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  3. To broaden their voting appeal in the presidential election of 1796, the Federalists selected Thomas Pinckney, a leading South C

To broaden their voting appeal in the presidential election of 1796, the Federalists selected Thomas Pinckney, a leading South C

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问题     To broaden their voting appeal in the presidential election of 1796, the Federalists selected Thomas Pinckney, a leading South Carolinian, as framing mate for the New Englander John Adams. But Pinckney’ s Southern friends chose to ignore their party’ s intentions and regarded Pinckney as a presidential candidate, creating a political situation that Alexander Hamilton was determined to exploit.  Hamilton had long been wary of Adams’ stubbornly independent brand of politics and preferred  to see his running mate, over whom he could exert more control, in the President’s chair.
    The election was held under the system originally established by the Constitution. At that time there was but a single tally, with the candidate receiving the largest number of electoral votes declared  President and the candidate with the second largest number declared Vice-President. Hamilton  anticipated that all the Federalists in the North would vote for Adams and Pinckney equally in an attempt to ensure that Jefferson would not be either first or second in the voting. Pinckney would be solidly supported in the south while Adams, yet both Federalists would outpoll Jefferson.
    Various methods were used to persuade the electors to vote as Hamilton wished. In the press, anonymous articles were published attacking Adams for his monarchial tendencies and Jefferson for being overly democratic, while pushing Pinckney as the only suitable candidate. In private correspondence  with state party leaders the Hamiltonians encouraged the idea that Adams’ popularity was slipping, that he could not win the election, and that the Federalists could defeat Jefferson only by supporting Pinckney.
    Had sectional pride and loyalty not run as high in New England as in the deep south, Pinckney might well have become Washington’ s successor. New Englanders, however, realized that equal votes for Adams and Pinckney in their states would defeat Adams, therefore, eighteen electors scratched Pinckney’ s name from their ballots and deliberately threw away their second votes to men who were not even running. It was fortunate for Adams that they did, for the electors from South Carolina completely abandoned him, giving eight votes to Pinckney and eight to Jefferson.
    In the end, Hamilton’ s interference in Pinckney’ s candidacy lost even the Vice-Presidency of South Carolina. Without New England’ s support, Pinckney received only 59 electoral votes, finishing  third to Adams and Jefferson. He might have been President in 1979, or as Vice-President a serious  contender for the Presidency in 1800; instead, stigmatized by a plot he had not devised, he set wed a brief term in the United States Statute and then dropped from sight as a national influence.
Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
选项 A、Thomas Pinckney had a personal dislike for Jefferson’ s politics.
B、Electors were likely to vote for candidates from their own geographical region.
C、The Hamiltonians contacted key Southern leaders to persuade them to vote for Adams.
D、The Federalists regarded themselves as more democratic than Jefferson.
答案B
解析 从文中可以明显看出，在投票过程中，人们的地方主义思想起了主导作用。 Pinckney的失败也正是因为New England的人们对Adams的忠心和支持。
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