what the whole terrible thing might have even been about.

这个恐怖事件的根本原因
And at the end of a magnificent speech he gave

在一次老兵聚会中所作精彩演讲的末尾
at a veterans reunion he said this:

他这样说道
"The Civil War"--this is Frederick Douglass--

"内战" 弗雷德里克·道格拉斯说
"Was not a fight between rapacious birds and ferocious beasts,

"不是一场贪婪的猛禽与恶兽之间的战斗
a mere display of brute courage and endurance,

仅仅展示了凶残的勇气与坚韧
it was a war between men of thought, as well as of action,

它是一场思想家实干家之间的战争
and in dead earnest for something beyond the battlefield."

并且他们坚信战场以外的某种事情"
He went on and on and on

他接着讲了一大推
then to declare that the war had been about ideas,

然后宣布这场战争是关于信念的
and he described the difference between those ideas,

然后阐述了那些信念的区别
as he put it, was the difference between,

如他所说它们之间差别就是