"If war among the whites brought peace and liberty to blacks,

"如果白人们的战争为黑人带来了自由和平
what will peace among the whites bring?"

那么白人之间的和睦又会给黑人带来什么呢
What would peace among the whites bring?

白人之间的和睦又会给黑人带来什么呢
It's a way of shaping an overall question,

这是一句对于全局的提问
and Douglass did it for us,

道格拉斯为我们提了出来
as to how and why Reconstruction ended up eroding,

这是关于战后重建最终是怎样腐化
collapsing if you want,

或者说崩塌
failing as some say--ending

失败的或者有人说的终结
Now one of the things we're going to begin to examine today,

今天我们要解决的一个问题
and the rest of the course, is this question--

也是到课程结束我们要讨论的
sorry to keep putting the outline back up--

不好意思大纲有点看不清
but we are always, as historians, debating this question of ends

我们历史学家一直都在争论什么是结束