譯者 | 鄒依佳 中國政法大學本科
一審 | Ellen Chen 康奈爾大學
二審 | 劉 寅 UCLA LLM
編輯 | 陳珏雯 西南政法大學本科
loca. 中國社會科學院大學碩士
責編 | 扎恩哈爾 新疆農業大學本科
The University of Chicago Law Review Volume 91.3, Number 4 | May 2024
《芝加哥法律評論》第91.3卷第4期
“Federalisms” and Union: The Interbellum Constitution
“聯邦制”與聯盟：間戰期憲法
Annette Gordon-Reed
In her latest book, The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms, Professor Alison LaCroix suggests that the period between 1815 and 1861 in the United States has too often been treated as “the flyover country of constitutional history.” What was happening on the constitutional front during those years, sandwiched between what is often seen as the true end of the American Revolutionary era—the War of 1812, when the United States fought its last battles with its former colonial overseer, Great Britain—and the transformative days of the U.S. Civil War when the U.S. Constitution was remade, is what LaCroix means by the phrase “The Interbellum Constitution.”
艾莉森·拉克魯瓦（Alison LaCroix）教授在其最新著作《間戰期憲法：聯邦制時代的聯盟、商業和奴隸制》（The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms）中指出，1815年至 1861年間的美國常被視作“憲法史上的飛越之地”。拉克魯瓦所稱“間戰期憲法”，是指一段特定時間內憲法方面發生的事宜，即，夾在常被視作美國革命時代真正終結的1812年戰爭（美國在這場戰爭中與前殖民國英國進行了最後的戰鬥），和美國重新制定憲法的內戰變革時期之間的那幾年。
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She asserts that this time should be the subject of greater consideration because this “period…witnessed a transformation in American constitutional law and politics.” Contrary to “the conventional story,” it was a “foundational era of both constitutional crisis and self-conscious creativity.”
她認為，這一時期應該成為更多思考的主題，因為這是“……見證了美國憲法和憲治的變革的時期”。與“老生常談”相反，這是一個“憲法危機與自覺創造並存的奠基時代”。
To make her case, LaCroix offers “five central claims about the nature of the Interbellum Constitution,” and the book considers each in detail. The first claim carves out the years of 1815 to 1861 as a “distinct period” that was not, as she asserts it is too often treated, merely a “gap between the constitutional landmarks of the founding era and the Civil War.” In her second claim she identifies the “two conventional stories about constitutional debates in the period between 1815 and 1861” and says that they are both essentially wrong.
為證明觀點，拉克魯瓦提出了“關於間戰期憲法性質的五個核心主張”，書中對每個主張都進行了詳細論述。第一個主張將1815年至1861年劃分為一個“獨特的時期”，她並不認為這像常稱的、僅僅是“建國時期的憲法里程碑與內戰之間的空白”。在第二個主張中，她提及“關於1815年至1861年期間憲法辯論的兩種傳統說法”，並指出這兩種說法本質上都是錯誤的。
One story depicts a “binary federalism” that “frames all disputes about the structure of the American union as contests about the power of the general government versus the states.” The second story associates the assertion of federal power with liberty, as the federal government was seen as an enemy, or a potential enemy, of slavery. At the same time, “[s]tate power [ ] in its many incarnations (states’ rights, state sovereignty, localism) is seen as tending toward—perhaps even necessarily tied to—protections for slavery and limits on freedom, in particular the freedom of Black people.”
一個故事描述了“將所有關於美國聯邦結構的爭議都歸結為聯邦政府與各州之間的權力之爭”的“二元聯邦制”。第二個故事將聯邦權力的主張與自由聯絡在一起，因為聯邦政府被視為奴隸制明面或潛在的敵人。同時，“以多種形式出現的州權力（州權利、州主權、地方主義）被視為傾向於——或許甚至必然與——保護奴隸制和限制自由，尤其是黑人的自由聯絡在一起”。
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There is little wonder that historians and other observers of this period, writing in the latter half of the twentieth century, would characterize the difference between the federal and state governments in this fashion. Historians are always writing in a particular social context and are almost inevitably influenced by the events taking place around them. It is important, therefore, that the twentieth century was the era of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
20 世紀後半葉的歷史學家和其他觀察家在撰寫這一時期的文章時，會以這種方式描述聯邦政府和州政府之間的差異，這一點也不足為奇。歷史學家總是在特定的社會背景下寫作，難以避免受到周圍事件的影響，因此，20世紀的現代民權運動時代就顯得尤其重要。
Many of the people of the Southern states—politicians and ordinary citizens—were recalcitrant in the face of federal laws and court decisions mandating the end of de jure segregation in the South and other measures taken to ensure that African Americans had equal rights before the law in the United States. They made arguments based upon a version of federalism that tracked many of the arguments made during the period of which LaCroix writes. It is significant that the point of controversy often centered on the question of race: What was to be done with the African Americans who, in the early nineteenth century and the twentieth century, were outside the polity if they were enslaved, and treated as mere denizens rather than true citizens of the Republic if they were free?
聯邦法律和法院判決要求結束南方從前的法定的種族隔離，並採取其他措施確保非裔美國人在美國法律面前享有平等權利。但對此，南方各州的許多人——包括政治家和普通公民——頑固不化。他們論點的提出所依據的聯邦主義版本，同樣可以追蹤拉克魯瓦所寫時期的許多論點。重要的是，爭議的焦點往往集中在種族問題上：在19和20世紀初，非洲裔美國人如果是奴隸，則處於政體之外；如果是自由人，也只被視為純粹的居民，而非共和國的真正公民。
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LaCroix’s third claim is that the era of the Interbellum Constitution was one in which the idea of “concurrent power” flourished, and indeed it was “uniquely central to” the constitutional discourse of the time. This separates this period from both “the founding era” and “the post-Civil War regime.” Her fourth claim expands upon her take on concurrent power, saying that the concept was very much a part of the discourse on the federal commerce power during this period of the nineteenth century. Indeed, commerce was “[t]he primary terrain on which interbellum struggles over federalism unfolded.”
拉克魯瓦的第三個主張是，間戰期憲法時代是“共同權力”思想蓬勃發展的時代，而且它的確是當時憲法論述的“獨特核心”。這將這一時期與“建國階段”和“後內戰政權”區分開來。她的第四個主張展開對共同權力的觀點，稱這一概念在很大程度上是關於19世紀的這一時期中聯邦商業權力論述的一部分。事實上，商業是“閉會期間聯邦主義鬥爭展開的主要舞臺”。
LaCroix’s final claim is about the nature of the American Union during this moment in history. Americans today may see the Union as an entity that existed in a recognizable form from the very start. But it should not surprise that the specific contours of the concept of union were not set in stone in the immediate decades after the Union was formed. There were, LaCroix notes, “many and varied meanings of the concept of ‘union’ in this period.”18 For this reason, it is a mistake to base historical under standings on a single definition of the term. “The emotional, moral, and constitutional heft of the phrase ‘the Union’ was, like so much else in this period, contested and fragile. For many interbellum observers, the Union was simply inadequate.”
拉克魯瓦的最後一個主張是關於美國聯邦在這一歷史時刻的性質。今天的美國人可能會將聯邦視為一個從一開始就以可識別形式存在的實體。但聯邦概念的具體輪廓在聯邦成立後的幾十年裡並沒有定型，這一點不足為奇。拉克魯瓦指出，“在這一時期，‘聯盟’這一概念有許多不同的含義。”因此，將歷史地位建立在對這一術語的單一定義之上是錯誤的。“在這一時期，‘聯邦’一詞在情感、道德和憲法方面的影響力與其他許多方面一樣，是有爭議的，也是脆弱的。對於許多閉會期間的觀察家來說，聯邦根本不夠格”。
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The Interbellum Constitution reminds us of the important insights that have helped transform the historiography of the early American Republic, of slavery, and of relations between European settlers and Indigenous Peoples. Historians and other scholars during the latter half of the twentieth century discovered the importance of moving beyond “great man” history to tell a richer and more truthful story about the past. The story LaCroix tells is not entirely unknown, but her signal contribution is to look beyond the “great man,” “great case” perspective on the years after the War of 1812 and before the Civil War. By mining the archive for information, she expands our understanding of the range of ideas about union, federalism, and sovereignty. As we live in a time, when all of these concepts, in a different context, in a much different world, are still very much at issue, her intervention is timely.
《間戰期憲法》提醒我們，一些重要的見解有助於改變有關美國早期共和國、奴隸制以及歐洲定居者與土著人民之間關係的史學。20世紀後半葉，歷史學家和其他學者發現了超越“偉人”歷史的重要性，從而講述了更豐富、更真實的歷史故事。拉克魯瓦講述的故事並非無人知曉，但她的重要貢獻在於超越了“偉人”“偉大案例”的視角，對1812年戰爭之後和南北戰爭之前的歲月進行了研究。透過挖掘檔案中的資訊，她拓展了我們對有關聯盟、聯邦制和主權的各種觀點的理解。在我們所處的時代，所有這些概念在不同的背景下，在一個大不相同的世界裡，仍然存在很大爭議，她的寫作是及時雨。
原文連結：
https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/print-archive/federalisms-and-union-interbellum-constitution