各行政部门，向各位委员会提出我所提到的各项目标的实现措施，供各位考虑。我希望各位乐于将这些措施视为由最直接承担指挥战争和保卫国家责任的政府部门经过深思熟虑后制定的。
While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by them. 当我们做这些事情——这些意义深远的事情时，让我们非常清楚地向全世界表明我们的动机和目标。过去两个月的不幸事件并没有改变我一贯的思路，我相信也没有改变国家的思路。
I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the twenty-second of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the third day of February and on the twenty-sixth of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. 我现在所想的与今年1月22日在参议院讲话时完全相同；与2月3日和2月26日在国会讲话时也完全相同。我们现在的目标与当时一样，是维护世界生活中的和平与正义原则，反对自私和专制的权力，并在真正自由和自治的世界各国人民中建立这样一种目的和行动的协调，以确保这些原则今后得到遵守。
Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. 当世界和平和各国人民的自由受到威胁，而这种威胁来自以组织力量为后盾的专制政府——这种力量完全由统治者的意志而非人民的意志控制时，中立不再可行或可取。
We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states. 在这种情况下，我们已经看到了中立的终结。我们正处在一个新时代的开端，在这个时代，人们将坚持认为，各国及其政府应遵守与文明国家公民之间相同的行为标准和对所犯错误的责任标准。
We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools. 我们与德国人民没有争执。我们对他们只有同情和友谊。他们的政府参战并非出于他们的冲动。这并非出于他们的事先知情或同意。这是一场像过去不幸的日子里那样决定的战争——那时人民的统治者从不征求人民的意见，战争是为了王朝的利益或少数野心勃勃的人的利益而挑起和进行的，他们习惯于把同胞当作棋子和工具。
Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. 自治国家不会在邻国布满间谍，也不会策划阴谋制造某种危急局势以获得发动攻击和征服的机会。这样的阴谋只能在暗中进行，在没有人有权提出质疑的地方实施。
Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs. 精心策划的欺骗或侵略计划——可能代代相传——只能在宫廷的隐秘中或在狭隘特权阶层的严密保密下制定和隐瞒。在公众舆论要求并坚持了解国家所有事务的地方，这些阴谋是不可能得逞的。
A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own. 持久的和平协作只能通过民主国家的合作来维持。任何专制政府都不值得信任，无法在其中守信或遵守盟约。它必须是一个荣誉联盟，一个意见的合作体。阴谋会腐蚀它的核心；内部小团体可以随心所欲地策划而不必对任何人负责，这将是一种根植于其核心的腐败。只有自由人民才能坚定地坚持共同目标和荣誉，并将人类的利益置于自身狭隘利益之上。
Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? 难道每个美国人不都感到，过去几周俄罗斯发生的奇妙而振奋人心的事件，为我们对世界未来和平的希望增添了信心吗？
Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude towards life. 那些最了解俄罗斯的人都知道，俄罗斯在内心深处一直是民主的，在其所有重要的思维习惯中，在其人民所有体现自然本能和惯常生活态度的亲密关系中。
The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their naive majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a League of Honor. 尽管笼罩在俄罗斯政治结构顶端的专制统治存在已久且权力可怕，但它实际上并非源于俄罗斯，其性质和目的也不是俄罗斯的。现在它已被推翻，伟大而慷慨的俄罗斯人民以其天真的庄严和力量，加入了为世界自由、正义与和平而战的行列。这是一个值得加入荣誉联盟的伙伴。
One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government with spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without, our industries and our commerce. 让我们确信普鲁士专制制度过去不是、将来也永远不会成为我们朋友的一件事是，从战争一开始，它就在我们毫无戒备的社区甚至政府办公室里安插了间谍，并到处策划犯罪阴谋，破坏我们的国家团结、内外和平以及工业和商业。
Indeed it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of justice that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government accredited to the Government of the United States. 事实上，现在很明显，它的间谍甚至在战争开始前就已经在这里了。不幸的是，我们的法院已经证明，那些不止一次险些扰乱国家和平和破坏工业的阴谋，是在德意志帝国政府派驻美国政府的官方代表的唆使、支持甚至亲自指挥下进行的。
Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them we have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them because we know that their source lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people towards us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish designs of a Government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. 即使在调查和根除这些阴谋时，我们也试图对其做出最宽容的解释，因为我们知道，这些阴谋的根源不在于德国人民对我们的敌意或不良意图——他们无疑和我们一样对此一无所知——而仅仅在于一个为所欲为、对人民隐瞒一切的政府的自私图谋。
But they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that Government entertains no real friendship for us and means to act against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors that intercepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence. 但这些阴谋最终使我们确信，那个政府对我们没有真正的友谊，并打算在方便时损害我们的和平与安全。那份被截获的给驻墨西哥城德国公使的电报就是一个有力的证据，证明它打算在我们家门口煽动敌人。
We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security of the democratic governments of the world. We are now about to accept a gauge of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. 我们接受这种敌意的挑战，是因为我们知道，在这样一个政府及其所作所为下，我们永远不可能有朋友；在其组织力量的威胁下——这种力量总是伺机实现我们不知其目的的图谋——世界民主政府不可能有任何可靠的安全保障。我们现在即将与这个自由的天然敌人展开较量，如果必要，我们将动用整个国家的力量来遏制和挫败其主张和权力。
We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. 现在，当我们看清事实而不被虚假借口蒙蔽时，我们乐于为世界的最终和平和各国人民（包括德国人民）的解放而战：为大小国家的权利而战，为各国人民选择自己生活方式和服从方式的权利而战。世界必须使民主安全。世界的和平必须建立在经过考验的政治自由基础之上。
We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall cheerfully make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them. 我们没有自私的目的要达到。我们不谋求征服，不谋求统治。我们不为自己寻求赔偿，不为我们将愉快做出的牺牲寻求物质补偿。我们只是人类权利的捍卫者之一。当这些权利像国家的信念和自由所能保障的那样安全时，我们就心满意足了。
Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and fair play we profess to be fighting for. 正因为我们不带怨恨地战斗，不追求自私的目标，不为自己谋求任何我们不愿与所有自由人民分享的东西，所以我相信，我们将以交战国的身份冷静地进行行动，并自豪地严格遵守我们声称要为之战斗的正义和公平原则。
I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honor. 我没有提到与德意志帝国政府结盟的各国政府，因为它们没有对我们宣战，也没有挑战我们捍卫自己权利和荣誉的决心。
The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; 奥匈帝国政府确实公开宣布无条件支持和接受德意志帝国政府现在不加掩饰地采用的鲁莽和非法的潜艇战，因此本政府无法接受奥匈帝国政府最近派驻本政府的大使塔尔诺夫斯基伯爵。
but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. 但该政府并未在海上对美国公民实际发动战争，因此我冒昧地至少暂时推迟讨论我们与维也纳当局的关系。
We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights. 我们只有在明显被迫的情况下才参战，因为没有其他方式可以捍卫我们的权利。
It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity towards a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck. 我们更容易以崇高的正义和公平精神作为交战国行事，因为我们行动时没有敌意，不是出于对一个民族的仇恨或给他们带来伤害或不利的愿望，而只是对一个不负责任的政府进行武装反对——这个政府已经抛弃了所有的人道和正义考虑，正在肆意妄为。
We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early reestablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us -- however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. 请允许我再说一遍，我们是德国人民真诚的朋友，我们最渴望的是早日重建我们之间互利的亲密关系——尽管他们目前可能很难相信这是我们发自内心的话。
We have borne with their present government through all these bitter months because of that friendship -- exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible. 由于这份友谊，我们在这几个痛苦的月里一直容忍他们现政府的所作所为——表现出了否则不可能有的耐心和克制。
We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions towards the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it towards all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the Government in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. 令人欣慰的是，我们仍有机会在对待数百万在我们中间生活并与我们共享生活的德国裔人民时，以日常态度和行动来证明这份友谊。对于那些在考验时刻真正忠于邻居和政府的人，我们将自豪地证明这一点。他们中的大多数人都是忠诚的美国人，就像从未有过其他忠诚或效忠对象一样。
They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few. 他们将迅速与我们站在一起，谴责和约束少数可能心怀异志的人。如果出现不忠行为，我们将以坚定的手段严厉镇压；但如果不忠行为真的出现，也只是零星发生，不会得到除少数无法无天、心怀恶意者之外任何人的支持。
It is a distressing and oppressive duty, Gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. 各位议员，我今天向你们发表这番讲话，是一项令人痛心和沉重的职责。我们面前可能还有许多个月的严峻考验和牺牲。带领这个伟大的和平民族走向战争——走向有史以来最可怕、最灾难性的战争，文明本身似乎岌岌可危——这是一件可怕的事情。
But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts, for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world at last free. 但权利比和平更宝贵，我们将为那些我们始终珍视的事物而战：为民主而战，为那些服从权威的人在自己政府中有发言权的权利而战，为小国的权利和自由而战，为通过自由人民的协调实现普遍的权利统治而战——这种协调将给所有国家带来和平与安全，最终使世界获得自由。
To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other. 为了这项任务，我们可以奉献我们的生命和财富，奉献我们的一切，带着自豪——因为我们知道，美国有幸为赋予她生命、幸福和她所珍视的和平的原则而奉献鲜血和力量的日子已经到来。上帝保佑她，她别无选择。