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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.
According to the passage, Turner, Becker, and Jameson have done which of the following? I . They failed to acknowledge the colonists’ desire to affirm the existing order as a principal motive behind the American Revolution. II. They have emphasized, but not sufficiently, the concept of the American Revolution as a genuine revolution. III. As a group they have failed to reach agreement on the root causes of the American Revolution.
选项 A、I and II only
B、II only
C、I only
D、II and III only
答案A
解析 观点态度题目。解题点在第一段和第二段。第一段中提到“The argument that the war was arevolution is essentially universal among the progressives like Turner,Becket，and Jameson…generally agree thatthe war was a true revolution…”，据此可知Turner,Becket和Jameson等人就美国独立战争打响的原因有着共同的认识，并且承认这场战争是真正的革命，因此观点Ⅲ是错误的。第二段中提到“Though this may betrue…from a desire for change as an affirmation of the existing order…”，表明革命者们未认识到保留现有制度的愿望，因此观点I和Ⅱ是正确的。综上可知，正确的答案是A选项。
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