Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave — Page 7

他们的智识遭到蓄意摧残，心智被刻意蒙蔽，道德本性被极力贬损，与人类之间的一切关联痕迹被彻底抹除；然而，他们以何等惊人的毅力，承受着最为可怖的奴役重压——数百年来，他们一直在这重压之下苦苦呻吟！

Nothing has been left undone to cripple their intellects, darken their minds, debase their moral nature, obliterate all traces of their relationship to mankind; and yet how wonderfully they have sustained the mighty load of a most frightful bondage, under which they have been groaning for centuries!

为了说明奴役制度对白人的影响——表明在这种处境下，白人的忍耐力并不优于他们的黑人兄弟——普世解放的杰出倡导者、匍匐却未被征服的爱尔兰最强有力的斗士丹尼尔·奥康内尔，在1845年3月31日于都柏林和解厅向忠诚全国废除协会发表的演讲中，讲述了以下这段轶事。

To illustrate the effect of slavery on the white man,—to show that he has no powers of endurance, in such a condition, superior to those of his black brother,—Daniel O'Connell, the distinguished advocate of universal emancipation, and the mightiest champion of prostrate but not conquered Ireland, relates the following anecdote in a speech delivered by him in the Conciliation Hall, Dublin, before the Loyal National Repeal Association, March 31, 1845.

奥康内尔先生说："无论以何种冠冕堂皇的名目加以掩饰，奴役制度依然令人憎恶。

"No matter," said Mr. O'Connell, "under what specious term it may disguise itself, slavery is still hideous.

它有一种天然的、不可避免的倾向，会将人的一切高贵才能野蛮化。

It has a natural, an inevitable tendency to brutalize every noble faculty of man.

一名美国水手在非洲海岸遭遇海难，被当地人扣押为奴，历时三年；期满获救时，人们发现他已变得愚昧迟钝、神志麻木——他丧失了全部的推理能力；他忘却了母语，只能发出一种夹杂着阿拉伯语和英语的野蛮乱语，无人能够听懂，就连他自己也发音困难。

An American sailor, who was cast away on the shore of Africa, where he was kept in slavery for three years, was, at the expiration of that period, found to be imbruted and stultified—he had lost all reasoning power; and having forgotten his native language, could only utter some savage gibberish between Arabic and English, which nobody could understand, and which even he himself found difficulty in pronouncing.

这便是所谓'家庭制度'的教化力量！"

So much for the humanizing influence of The Domestic Institution!