【英文翻译版73】乔纳森·吉纳普：《美国宪法》

英文文稿+中文翻译

Zachary Davis: It’s easy to look back on history and think events unfold in a straight and neat line, as if somehow history was supposed to happen the way it did. But history is always more complicated than that. The success of new projects is never guaranteed. In fact, failure is much, much more common.

扎克里·戴维斯：回顾历史，人们很容易觉得所有事情都直截了当、整齐划一地接连发生，似乎历史注定要这么走。但历史总是比他们料想的更复杂。没有谁可以保证新发生的事情一定会成功。实际上，常见得多的反而是失败。

Zachary Davis: The birth of the United States of America is no exception. Once the United States won its independence from Great Britain in the 18th century, the even harder work began. The founding fathers were tasked with creating a new nation from the ground up. And to do so, they wrote a document: the Constitution of the United States.

扎克里·戴维斯：美国的诞生也不例外。18世纪，美国成功地从英国独立出去之后，更艰难的任务开始了：开国元勋们要从零开始建立一个新的国家。为此，他们立下了一份文件——这就是美国宪法。

Jonathan Gienapp: The Constitution is not inevitable at all.My name is Jonathan Gienapp and I'm an assistant professor of history at Stanford University. And I have, you know, a slightly circuitous route, ended up becoming a historian of the Constitution and American constitutionalism, particularly at its beginnings.

乔纳森·吉纳普：宪法的诞生并不是必然的。我叫乔纳森·吉纳普，是斯坦福大学的历史学助理教授。我的研究经历有些曲折，最后成了一名历史学家，研究宪法和美国宪政主义的历史，尤其是建国初期的历史。

Zachary Davis: The U.S. Constitution had roots in centuries-old English law and proposed a radical new system of government. The goal of the Constitution was to establish America’s fundamental laws, set up the national government, and above all to guarantee individual liberties. But the best way to achieve those goals was highly contested.

扎克里·戴维斯：美国宪法植根于有着几百年历史的英国法律，但设立了一个激进的、全新的政府体系。宪法的目标是确立美国的根本法、建立美国政府，最重要的是保障个体自由。作为实现这些目标的最佳方式，宪法本身却曾备受争议。

Jonathan Gienapp: If you had told people that there would be a federal constitution that would look like this as it comes to look, in 1787, if you had told people in 1776, they would have thought you were out of your minds. You're going to create a central government, a distant central government that is powerful, that has, among other things, a judiciary that is strong and independent and an executive office, this figure of the president that is so powerful and has so many of these prerogative powers that everyone agrees are antithetical to liberty. What are you doing?

乔纳森·吉纳普：如果你在1776年告诉人们，会出现一部像1787年宪法那样的联邦宪法，人们一定会觉得你疯了。你准备在遥远的地方创建一个强有力的中央政府，有着强大且独立的司法机构，有行政机构，首脑是总统。总统很有权势，有许多特权。大概所有人都觉得这样的设想完全和自由理念相悖。大概大家都会想：你究竟在做什么？

Zachary Davis: Welcome to Writ Large, a podcast about how books change the world. I’m Zachary Davis. In each episode, I talk with one of the world’s leading scholars about one book that changed the course of history. For this episode, I sat down with Professor Jonathan Gienapp to discuss The United States Constitution.

扎卡里·戴维斯：欢迎收听：改变你和世界的100书，在这里我们为大家讲述改变世界的书籍。我是扎卡里·戴维斯。每一集，我都会和一位世界顶尖学者讨论一本影响历史进程的书。在本集，我和乔纳森·吉纳普教授一起讨论美国宪法。

Jonathan Gienapp: So, constitutionalism as a basic concept is about setting up some kind of supreme level of accountability for those in power, some kind of higher law to which subjects or citizens are not just beholden, but also the people who rule them.

乔纳森·吉纳普：宪政主义是一种基本理念，试图制定一套针对当权者的高规格的问责制度，是统摄其他法律的更高法则。它说明了法律不仅适用于普通民众，也适用于统治者。

Zachary Davis: What are the deeper origins of law that in theory applies to the rulers as well as the ruled?

扎克里·戴维斯：从深层次看，这种理论上适用于统治者和被统治者的法律源自哪儿？

Jonathan Gienapp: There are certainly religious origins that matter a great deal, notions of divine law or then natural law existing independent of human creation to which all are subject. But in terms of mechanizing it in the hands of human beings as making it something more akin to a contract or a compact, Magna Carta agreed to by the king of England and his nobles in 1215, is often pointed to as one such origins.

乔纳森·吉纳普：显然它有着很重要的宗教渊源。人们认为世界上存在着神圣法或后来所说的自然法，这些法并不由人类创立，本在就存在，所有人都应当遵守。1215年，英国国王与贵族签署了《大宪章》，将自然法应用到人类社会，使之成为类似于契约的东西。这被视为宪政主义的一大源头。

Zachary Davis: In the early 13th century, King John of England was overstepping his bounds. At the time, it was typical for kings to obey common laws and customs established by earlier monarchs. But King John believed he was above the law. He waged war in France and then imposed heavy taxes on his barons to pay for the war. If anyone refused to pay, King John threatened to punish them with jail, death, or seizure of property.

扎克里·戴维斯：13世纪初，英国国王约翰一世大肆滥用权力。当时，英国国王普遍遵守先王制定的普通法和规矩。但约翰王认为自己凌驾于法律之上。他对法国发动战争，向贵族征收重税来支付战争费用。如果有人拒绝支付，约翰王就威胁会惩罚他们，让他们坐牢、处决他们、或是没收他们的财产。

Zachary Davis: The barons, understandably, united and revolted against the king. They captured London, where the king lived, and forced him to negotiate. The result of their negotiations was the Magna Carta. This document held both the king and the people accountable to the laws of the time.

扎克里·戴维斯：贵族们自然团结起来反抗国王。他们攻占了国王所在的伦敦，迫使他和他们谈判。谈判的结果便是签署了《大宪章》。这个文件将国王和民众一同置于当时法律的约束之下。

Jonathan Gienapp: So Magna Carta became this key building block, if you will, this foundation upon which other creative intellectual acts were added to flesh out this thing called the English Constitution or the ancient constitution, is often referred to, after the United Kingdom was formed, the British Constitution.

乔纳森·吉纳普：可以说，《大宪章》成了一块重要的奠基石。在此基础之上，人们还增加了很多开创性的、凝聚无数智慧的法案，进一步充实了这部被称为“英国宪法”或“古代宪法”的文件。近代英国成立后，这些文件常常被统称为“英国宪法”。

Zachary Davis: The British Constitution is an uncodified constitution, meaning that it is not written in a single document. Instead, it is written in hundreds of acts of parliament, documented conventions, and court cases.

扎克里·戴维斯：英国宪法并不是一部成文法，它不是写在某一份文件中的，而是由数百个议会法案、成文的公约和法庭案例组成。

Zachary Davis: The British Constitution holds both the monarch and the people accountable to the laws and customs of the United Kingdom. Whether something was legal or not depended in a large way on what was established custom.

扎克里·戴维斯：英国宪法要求君主和民众都遵守英国的法律和习俗。某事是否合法，在很大程度上取决于既定的习惯。

Jonathan Gienapp: So if the king tried to do something and you could point out that kings had not been allowed to do this or hadn't done this for as long as anyone could remember, is usually how they talked, then it was presumptively unconstitutional or vice versa if parliament on the people's behalf had done something.

乔纳森·吉纳普：如果国王试图做某件事，议会一般会指出，国王被禁止做这件事，或史上没有先例。如果代表民众的议会曾就某件事向国王提出过质疑，那么就可以依据质疑结果，将这件事认作违宪或符合宪法。

Zachary Davis: For many years after the Magna Carta was drafted, this model worked well. But eventually, tensions between the king and Parliament began to rise.

扎克里·戴维斯：在《大宪章》起草后的许多年里，这种模式运转得很好。但最终，国王和议会之间的关系开始越来越紧张。

Jonathan Gienapp: The seventeenth century is really if we had to boil it down in England, a massive constitutional struggle between, on the one hand, the king's prerogative, the king's capacity to make law and, and enact law without anybody else's input. And on the other hand, legislative privilege. The idea that some kind of legislative body in this case, the two houses of parliament, has the authority ultimately to determine what will be the law of the realm. You cannot make it without their voice.

乔纳森·吉纳普：概括来说，17世纪的英国史是一部围绕宪法展开的斗争史。一部分人认为国王应当享有特权，可以制定法律，无需征得他人意见便能通过法律。另一部分人认为应当赋予立法机构特权。某些立法机构（在当时的英国便是议会两院）应当有权最终决定哪部法律将在全国生效。未经议会许可，法律就不能施行。

Zachary Davis: These two competing ideas of rulership led to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In the end, Parliament defeated the king and became the ruling power of England. The king would now be held accountable to Parliament.

扎克里·戴维斯：这两种理念相互博弈，引发了1688年的光荣革命。最终，议会战胜了国王，成为英国的统治力量。这意味着国王开始为议会所掣肘。

Zachary Davis: Now, the British Constitution applied not only to mainland England, but also to Britain’s colonies around the world. In the early 17th century, Britain began colonizing the eastern coast of North America. By the early 18th century, 13 English colonies were established. Although they were governed under British law, the colonies were an ocean away from England. By the 18th century, many of the colonists were born in the colonies and had never even been to England.

扎克里·戴维斯：这时，英国宪法不仅适用于英国本土，也适用于英国在世界各地的殖民地。17世纪初，英国开始在北美东海岸殖民。到了18世纪初，英国共建立了十三块殖民地。这些殖民地虽受英国法律管辖，但与英国隔着茫茫大洋。到了18世纪，许多殖民者都在殖民地出生。他们从未到过英国本土。

Jonathan Gienapp: So American colonists begin saying, we love being British, we love being members of the British Empire. There's no freer country in the world. There's no freer institution in the world than the British constitution. We want that same constitutional settlement to come to the colonies.

乔纳森·吉纳普：美国殖民者觉得，他们喜欢做英国人，喜欢做大英帝国的一份子。世界上没有比英国更自由的国家，没有比英国宪法更自由的法律制度了。他们希望英国的宪法制度可以同样应用于北美殖民地。

Zachary Davis: But the thing is they weren’t satisfied with the way they were represented in British Parliament. The colonists were fairly independent already. The British Parliament represents the people of England, and the colonists wanted some form of representation for themselves. And, I may be biased, but I think they had a point.

扎克里·戴维斯：但问题出现了。他们对北美殖民地在英国议会中的代表权感到不满。在当时，北美殖民地已经相当独立了。既然英国议会代表英国民众，殖民地人民自然希望在议会中有自己的代表。也许我的看法会有偏颇，但我觉得他们的想法没错。

Jonathan Gienapp: There's an enormous amount of discretion to get a working colony off the ground and to arrive at a set of political arrangements, institutions, institutional and otherwise, that people are willing to accept.

乔纳森·吉纳普：英国一开始给了北美殖民地很大的自主权，让他们自行管理殖民地的事务，摸索出民众乐于接受的政治条约、政治制度等等。

Jonathan Gienapp: So there's already a sense that of self-government and local rule that, you know, we in Pennsylvania, we in Massachusetts, we in Virginia have been doing this for a while. You know, you sort of sent us away and hoped we would figure it out. And now we want sort of formal recognition of our legislative bodies. We basically want the glorious revolution to come to the American colonies.

乔纳森·吉纳普：当时已经有了一种类似于地方自治的感觉。我们在宾夕法尼亚州、马萨诸塞州、弗吉尼亚州已经自治了一段时间。你撒手把我们放在这里，希望我们自己想办法。现在我们希望你能正式承认我们的立法机构。其实，我们是希望北美殖民地也能迎来自己的光荣革命。

Zachary Davis: Up until now, it had been mostly up to the colonies to figure out how to manage themselves, and they wanted their methods of governing to be formally recognized. But now that the colonies were relatively established, the British government decided to get more involved with the colonies. They set up new institutions such as the Board of Trade to keep a firmer grip on the colonies.

扎克里·戴维斯：直到那时，殖民地主要都在自我管理。他们希望自己的治理模式能得到正式认可。然而随着殖民地发展得越来越成熟，英国政府决定更多地参与到殖民地的管理中来。他们建立了贸易委员会等新的机构，想要更好地控制殖民地。

Jonathan Gienapp: So the royal governors who are dispatched to the colonies to act in the king's name or the British government's name are in the early 17th and the early 18th century, trying to exert more authority. At this exact moment, the colonists themselves are saying, wait a minute, this makes no sense. You're trying to, you should be giving us the glorious revolution, not rolling it back.

乔纳森·吉纳普：于是到了17、18世纪初，皇家总督们被派往各殖民地，以国王或英国政府的名义行事，企图对殖民地施加更多控制权。这时，殖民地的人们发声了。他们说：“等等，这一切都毫无道理。你给我们带来的应该是光荣革命，而不是开历史的倒车。”

Jonathan Gienapp: And the British government says, what are you talking about? You are subject to the king in parliament. You are subject to the glorious revolution, which means parliament and the king and the king's officials get to decide to a greater extent what is going on. So it's the beginning of this kind of awakening of political consciousness, of what both sides are trying to do and an increased interest in that project.

乔纳森·吉纳普：英国政府的反应则是：“你在说什么呢？你在议会要听国王的，你要服从于光荣革命后的英国政治机构。从更大程度上讲，未来发生什么是由议会、国王和国王的官员一同决定的。”政治意识开始慢慢觉醒，双方都想做些什么，对这个问题都越来越在意。

Zachary Davis: This began a long struggle between the colonies and Britain over who would actually govern.

扎克里·戴维斯：这开启了殖民地和英国之间在实际治理权方面的长期斗争。

Jonathan Gienapp: Is it going to be instructions from an ocean away executed by these governors, or is it going to be these local houses of assembly? You get kind of the first efforts to do constitutionalism on the ground in a real way. And it's impossible to understand the American Revolution that comes later and the separation from Britain and any of the constitutional solutions that follow that Americans devise without an understanding of this lived experience, this long lived experience of constitutionalism in action as being a concrete struggle in the colonies themselves over who gets to rule and on whose terms.

乔纳森·吉纳普：是该听从这些总督执行的大洋彼岸的命令，还是该听从殖民地议会的命令？这是北美殖民地第一次努力真正将宪政主义付诸实践。只有了解这些活生生的经历，我们才能理解后来的美国独立运动和美国确立的宪政体制。这漫长的实践展现了殖民地在争夺统治权和相关条件上所作的具体斗争。

Zachary Davis: This debate reached a boiling point in the 1760s. Britain had just come out of a big war with France over territory in North America. The British won the war and acquired large amounts of new land and large amounts of debt. To help pay their debts, the British heavily taxed the colonies. The colonists felt that this was an intrusion on their rights.

扎克里·戴维斯：这场大讨论在18世纪60年代达到了高潮。那时，英国刚刚结束了和法国在北美的领土争夺战。英国战胜了法国，获得了大量新土地，也欠下了巨额债务。为了偿还债务，英国向殖民地征收重税。殖民地人民觉得，这在侵犯他们的权利。

Jonathan Gienapp: Why—this is so important from a constitutional standpoint—is because they have to explain exactly why, and it requires them to take all of this longstanding experience about what they think they have a right to and why they think they have it. And to give it a new kind of clarity. Why exactly is this a violation of their rights? And what's important here is they situate them directly in the British constitutional tradition. They claim that what they have are entitled to the rights of freeborn Englishman, the same rights that people died to secure in the English civil war, in the glorious revolution. And they then have to explain in detail why this British legislation to tax them and to legislate for them and to do other things, violates those rights.

乔纳森·吉纳普：为什么这在侵犯他们的权利？从宪法的角度看，回答这个问题非常有必要。他们必须阐明原因。在思考拥有哪些权利、为何拥有这些权利上，他们已经有了长期的经验。如今他们需要将这些经验清晰地阐述出来。到底为什么征收重税是在侵犯他们的权利？这儿有一点非常重要。北美殖民地的人们把他们自己也纳入到了英国的宪法传统中，宣称自己有权享有英国自由人的权利。恰恰是为了捍卫这些权利，许多英国先辈在英国内战和光荣革命中流血牺牲。北美人民必须详细解释为什么这些税收法律侵犯了这些权利。

Jonathan Gienapp: So the 1760s and 70s, among other things, is a great debate between the American colonists and British metropolitan officials over the nature of the British constitution and over the rights protected under that. The key here being that the rights of freeborn Englishman had long been premised on this idea that to be free and to not be a political slave meant that you were subject to authority and lawmaking that was effectively your own.

乔纳森·吉纳普：在1760、70年代的众多事件中，一大事件便是北美殖民地和英国官员就英国宪法的性质和保障的权利所展开的大辩论。这儿的关键在于，英国的自由人很早以来就一直相信，要想成为自由人而不是政治社会的奴隶，那么你所听从的权威必须由你选出，你所遵守的法律必须由你制定。

Zachary Davis: The colonists felt that the English were too far away and too dissimilar to them to act in the colonists’ interest. They wanted their own local form of representation in their own form of government.

扎克里·戴维斯：殖民地的人们认为英国人离他们太远，不太可能从殖民地的利益考虑问题。他们希望在英国政府中加入殖民地代表。

Jonathan Gienapp: So it reaches sort of this from an intellectual constitutional standpoint, that to square any of these arguments really requires breaking away from Britain. And it's not necessarily a rejection of the British constitution, but it is made in the name of it, that the true principles of the British constitution, Americans argue, are this capacity for local self-rule and to have representative institutions that ensure you are not a political slave. The only way to ensure that, apparently because the British are unwilling to think through other solutions, is to set up our own country, is to break away and declare independence.

乔纳森·吉纳普：从宪政主义的理念上看，殖民地要想平息这些争论，唯一的办法就是从英国独立出去。这并不是在反对英国宪法，反而是在以英国宪法的名义行事。殖民地人民认为，英国宪法的真正原则便是地方自治以及有一套确保人民不至于沦为政治奴隶的代议制体系。然而，英国除了反对，也不愿意思考别的解决方案，那么要想实现这两点，唯一的办法就是建立自己的国家，脱离英国，宣布独立。

Zachary Davis: So they declare independence, they fight a war. What's the next phase of the story until we get to the writing of the Constitution?

扎克里·戴维斯：所以他们宣布独立，打了一场战争。在编写宪法之前，美国还发生了什么事？

Jonathan Gienapp: One of the most important phases in the story often overlooked is the writing of the first American constitutions. Everyone says constitutional history begins in 1787. Not true in the slightest, you can't understand the project of building new American regimes unless you understand their working, understanding by 1776 of what makes for a good constitutional government.

乔纳森·吉纳普：在美国建国史中，有一段历史非常重要，却常常忽视被人们忽视：那就是美国第一部宪法的编写。人们都说美国宪法的历史始于1787年。其实不对。如果你不了解他们的努力，不了解1776年的时候他们对宪制政府的理解，那么你就无法理解美国新政权的建立。

Jonathan Gienapp: So this is a practical problem. First and foremost, British rule has collapsed in the colonies. That is the direct consequence of the revolution. There are no longer governments in, you know, even in the lead up to the Declaration of Independence, but certainly thereafter. The whole premise is those governments are no longer legal here. So you need new ones. And this requires putting into action the constitutional arguments that people have been making now for some time.

乔纳森·吉纳普：这是一个切乎实际的问题。独立战争的直接结果便是，英国结束了在殖民地的统治。在《独立宣言》问世之后乃至之前，这片土地上就不再有政府了。原有的政府已经不合法了，人们需要新的政府，需要将酝酿已久的宪政观点付诸实践。

Jonathan Gienapp: Each and every state becomes embroiled in debate over what its own constitution should look like. And almost all of the constitutions are written right away in 1776 at the state level. And they are attempts to form governments that will, well, sort of instantiate what Americans think they are fighting for. Because royal government has collapsed, they need to establish a new government. And it's very hard to do that from a coordination standpoint, except by specifying in writing what this new government will look like.

乔纳森·吉纳普：每一个州都在争论自己的宪法应该是什么样的。1776年，几乎所有的宪法都是匆匆写成的州级法律。这些是建立政府的尝试，意在展现美国人所争取的是什么。英国王室在北美的统治已经落下帷幕，建立新政府成了当时之需。协调一致非常困难，要想实现，就必须以书面形式阐明这个新政府会是什么样。

Zachary Davis: The British constitution could exist in customs because they had hundreds of years of history to establish those customs. But on some level, the colonists were starting from scratch. They didn’t have their own long history to refer back to, but they did believe in fundamental laws.

扎克里·戴维斯：英国宪法可以以习惯法的形式存在，是因为他们有几百年的历史来形成这些习惯。但北美殖民地从某种程度上来说是全新的，没有悠久的历史，没有先例可供参考。不过他们还是相信根本法的。

Jonathan Gienapp: People in the 18th century tended to think that lots of legal protections, lots of law, lots of fundamental law existed. It was out there. It was like the principles of mathematics. It wasn't something people created. It was something you found and identified. This is how they understood Magna Carta. Magna Carta didn't codify anything. It merely put down as a useful reminder, things that were otherwise true.

乔纳森·吉纳普：18世纪的人们往往觉得，世界上存在着很多法律保护、法律法规和根本法。它们就像数学原理一样，并不是由人类创造的，只是由人类发现、识别的。他们就是这么看待《大宪章》的。《大宪章》并没有编写成什么法典，它只是一份书面文件，提醒着人们一些原本就有的真理。

Jonathan Gienapp: So Magna Carta was not a source of those rights. It was a reminder of those rights. The declarations of rights in the new state constitutions worked similarly. So they have these written constitutions, but they don't think of them in exclusive terms as though the Constitution is the written thing and nothing outside of it is relevant.

乔纳森·吉纳普：《大宪章》并不是这些权利的来源，它只是提醒着人们所拥有的的权利。新版国家宪法中的权利宣言也有类似的作用。他们有这些成文的宪法，但他们并没有把其他的拒之门外，觉得只有宪法才是成文的，其他都无关紧要。

Zachary Davis: They were still taking into account these fundamental laws, even if they didn’t write them into the Constitution.

扎克里·戴维斯：即使他们没有把这些根本法写入宪法，但他们仍然在考虑这些法规。

Jonathan Gienapp: They didn't think of liberty the way we tend to. The modern liberal understanding of liberty. And by liberal, I mean the lowercase “l” liberal sense, basically an idea of interference, liberty defined as noninterference. So you measure liberty by the amount of coercion that is or is not present. Government coercion is an intrusion on liberty. You try to balance the two out. People in the 18th century didn't see it that way. They didn't measure liberty in terms of noninterference, typically, especially in the English speaking world. They tended to think of liberty as a state of being about whether you were or were not subject to a power, a will other than your own.

乔纳森·吉纳普：他们对自由的理解与我们不同、与现代自由主义者不同。我所说的“自由主义者”是指信奉自由主义的人，不指是自由党人。比如在政府干预的问题上，自由主义者是反对干预的。我们用强制力的多少来衡量自由的程度，认为政府的强制力是对自由的侵犯，想要在二者间取得平衡。但18世纪的人们不这么看。他们并不以干涉的多少来衡量自由，在英语世界尤其如此。他们往往认为，自由是一种状态，在这种状态下，你不会受制于除自己以外的任何权力与意志。

Jonathan Gienapp: And this is why representation was essential. Because if the government was representative, then the government in a meaningful extent was you, and therefore the government could intrude upon people's affairs. It could regulate society and economy and all kinds of ways without in any way being coercive because it was you doing that. An unrepresentative government couldn't do any of those things. In fact, an unrepresentative government, even if it did nothing, was tyrannical because at any point it could.

乔纳森·吉纳普：这就是为什么代议制至关重要。如果政府是代议制的，那么政府在某种意义上就代表了你的意志，这样才可以干预民众的事务。它可以以各种方式管理社会、调控经济，但不会让民众为外力所强制，因为这是民众自己在实行管控。如果政府不是代议制的，那它就不能做任何这些事情。一个非代议制的政府即使什么都不做，也是专制的，因为它可以在任何时候施行专制统治。

Zachary Davis: The young United States was very interested in protecting the individual liberty of the people. They felt the best way to do this was to set up local institutions, state legislatures, and militias. They would all be run by local representatives. In 1777, they established the Articles of Confederation. This was an agreement among the nation’s first 13 states, and it served as the nation’s first constitution.

扎克里·戴维斯：刚成立的美国非常注重保护人民的个人自由。开国元勋们认为最好的方式是建立地方机构、州立法机构和民兵组织，由地方代表负责管理。1777年，他们制定了《邦联条例》。条例由北美十三州签订，是美国的第一部宪法。

Jonathan Gienapp:Then the 1780s come along and people begin rethinking whether or not local legislatures being given so much power will in fact be the recipe for protecting liberty. And this is where you start to see the origins of the Constitution, because to this point at the federal level, things are mostly an afterthought, all creative constitutional conversation about questions of sovereignty, who is sovereign, who has authority, the institutional structures that ought to be built. That's all happening at the state level. At the national level, you have the Continental Congress, which is basically take shape by accident to speak for the colonies well before the Declaration of Independence.

乔纳森·吉纳普：到了18世纪80年代，美国人开始重新思考，赋予地方立法机构如此大的权力，是否是捍卫自由的关键。这时候你可以看到美国宪法诞生的苗头了。在联邦层面，很多事情都是慢慢调整补救的。这时候出现了很多关于宪法编撰的讨论，如国家元首是谁、权力在谁手里、应当建立怎样的体制架构。在全国层面，当时已经有了大陆会议。这个会议是在《独立宣言》问世前偶然形成的，目的是为殖民地发声。

Jonathan Gienapp: It then decides on the Declaration of Independence and stays in power, it draws up the Articles of Confederation, the United States’ first national constitution, to try to give itself the formal authority that, as a practical matter, it needs to prosecute the war effort. But it's really all the action is at the state level because there's an understanding that the states is where most of the power is going to be.

乔纳森·吉纳普：大陆会议通过了《独立宣言》，此后也行使着权力，起草了美国的第一部全国性宪法《邦联条例》。它想要赋予邦联政府正式的权力，从实际出发捍卫独立战争的果实。但现实是，所有行动仍然是在州一级展开的，因为当时人们普遍觉得，代表民众行使权力的是州政府。

Jonathan Gienapp: The national government is not going to have a ton of power. And evidence of that is that there's going to be equal representation in the national government that the Articles of Confederation sets up, which is just, you know, one body, there's no executive, there's no judicial branch. It's just this one legislative body. And it represents the states equally, Delaware and Virginia, massively different populations. They'll each have one vote. So it really in many ways is more like the European Union, you could argue, than it is like a government of a sovereign nation.

乔纳森·吉纳普：邦联政府的权力不会太大，这从以下规定中便可见一斑。按照《邦联条例》的规定，每个州在邦联议会中都享有同等的表决权。邦联中央没有行政机构，也没有司法机构，只有这么一个立法机构。而在这个立法机构里，每个州无论人口多寡，享有的表决权都一样。特拉华和弗吉尼亚的人口相差甚远，却同样只有一票表决权。可以说，邦联议会在很多方面都不像一个主权国家的政府，反而更像欧盟。

Jonathan Gienapp: And that's you could argue how a lot of people are thinking about it in the early 1780s. The states are where people are represented and then they confederate and create this larger TransUnion body to help with large problems of union, like fighting the war and questions of foreign relations, negotiating with foreign governments, things like that.

乔纳森·吉纳普：18世纪80年代早期，很多人都是这么想的。州政府代表着民众，各州组成一个联盟，建立了一个更大的机构来处理整个联盟的大型事务，比如打仗、外交、和外国政府谈判等等。

Zachary Davis: In the early 1780s, this looked like a pretty good way to run the nation. Each state acted like an independent country but with a nationwide central government made up of a single legislature called the Congress of the Confederation. But this model was short lived.

扎克里·戴维斯：在18世纪80年代早期，这似乎是个不错的管理国家的办法。每一个州都像一个独立的国家，但还有一个全国性的中央政府，名叫“邦联议会”，由一个单独的立法机构组成。然而这个模式并不长久。

Jonathan Gienapp: So there are top down and bottom up reasons for constitutional reform, the top down one, which is about the United States to survive as a nation in the international community of states, must have the powers of a genuine nation. This is what a lot of nationalists like Alexander Hamilton and others are after from an early date. This Congress we've set up under the Articles of Confederation. This cannot do the trick. This is not going to be able to establish the United States as a legitimate sovereign power on the national scene, both to repel invasions from potential foreign adversaries, but also to make meaningful connections with foreign nations through treaties and commerce.

乔纳森·吉纳普：不论是从中央看，还是从地方看，宪法改革都很有必要。从中央看，美国要想作为一个完整的国家在国际社会中生存，就必须拥有真正的国家权力。这也是亚历山大·汉密尔顿等很多联邦主义者很早就在追求的事情。而根据《邦联条例》建立的邦联议会显然无法实现这一点。它无法在国际舞台上代表美国这个合法的主权国家，也无法既击退潜在外敌的入侵，又借助条约和商贸与外国建立有效联系。

Jonathan Gienapp: And this is where the bottom up story becomes relevant. Part of the reason being that the national government can't has no coercive authority over the states. They can ask nicely for them to give them tax funds or for them to honor treaty provisions. But how is the United States supposed to make treaties with foreign powers? Do the things that legitimate sovereign nations do if the states just ignore the treaties they make?

乔纳森·吉纳普：此外还有地方因素。邦联议会无法对各州施加任何强制权力，只能柔声细语地找他们要些税收，或是请他们遵守条约规定。但美国要如何和外国强国签订条约？如果各州对签订的条约置之不理，美国还能算合法的主权国家吗？

Zachary Davis: This form of government was problematic among the states as well. The Revolutionary War was extremely expensive for the United States. The country was in massive debt, and the economy was plummeting. The states were having trouble addressing these issues on their own because each state had a lot of power. Everyone could call the shots, and the country was at a stalemate with itself. Hmmm...sounds kind of familiar. In an effort to save the new country, American statesman James Madison began to look at these problems through a historical lens.

扎克里·戴维斯：这种松散的政府模式对各州来说也是问题重重。独立战争花了美国很多钱，国家背负了巨额债务，经济迅速下滑。联邦政府很难解决这些问题，因为每个州都各自拥有很大的权力。每个州都可以独自发号施令，全国陷入一派僵局之中。唔，听起来倒有些耳熟。为了拯救新生的国家，美国政治家詹姆斯·麦迪逊开始用历史的眼光看待这些问题。

Jonathan Gienapp: What this leads James Madison to see is he's particularly worried by the extent to which state governments cave to the popular pressures of the day, whether that's debtors relief or something else. And he starts to recognize that throughout most of history, the problem has been that the people don't have power and are tyrannized by kings, nobles, whoever it is. The problem of Republican government is that Republican government is premised on majority rule. But what prevents majorities from tyrannizing minorities?

乔纳森·吉纳普：州政府屈服于民众的压力，推出债务宽免等举措。这让麦迪逊非常担心，也开始思考政府架构的问题。他开始认识到，在历史上的大部分时间里，一大问题是人民没有权力，不得不忍受国王或贵族的暴政。共和制政府则遵循多数决原则。但问题来了：如何阻止多数人对少数人的暴政？

Jonathan Gienapp: If a republic is three people, two are debtors and one is a creditor, I mean, majority rule is going to get you a predictable outcome every time, this is the thought. So what if you extend the sphere? Take in a whole variety of other interests? Suddenly now no one interest can easily form a majority in a much larger republic with less representation.

乔纳森·吉纳普：如果一个共和国里有三个人，两个是债务人，一个是债权人，那么按照多数决原则，可想而知每次结果会是怎样。如果把范围拓宽，把所有不同的利益相关方都纳入进来呢？突然之间，共和国变大了，代表相对变少了，没有哪一派利益方可以轻而易举地形成多数。

Jonathan Gienapp: So James Madison is thinking, if we have, larger electoral districts, people like me, James Madison, are more likely to be elected than the demagogues. And then when we get to Congress, we are going to, you know, because there going to be a smaller number of us committed to the public good, mindful of the general interest, we're going to deliberate and try to reach conclusions that work for everybody. It's not going to be perfect. But it's going to be better than these state governments, which are just, you know, viper's nests, you know, seedbeds of naked constituent might make right political interest.

乔纳森·吉纳普：詹姆斯・麦迪逊思考了起来：如果我们有更大的选区，能让我这样的人比煽动者更容易当选，之后我们这一小撮人进了国会，致力于公共利益，关注整体利益，共同讨论，努力达成对所有人都有利的方案。这样的政治架构不一定完美，但总比这些州政府要好。州政府就是毒蛇窝，背后全是“强权即公理”、政治利益那一套。

Zachary Davis: What's the process look like until there's a document that can be, you know, debated and ratified?

扎克里·戴维斯：1787年宪法是如何问世的？人们如何辩论、编撰、批准了它？

Jonathan Gienapp: Throughout the 1780s, there's increased movement for reform, but not dramatic, comprehensive reform. The form the constitutional convention ultimately takes. It's to amend the Articles of Confederation to add new powers to the government. But by the fall of 1786, the final attempt to really do that has seemingly completely failed.

乔纳森·吉纳普：整个18世纪80年代，针对宪法的修改越来越多，但改动幅度都不大，没有出现像后来制宪会议中那么大的改动。当时采用的方式是在《邦联条例》增加修正案，来赋予邦联政府更多权力。然而到了1786年秋天，最后一次修正以失败告终。

Zachary Davis: In order for an amendment to be added to the Articles of Confederation, every state had to agree. But the problem was that they didn’t all agree, so Congress called for a general convention in Philadelphia in the spring of 1787 to figure out what could be done and how to revise the articles.

扎克里·戴维斯：要想在《邦联条例》增加一条修正案，就必须经过各州的同意。但并非所有州都同意添加。于是1787年春天，联邦议会在费城召开了一次大会，想要探讨怎么做、如何修正条例。

Zachary Davis: 70 state delegates were invited to the convention. 15 of them turned down the invitation because they had gone to these conventions before, and they didn’t really see any progress. They thought this convention would be more of the same. But lots of delegates did attend, and they all had similar ideas.

扎克里·戴维斯：70位州代表被邀请参会，其中15人拒绝了邀请。他们之前参加过类似的会议，没有看到任何进展。他们认为这次也一样会徒劳无果。不过还是有很多代表出席了。他们都怀有一些类似的想法。

Jonathan Gienapp: The people who end up in Philadelphia are to a significant, disproportionate degree, nationalist, national minded people who want significant, far reaching reform. So May of 1787, the delegates begin to descend. There are 55 of them from 12 states. Rhode Island does not send delegates. Rhode Island is kind of the problem child of the 18th century, if you will.

乔纳森·吉纳普：最终来到费城的很多都是联邦主义者，想要一场重大、深远的改革。1787年5月，来自12个州的55位代表陆续到达费城。罗德岛没有派出代表。如果你愿意的话，可以把18世纪的罗德岛看作一个问题儿童。

Jonathan Gienapp: So the other delegates show up and some of the delegates think it is just going to be. Let's talk about revising the Articles of Confederation. That's that's more or less what Congress established as the mandate. But the nationalists in the meantime, have settled on a new plan led by the Virginia and Pennsylvania delegations. which says rather than revise the articles, let's just have a new system of government.

乔纳森·吉纳普：代表们出席了会议。一些代表以为他们只是讨论一下如何修正《邦联条例》。但与此同时，由弗吉尼亚州和宾夕法尼亚州代表牵头的联邦主义者们已经制定了一个全新的方案。他们说，与其修正条例，不如建立一个新的政府体系。

Zachary Davis: In May of 1787, James Madison proposed The Virginia Plan. This plan suggested that each state be represented based on population and that the federal government should have three branches. It was a bold plan, but it set the terms of debate.

扎克里·戴维斯：1787年5月，詹姆斯·麦迪逊等人提出了“弗吉尼亚方案”。方案建议，各州在联邦政府的代表人数应按照各州人口比例分配，联邦政府应当有三个分支。这是个非常大胆的计划，但它为制宪会议中的辩论提供了条款基础。

Jonathan Gienapp: There are lots of ways you can understand the word revise. We were sent here to revise the articles. Deleting it and writing something new is a very, you know, a very liberal understanding of of revise. But, you know, it's a classic example of agenda setting and how, you know, if you want to win an argument, you set the terms of debate, you set the agenda.

乔纳森·吉纳普：“修订”这个词有很多种解读。代表们被派到这儿是为了修改条例。而把条例推翻、写一部新的法案可谓是对“修订”这个词的全新解读。不过这也是制定议程的经典策略。如果你想赢得一场辩论，你就得先把条款、议程都定下来。

Jonathan Gienapp: By seizing, by unexpectedly framing the conversation in these terms about not whether they should be revising the articles, but whether they have authority to be doing what the Virginia plan is saying. It's able to create a new kind of conversation where ultimately the delegates are willing to give in the majority of them and say, yeah, we you know, the problems of union are so extreme that we should be having this debate over the Virginia plan. It's able to set the terms of debate very effectively.

乔纳森·吉纳普：在出人意料间，麦迪逊等人把讨论带向了这些条款。他们不再讨论是否应该修订条例，而是探讨起了有没有权力做“弗吉尼亚方案”中提到的事情。部分代表最终心甘情愿地听从了大多数的意见，承认联邦的问题非常严重，应当把“弗吉尼亚方案”纳入到辩论中。一场全新的讨论应运而生。辩论的条款有效地确立了下来。

Jonathan Gienapp: The remainder of the convention in many ways, is about how the Virginia plan, which is very nationalist, very dramatic, will give the national government extraordinary amounts of energy, is compromised down or whittled down into the final document.

乔纳森·吉纳普：制宪会议后面的辩论大多围绕着“弗吉尼亚方案”展开。方案有着非常浓厚的联邦主义色彩，赋予了联邦政府很多权力。在辩论中，联邦主义者不得不在有些条款上做出让步。这些让步后的条款被写入了最终的宪法。

Jonathan Gienapp: So the constitutional convention, the first day they have quorum is May 25th, 1787, they end up signing the document that they agreed to on September 17th, 1787. So it's four months, three and a half months of prolonged debate, which really is over. The terms of debate that the Virginia plan sets.

乔纳森·吉纳普：1787年5月25日，制宪会议正式召开；9月17日，代表们签署并通过了文件。围绕“弗吉尼亚方案”展开的长达三个半月的辩论结束了。

Zachary Davis: James Madison was a key figure, not only in helping to establish the Constitution but also in documenting the process.

扎克里·戴维斯：詹姆斯·麦迪逊是一个关键人物，他不仅推动了1787年宪法的出台，也记录了制宪会议的全过程。

Jonathan Gienapp: The reason we know anything about the debates at the constitutional convention in Philadelphia is because of James Madison. He took notes on the debates. A few other delegates took notes, but they're nowhere near as detailed and they only covered days here and there. He he's given us the record. It's the most scrutinized primary source in American history. It's the only reason we know anything. The official convention journal merely took down proposed motions, votes, things of that nature. In terms of what was actually debated, it's Madison's notes.

乔纳森·吉纳普：如今，我们之所以知道费城制宪会议上辩论的内容，是因为有詹姆斯·麦迪逊的记录。其他一些代表也做了会议笔记，但远没有他那么详细，而且他们只到场了几天。而麦迪逊给了我们前后所有详细的记录。这是美国历史上最细致的一手资料，也是我们得以了解制宪会议的唯一原因。官方的会议日志只是记录了提议的动议、投票情况等等，而麦迪逊却记录了辩论的实际内容。

Jonathan Gienapp: So we can't help but see the making of the Constitution through Madison's eyes. This has led from the 1820s on Madison to be referred to as the father of the Constitution. But if we then draw from that, that he was the primary author of the Constitution or most responsible for what got in, that would be a big mistake. Ultimately, the Constitution was the product of the whole delegation.

乔纳森·吉纳普：所以我们不禁通过麦迪逊的视角来观察美国宪法的制定过程。也正因此，从19世纪20年代起，麦迪逊就被称为“美国宪法之父”。但如果我们因此而把他看作宪法的主要作者、或是宪法内容的最大贡献者，那就大错特错了。宪法终归是整个代表团的功劳。

Jonathan Gienapp: It was a perfect example of group writing. Not only were there so many issues going on at once that nobody could really keep on top of all of them. But what the ultimate result was, was a series of compromises that everyone could live with. That was the unique byproduct of a group. It was an act of democratic writing. It was not an act of individual writing.

乔纳森·吉纳普：这是一个团体书写的完美例子。当时许多问题一齐涌现，没有谁能对所有问题都了如指掌。但最终，在妥协的基础上，大家达成了一致意见。这就是团体合作的独特产物，也是以民主的方式进行书写活动的一大实践。它不是个体单打独斗的结果。

Zachary Davis: As the debates wrapped up, the delegates split into subcommittees, a few of which had particularly influential roles in writing the document itself. The first was the Committee of Detail, which was tasked with compiling the results of the debates into a first draft of the Constitution.

扎克里·戴维斯：主要辩论结束后，代表们分成了几个组委员会。有几个组委员会在撰写宪法的过程中很有影响力。其中之一是细节委员会，它的任务是将辩论的结果汇编成宪法初稿。

Jonathan Gienapp: If you have a chance to write this first draft, you are not merely writing up what people have agreed to. The act of putting it together is an extraordinary creative act that involves an enormous amount of discretion. So even if this committee in theory doesn't have discretion, as a practical matter, it must exercise it and they make a whole bunch of choices that are monumentally important. And the debate for the rest of the convention is about what will stay in or be changed in the committee of detailed draft.

乔纳森·吉纳普：编写宪法初稿并不只是简单地列出人们同意的事项，而是一场颇具创造力的活动，需要委员会自行裁量。即使细节委员会其实在理论上并没有自行裁量的权力，他们也必须行使它，做出很多意义重大的选择。之后的时间里，参会者主要辩论了细节委员会要保留或改变哪些内容。

Jonathan Gienapp: Another committee is the committee on so-called postpone parts towards the end of August. The things they haven't been able to figure out, like, among other things, how will we actually elect the president of the United States? This committee hammers out solutions to a lot of problems that have bogged down the convention over three months.

乔纳森·吉纳普：会议把一些事项推迟到八月底才处理，并专门针对这些待议事项成立了一个委员会。它负责厘清尚未确定的事情，比如说，如何选举美国总统。这些问题让制宪会议在那三个月里踟蹰不前，而该委员会敲定了很多问题的解决方案。

Jonathan Gienapp: And then lastly is the Committee of Style and Arrangement or Committee of Style, which drafts the final draft of the Constitution. And it's again, like the Committee of Detail, a five person committee, but it's basically a committee of one. Gouverneur Morris, this wonderful character who is unforgettable and yet has been forgotten, who, like James Wilson, is a fervent nationalist from the mid-Atlantic and he basically is the committee of style. He's given authority to kind of write the final draft. And he makes a bunch of small, subtle changes that are pretty profound.

乔纳森·吉纳普：最后是风格和整合委员会，又称“风格委员会”。它和细节委员会一样，由五名成员组成，负责宪法的润色和定稿。可以说，这个委员会只有一位最重要的成员，那就是古弗尼尔·莫里斯。他如今却鲜有人知，但在当时却让人印象深刻。他和詹姆斯·威尔逊一样，来自中大西洋地区，是个充满热忱的联邦主义者。他几乎代表了风格委员会，被赋予了定稿的权力，做了许多微妙且精辟的改动。

Jonathan Gienapp: Among other things, he dramatically changes the preamble to the Constitution. It used to be up to that point was we, the people of the United States and lays out all the individual states and he changes it to just we, the people of the United States. He adds a series of objects that we the people in the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, so on and so forth.

乔纳森·吉纳普：他大幅改动了宪法的序言。原来的版本主语是“我们合众国人民”加所有州的名字，他把罗列的州全都删去了，加了一些目标宗旨。于是就有了：“我们合众国人民，为建立更完善的联邦，树立正义……”

Jonathan Gienapp: You know, he makes all these changes that might seem cosmetic but are pretty substantive. So those drafting committees play a real outsized role. And the people who dominate them, like James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris, deserve as much consideration as James Madison, if not more. So if we're really trying to figure out who's playing the biggest role, there's still a lot to be debated there.

乔纳森·吉纳普：他的这些改动看上去似乎都很表面，但其实却触及到了实质。撰写宪法的委员会发挥了框架性的作用。詹姆斯·威尔逊、古弗尼尔·莫里斯理应获得和詹姆斯·麦迪逊一样、乃至更多的重视。如果我们真要弄清楚谁发挥了最大的作用，那确实有很多地方值得商榷。

Zachary Davis: It gets ratified. What's its life afterwards? And I'd be curious to hear like what is the immediate kind of reaction to this document in the U.S., its general success at establishing the new country.

扎克里·戴维斯：宪法通过了。它产生了什么影响？我很想知道在它问世后、在它成功勾勒出一个新的政府体系之后，美国人是什么态度？

Jonathan Gienapp: The Constitution goes public, as I mentioned, in fall of 1787. It precipitates this intense nine month period of ratification, just a big continental wide debate over this constitution and whether it is or is not consistent with the ideals of the American Revolution, ratified by a very slim margin. This is a political fight that the Federalists, those who defend the Constitution, win over the anti federalists. So after that, it's not this moment that we might think of now. Well, everyone can at least agree that the Constitution is legitimate or deserves our respect.

乔纳森·吉纳普：1787年秋天，宪法问世了。之后又经过了紧张的九个月，全国展开了激烈的讨论，探讨这部宪法是否和独立战争的理想相一致。最终，宪法仅仅以微小的差距表决通过。这是一场政治斗争。捍卫宪法的联邦主义者战胜了反联邦主义者。我们可能想不到，直到在那之后，人们才承认了宪法的合法性，承认宪法值得我们尊重。

Jonathan Gienapp: They've just come out of this bitter fight in which nearly half the country was opposed to the Constitution. So you've got these questions of endurance and legitimacy, which are really open ones. Will the American people respect and venerate the constitution that has just been ratified? Will they give it and its new government the support that is needed? The whole reason this government has been brought into being is because it was a time of great crisis in most people's eyes. So those problems haven't gone away. Those now need to be addressed.

乔纳森·吉纳普：在这场激烈的斗争中，近一半的州都反对宪法。当时，对于宪法能否持续、能否批准，没有人能给出肯定的答案。美国人民会尊重、推崇刚刚通过的宪法吗？他们会给予宪法和它所确定的新政府体系所需要的支持吗？多数领导人都觉得当时的美国危机四伏，因而才建立了这个新的体系。但这些危机并没有因为体系的建立消失，它们仍然有待解决。

Jonathan Gienapp: And then in addition to that, you've got all these great uncertainties about what the Constitution itself even is. Is it going to be like the Articles of Confederation or is it going to be radically different? Is it going to be like the state constitutions? So there's sort of big questions about exactly how people should begin to implement and interpret this constitution. Also central questions that don't have easy answers.

乔纳森·吉纳普：除此之外，在宪法自身的内容上，你也没有完全肯定的答案。它是要像《邦联条例》一样，还是完全不同，抑或是像州级法律那样？在如何实施、阐释这部宪法上，人们也有很多疑问。这些都是当时棘手的核心问题。

Zachary Davis: Once the Constitution was ratified, the new government had to be established. James Madison earned a seat in the House of Representatives and helped write the laws that set up the Departments of Treasury, War, Foreign Affairs, and the State Department. But as they’re establishing this new government, they find that there is a lot that the Constitution doesn’t provide instruction for.

扎克里·戴维斯：宪法被批准后，就需要建立新政府。詹姆斯·麦迪逊在众议院获得了一个席位，协助撰写了一系列关于财政部、战争部、外交部、国务院如何建立的法律。然而在建立新政府的过程中，他们发现有很多事情宪法中都没有提及。

Jonathan Gienapp: And it forces them to think through. How do we handle the millions of things that the Constitution is silent on or seems to be silent on? And it requires us to navigate what this document sets in motion in a very real way.

乔纳森·吉纳普：他们不得不思考，要如何处理宪法中没有规定的无数事情。他们必须以切合实际的方式落实宪法所提出的构想。

Jonathan Gienapp: So the 70s, 90s and beyond is marked by these moments of Americans having to figure out how to work their constitution, how to make it work, how to figure out in a very real way. But the act of applying it and interpreting it is also the act of figuring out what you're even trying to do in interpreting it. It's both the debate over interpretation and a debate over the rules of interpretation at the same time.

乔纳森·吉纳普：1770、90年代以及之后，美国人都在思考要如何实施宪法，让它发挥作用，落到实处。在运用、阐释它的同时，你也在弄清楚自己阐释它的时候到底想要做什么。这既是围绕宪法阐释展开的辩论，也是围绕阐释规则展开的辩论。

Zachary Davis: These debates are still alive and well in American culture.

扎克里·戴维斯：这些辩论仍然时常出现在美国文化中。

Jonathan Gienapp: There's something peculiar about American constitutionalism and how it animates American life. There's any number of explanations why, but Americans have a real interest in thinking about not just the Constitution outside of time and space, if you will, but the Constitution as a thing that a group of people in the 18th century laid down that needs to be respected as such.

乔纳森·吉纳普：关于美国宪政主义以及它如何推动了美国社会的发展，有一点很特别。尽管没有人可以明确解释其原因，但美国人的确如此，不但喜欢抛开时代和地域背景去看待宪法，更喜欢把它看作18世纪一群人制定且需要尊重的东西。

Jonathan Gienapp: So the modern debate over constitutional interpretation that's been raging for some time has been between living constitutionalists who think that the Constitution is a living thing, that changes as society changes, that adapts with society and constitutional originalists who think that the Constitution should be interpreted in accordance with its original meaning, the meaning it had when it was first laid down.

乔纳森·吉纳普：在现代，人们一直在争论该如何解释宪法。一派推崇活宪法主义，认为宪法是活的，应当随社会的变化而变化，适应社会的新需求。另一派信奉原旨主义，认为应当根据宪法制定之初的涵义来解读它。

Jonathan Gienapp: So Americans spent a lot of time kind of arguing over whether we're beholden to what the founders, the American founding fathers, if you will, laid down. In a lot of other countries, people from other countries find this strange, that America's sort of fixation with its past veneration for its past, that it would be so caught up in these questions that something like constitutional originalism now, depending upon how you count, a majority of Supreme Court justices are originalists of one kind or another. A huge percentage of judges on the federal judiciary are originalists.

乔纳森·吉纳普：美国人花了很多时间来争论，是否要毕恭毕敬地看待开国元勋们制定的条款。这在很多别的国家的人看来非常奇怪。他们不理解美国为什么极为尊崇过去的条文，被这些问题所困扰，以至于如今出现了宪法原旨主义。最高法院——联邦司法机构的大多数法官都是这样或那样的原旨主义者。当然这取决于你怎么衡量。

Jonathan Gienapp: Originalism is something that has real popular purchase. It is defended in many circles, disproportionately politically conservative, but also a variety of liberal circles. It's an orientation toward the Constitution that calls for sort of returning us to that original moment.

乔纳森·吉纳普：原旨主义在民间也有支持者。很多圈子都赞同原旨主义，绝大部分人是政治保守派，但也有不少是自由派子。这种对宪法的信仰引领着人们回到宪法制定的最初时刻。

Jonathan Gienapp: And I think a lot of this is caught up in the fact the United States is uniquely creedal nation. Unlike other nations, it doesn't have a lot to fall back on that binds it as a nation other than a series of creeds. At a moment of creation, so we have documents, we have people, we have a sort of tradition of a civil religion built around a different kinds of canonical texts and patron saints and people make pilgrimages to go, pay homage to them without anything else to really fall back on, like Germany has the idea of, the German people that stretches way back in time.

乔纳森·吉纳普：我觉得之所以会出现这种观念，很大程度上是美利坚是一个对于文献有深厚信仰的国家。与别的国家不一样，其他国家有许多别的东西可以凝聚整个国家，但美国只可以依赖这一系列文献来让整个国家团结起来。建国时期，我们有许多宣言、法律等文件，有多种经典典籍，当中记录了民间宗教传统和许多圣人的事迹。人们尊崇这些文献，而不倚赖于别的东西，不会像德国人一样有悠久的历史，可以依赖以前的事情来团结自己的国家。

Jonathan Gienapp: I mean, the Americans are really a people made by documents, right? What makes the American people such a diverse group of people that had previously been English? What makes them Americans? They are sort of announced as such, among other places, the first words of the Constitution, we the people of the United States. It's both a recognition of their existence and something that makes them exist, that creates them.

乔纳森·吉纳普：在我看来，美利坚其实是一个由文件组成的民族。是什么让原来是英国人的美国人发展成一个如此多元化的群体？是什么让他们成为了美国人？比如在美国宪法的第一句中，他们被唤作“我们合众国人民”。这既是对这群人存在的认同，也是造就了他们、让他们之所以存在的原因。

Zachary Davis: By learning about where the Constitution comes from, we can more clearly see its original purpose and its flaws. The Constitution provided a document that would help Americans live together, but it also offered a semi-religious origin story based not in blood and soil or monarchy, but reason and rights. But like all religious stories, it continually invites new questions and interpretations.

扎克里·戴维斯：了解了宪法的来历，我们可以更清楚地看到它的初衷和缺陷。宪法确保了美国人可以共同生活在一起，也带来了一个半宗教式的建国故事。这个故事的基础并非血缘、土壤或君主制，而是理性和权利。但就像所有宗教故事一样，它也不断引发着新问题和新解读。

Jonathan Gienapp: We're forced on a regular basis to ask ourselves basically the question of all sort of fundamentalist religions at one way or another will ask. A lot of time has passed. What is the answer? That was then and this is now and we must go forward? Or we have to get back in touch with our roots, we have to return to the beginning and restore things as they were?

乔纳森·吉纳普：我们常常不得不问自己一些原教旨主义者多少会问的问题。这么多年过去了，我们的答案是什么？此时不同于彼时，我们必须向前走？还是回顾最初，把宪法恢复到原来的样子？

Jonathan Gienapp: And if it's going to be some combination, how does that work? How do you keep the Constitution going forward in light of the fact we live in a society that obviously is unimaginable by the standards of the day in which it was written, that relationship, past and present, how they should be related to each other, how you how you maintain one while promoting the other. That's kind of, I think, what the American constitution ultimately is and the influence it's had on the world, bringing that problem as much as any other text might have to the fore.

乔纳森·吉纳普：如果要把过去和当下相结合，要怎么做呢？与宪法制定时的标准相比，如今的社会显然出现了很多想象不到的变化。我们要如何如何推动宪法发展，如何把握过去和当下的关系，把二者联系到一起，既不违背过去，也能推动当下发展。我觉得这就是美国宪法的核心，也是它对世界的影响。它把一个其他文本也可能存在的问题带到了人们的视线中。

Zachary Davis: Writ Large is a production of Ximalaya. Writ Large is produced by Jack Pombriant, Liza French, and me, Zachary Davis. Script editing is by Galen Beebe. We get help from Feiran Du, Ariel Liu, and Monica Zhang. Our theme song is by Ian Coss. Don’t miss an episode. Subscribe today in the Ximalaya app. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

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