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  3. It has been challenging for most twentieth-century American policy-makers to recapture the memory of the early United States, Co

It has been challenging for most twentieth-century American policy-makers to recapture the memory of the early United States, Co

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问题     It has been challenging for most twentieth-century American policy-makers to recapture the memory of the early United States, Constitution and all, as a revolutionary force—to ascertain, in other words, the original motives of our founding fathers. The argument that the war was a revolution is essentially universal among the progressives like Turner, Becket, and Jameson, who argue that the war was fought for, or at least caused, greater democracy in the colonies, and generally agree that the war was a true revolution, not simply a rejection of British tyranny.
    Though this may be true—wars do tend to terminate Old Orders and ancient regimes — it is hardly a singular observation regarding the American Revolution. A more salient hypothesis is that the fight for greater democracy spawned not so much from a desire for change as an affirmation of the existing order. Those gaining votes and other social privileges only wished to profit from the existing system—these were no sans culottes beheading kings and aristocrats as the Frenchmen did in their frenzied Terror and Englishmen who desired home governance, at first seeking to preserve local autonomy and loyalty to the King, not to Parliament.
    It was only after the initial conflict that the revolutionaries slipped into the position of demanding sovereignty. Classwise, those ruling in 1770 also held power in 1790, while the Parliament, a bicameral legislature, was replaced by the Congress, another bicameral legislature and the King supplanted by a President, who could very easily have maintained his position for life. This nearly created a tradition that the head-of-state-for-life would be chosen without the benefit of heredity, a disastrous case suffered by twentieth-century Ugandans under Idi Amin. Furthermore, only propertied white males had suffrage, both before and after the war, and the end of slavery was not exactly accelerated by the war, though there were a few relatively minor gains for blacks. Meanwhile, the economic system was not altered, nor was the class structure, except to forbid a nobility that in any case had only a nominal existence in the colonies before the war.
    What the colonists sought was control to which they had already been accustomed. Parliament was not in the colonists "chain of command" in 1700, and for the House of Commons to attempt to place itself there was seen as a loss to the colonists. Alteration was what they resisted, not what the sought;they largely felt that they were resisting an invasion of their political birthright, not that they were breaking bold new political ground, and therefore, it would be very convincing to argue that the war was fought as a reactionary response, not as a radical one.
The author mentions all of the following as evidence that the revolutionary colonists were more intent upon expanding their roles in the old power order than in creating a new one EXCEPT:
选项 A、The system of commerce implemented after the revolution was relatively similar to the one that existed before it.
B、They established a chain of executive command which strongly resembled that which was in place before the revolution.
C、Their only attempt to change class structure was to outlaw the development of an aristocracy.
D、They maintained the same exclusive and undemocratic system of suffrage that existed prior to the war.
答案A
解析 细节题。解题点在文章第三段。文章提到“those ruling in 1770 also held power in 1790，while theParliament，a bicameral legislature，was replaced by the Congress，another bicameral legislature and the Kingsupplanted by a President”，说明革命后的体制与革命前很像，因此选项B正确；由“only propertied white maleshad suffrage，both before and after the war”知，战争前后都只是有钱的白人男性才有选举权，故选项D正确；由“the economic system was not altered，nor Was the class structure，except to forbid a nobility that in any case hadonly a nominal existence in the colonies before the war”知，对于社会阶级的改革只限于取消了贵族特权，故选项C正确。A选项中的商业改革原文中没有提及，所以正确答案是A选项。
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