the origins of centralized power,

集权的起源
the origins of what seemed to be the death of state's rights;

终止州政府的特权的起源
but it surely didn't die, did it?

但很明显它并没有终止对吗
We have a state's rights Supreme Court now,

我们现在有州政府权利的最高法院
in case you didn't notice.

可能你没注意到这点
The birth of a kind of modernity in America,

美国现代性的诞生
in many forms, comes out of this era

在许多方面都来自于这个时期
It doesn't just come out of the Battle of Gettysburg

它不一定是来自葛底斯堡战役
but it surely comes out of the era.

但一定来自于这个时期
There's also this sense in which, somehow,

内战这段历史的另一意义是
in that experience of the Civil War in the middle of the nineteen century

在十九世纪中期的内战中
--fought for the existence of an American nation

在这场为美国一个民族生存而战