尽管政治气氛分裂，人群仍和平聚集在 250 周年庆典上

【中美创新时报2025 年 4 月 20 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）在这个分裂严重、对政治日益愤怒的国家，数以万计的人于周六上午和平聚集在列克星敦绿地周围，见证 250 年前一场战役的重演，这场战役引发了这个国家漫长而曲折的民主进程。《波士顿环球报》记者亚伦·普雷斯曼对此作了下述报道。

在黎明前的寒意中，就在最高法院 根据 1798 年建国初期的法律阻止总统驱逐移民几个小时后，人群为当地民兵欢呼，向英国正规军发出嘘声。

有些人戴着红袜队的帽子，有些人戴着支持“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）的帽子，但他们基本上没有谈论政治。两处为抗议者预留的大型围栏区域几乎空无一人（尽管本周早些时候有传言称，极右翼极端组织“骄傲男孩”已获得参加活动的许可）。

列克星敦居民莉娜·辛格是少数抗议者之一，她跨坐在黄色金属栅栏上，举着一块写着“爱国者不容忍暴政”的牌子。这位50多岁的辛格说，她想提醒人们这个国家建立的原因。

“当务之急是让人民，让全体公民认识到权力在人民手中，”她说。“总统，我们选出的代表，他们都对人民负责。公民需要认识到自己的权力。”

州长莫拉·希利 (Maura Healey) 在附近康科德的重演活动上发表演讲时更直接地阐述了这种联系。

“我们正处于这样一个时刻，我们的自由再次受到来自国家最高权力机构的攻击，”希利说道，但他没有点名特朗普总统。“我们看到的，正是我们革命前辈们熟悉的景象：压制批评者，让民众从街头消失，要求他们绝对忠诚。”

现任总统以及在世的前任总统都于周六受邀前往列克星敦，但无一人出席。

马萨诸塞州州长和深蓝党的居民将殖民时代的争议与共和党总统领导下的现状联系起来，这或许并不令人意外。但是，随着纪念独立战争后期事件的250周年庆典将焦点转向南方各州和农村地区，支持特朗普的人群可能会强调重获自由的其他方面。

周六黎明时分，列克星敦响起枪声，标志着为期一天的美国独立战争战役纪念活动的开始。

但研究战争史的学者们最近也听到了这场冲突的回响。

退休的东北历史教授威廉·福勒 (William Fowler) 认为，华盛顿特区中央政府不断发出威胁，而内陆地区官员则表现出反抗，这与殖民时代有着相似之处。

“确实有一些相似之处，”福勒说道，他同时也是马萨诸塞州历史学会的会长。“这次肯定不像1775年那么严重。我们宪法确实有机制来调整和解决公民与政府之间的纠纷。”

事实上，就在重演几个小时后，数千名抗议者在马萨诸塞州和全国各地举行了一系列有组织的示威活动，行使这些权利，反对特朗普政府，示威者举着“美国，没有国王”等标语。

希勒·佐贝尔曾任马萨诸塞州高等法院法官，著有一本关于波士顿大屠杀的书。他表示，他一直在思考特朗普的关税以及英国对殖民地征收的税收，这些税收引发了最初反对王室的抗议活动。

“毫无疑问，关税就是税，”这位93岁的退休法学家说道。在两个时代，关税或许都能筹集偿还债务所需的资金。但佐贝尔表示，他并不认为关税能够改善贸易惯例，也不认为关税能够团结民众——这一点在当时和现在都同样重要。

他说：“关税不是解决问题的办法。”

周六在列克星敦举行的重演包括战前逃亡活动，其中展示了约翰·汉考克的机密文件。汉考克在冲突前夜出席，后来主持了大陆会议并签署了《独立宣言》，其中列举了乔治国王对殖民地犯下的罪行。

特朗普在椭圆形办公室里挂了一份建国文献的副本。但加州大学洛杉矶分校历史学家卡拉·佩斯塔纳表示，他的一些举动与英国君主的举动如出一辙。

佩斯塔纳指出，该宣言指控国王阻碍移民和入籍、切断贸易和征收关税、剥夺陪审团审判权以及“将我们流放到海外接受虚假罪行的审判”。

“宣言中列出的指控引起了共鸣，”她说。

这种共鸣可能已经延伸到一些评估特朗普行为的法官身上，特别是在一些法官用来评估当前宪法自由状况的语言上。

例如，联邦上诉法院小组周四作出的裁决中，呼应了宪法制定者的强硬语气，该裁决重申特朗普政府必须将一名被错误驱逐出境的男子遣返回萨尔瓦多的一所监狱。

《独立宣言》宣称人人生而平等的真理是“不言而喻的”，而上诉法院的法官 J. 哈维·威尔金森 (J. Harvie Wilkinson) 在判决中则诉诸“远离法院的美国人仍然珍视的直觉自由感”。

但是，尽管《独立宣言》中高尚的语言以对建国文件背后理想的团结承诺结束，威尔金森也警告了持续分裂的风险。

“行政部门可能暂时成功削弱法院，但随着时间的推移，历史将书写过去与未来之间的悲剧性差距，而法律最终也将签署其墓志铭。”

随后，他在长达七页的裁决书中总结道：“我们仍然抱有希望，相信我们行政部门的同胞们认为法治对美国精神至关重要并非天真。本案为他们提供了一个独特的机会，让他们能够证明这一价值观，并在还有时间的时候，唤醒我们内心最美好的一面。”

周六早上，在康科德老北桥，65岁的退休人员柯南·沃尔特举着一块牌子，上面写着“立即停止法西斯主义”和“我们人民”。他的衬衫上还印着另一条信息：“没有人投票给埃隆·马斯克。”

一位女士走近他并说道：“法西斯主义于 1 月 20 日停止了。”

“你这么认为？”沃尔特回答道。

“我愿意。”

“嗯，我们的观点存在分歧，而这正是我要努力保持的，”沃尔特说。

几分钟后，另一名女子走近沃尔特，看到他站在桥上的标语牌，与他碰拳并说道：“好吧，兄弟。”

沃尔特耸了耸肩。

“每次互动都会有所不同，”他说。

历史学家福勒曾于 20 世纪 60 年代担任民兵国家历史公园的管理员，他认为重演这些事件是思考冲突和分歧的机会。

“对很多人来说，这是一个值得深思的时刻，认真思考一下，真的有人在这里死去，”他说。“而且在这一切结束之前，成千上万的人将死去。这值得深思。这值得深思。”

《波士顿环球报》的肖恩·科特 (Sean Cotter) 和丹尼·麦克唐纳 (Danny McDonald) 对本文亦有贡献。

题图：周六，在康科德250周年北桥纪念仪式上，与会者在人群上方举起了一块标语牌。这场纪念活动标志着250年前独立战争的爆发，莱克星顿和康科德爆发了第一场小规模冲突。Craig F. Walker/《环球报》员工

附原英文报道：

Crowds gather peacefully at 250th anniversary celebrations despite divided political climate

By Aaron Pressman Globe Staff,Updated April 19, 2025 

Attendees raised a sign above the crowd during the Concord250 North Bridge Ceremony Saturday. The event marked the beginning of the Revolutionary War 250 years ago, with the first skirmishes in Lexington and Concord.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff

In a country deeply divided and increasingly angry about politics, tens of thousands of people gathered peacefully around the Lexington Green on Saturday morning to witness the reenactment of a battle 250 years ago that set off the nation’s lengthy but staggered embrace of democracy.

In the predawn chill, just hours after the Supreme Court blocked the president from deporting immigrants under a law dating to 1798 during the country’s formative years, the crowd cheered the local Minutemen and booed the British regulars.

Some wore Red Sox hats, some wore MAGA hats, but they largely left their politics at home. Two vast fenced areas set aside for protesters were nearly empty (despite rumors earlier in the week that the far right extremist group the Proud Boys had been issued a permit to attend).

Lexington resident Lena Singh was one of the few protesters, sitting astride the yellow metal fencing, holding a sign that read “Patriots don’t tolerate tyranny.” Singh, in her mid 50s, said she wanted to remind people why the country was founded.

“The first order of business is for people, the citizenry, to get the message that power is with the people,” she said. “The president, our elected representatives, they all answer to the people. Citizens need to realize their own power.”

Vignettes from Lexington, Concord: ‘This is our generation’s time,’ Healey says

Crowd boos British troops as they march into Lexington for 250th anniversary

Governor Maura Healey made the connection even more directly in a speech at the reenactment in nearby Concord.

“We live in a moment when our freedoms are once again under attack from the highest office in the land,” Healey said, without mentioning President Trump by name. “We see things that would be familiar to our revolutionary predecessors: the silencing of critics, the disappearing of people from our streets, demands for unquestioning fealty.”

The current president, as well as the living former presidents, were invited to Lexington on Saturday, but none attended.

That the governor and residents of deep blue Massachusetts made a connection between Colonial-era controversies and the current situation under a Republican president may not be surprising. But, as 250th anniversary celebrations to mark events later in the Revolutionary War shift the focus to Southern states and rural areas, pro-Trump crowds may emphasize other aspects of liberties regained.

Retired Northeastern history professor William Fowler saw a parallel to Colonial times amid the constant stream of threats from the central government in Washington D.C., and the defiance from those officials out in the hinterlands.

“There is some similarity,” said Fowler, who also was the director of the Massachusetts Historical Society. “It’s certainly not as serious as 1775. We, with our Constitution, do have the mechanism to adjust and to accommodate disputes amongst our citizens and government.”

Indeed, just hours after the reenactment, thousands of protesters were exercising those rights in a series of organized demonstrations around Massachusetts and across the country against the Trump administration that featured signs such as “USA, no kings.”

Hiller Zobel, a former associate justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts and author of a book on the Boston Massacre, said he had been thinking about Trump’s tariffs and the British taxes imposed on the colonies that contributed to the original protests against the crown.

“There isn’t any question that a tariff is a tax,” the 93-year-old retired jurist said. In both eras, the duties may raise funds needed to pay off debts. But Zobel said he did not see tariffs improving trade practices, and, as important then as now, unifying the populace, either.

“Tariffs are not the way to do it,” he said.

The reenactment in Lexington Saturday included a pre-battle escape with confidential papers of John Hancock, who was present the night before conflict and would go on to preside over the Continental Congress and sign the Declaration of Independence enumerating King George’s offenses against the colony.

Trump has hung a copy of the founding document in the Oval Office. But some of his actions echo those of the British monarch, UCLA historian Carla Pestana said.

The declaration charges the king with obstructing immigration and naturalizations, cutting off trade and imposing tariffs, depriving the right of trial by jury, and “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences,” Pestana noted.

“The declaration’s list of accusations resonates,” she said.

That resonance may have carried over to some of the judges assessing Trump’s actions, particularly in the language some used to assess the current state of constitutional liberties.

For example, there were echoes of the sonorous tones of the framers in the decision Thursday from a federal appeals court panel reaffirming the Trump administration must return a man it acknowledged has been mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador.

Where the Declaration of Independence proclaimed the truth that all men are created equal was “self evident,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson in the appeals court decision appealed to “the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

But, while the elevated language in the Declaration concluded with a pledge of unity to the ideals behind the founding document, Wilkinson warned of the risk of continued division.

“The Executive may succeed for a time in weakening the courts, but over time history will script the tragic gap between what was and all that might have been, and law in time will sign its epitaph.”

He then concluded his seven-page decision: “We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.

At the old North Bridge in Concord on Saturday morning, Conan Walter, a 65-year-old retiree, was holding a sign that read “Stop fascism now” and “We the people.” His shirt had another message: “No one votes for Elon Musk.”

One woman approached and him and said, “Fascism stopped on Jan. 20.”

“You think so?” replied Walter.

“I do.”

“Well, we have a difference of opinion, and that’s what I’m fighting to keep,” said Walter.

Minutes later, a different woman approached Walter and his sign on that bridge, fist-bumped him and said “Hell yeah, brother.”

Walter shrugged.

“Every interaction is going to be different,” he said.

Fowler, the historian, was a park ranger at Minute Man National Historical Park in the 1960s and values the reenactments as an opportunity to meditate on conflict and disagreement.

“It is a moment of meditation for many people to really think, really think for a minute, that people actually died here,” he said. “And before this was over, many thousands of people would die. That’s something to meditate about. That is something to think about.”

Sean Cotter and Danny McDonald of the Globe staff contributed to this story.