The Giant Raft

That freedom was a right, that the very first of the natural rights of man was to be free and to belong only to himself, would seem to be self-evident, and yet thousands of years had to pass before the glorious thought was generally accepted, and the nations of the earth had the courage to proclaim it.

自由是权利，是人最基本、最自然的权利，意味着自由并只属于他自己，这似乎是不言而喻的。然而，数千年后，这一光辉思想才被普遍接受，地球上的国家才有勇气宣布它。

The day was not far distant when the magnificent country, into which could be put three-quarters of the continent of Europe, would no longer count a single slave among its ten millions of inhabitants.

不久的将来，这个辽阔的国家，其面积可以容纳欧洲大陆的四分之三，将不再有奴隶在其一千万居民中。