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 running 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 nm 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 served a brief term in the United States Senate and then dropped from sight as a national influence.
The overall development of the passage can best be described as ______.

选项 A、refuting possible explanations for certain phenomena
B、documenting a thesis with specific examples
C、offering an explanation of the series of events
D、making particular proposals to solve a problem

答案C

解析 整篇文章实际上说了一个事件即Pinckney大选失败的原因,其中加进了作者的许多分析和说明,阐述了作者的一些看法和观点,如it was fortunate for Adams that they did及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.而不仅仅是陈述一个事例,因此此题选C合适,即对一系列的事件做出解释。
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