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How Did Ancient Rome Influence The Constitution

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To what extent did Ancient Rome influence the formation of America and its constitution?

By observing Ancient Rome, the founding fathers were able to form a country that would thrive for the coming centuries. Beginning in 625 BC, Ancient Rome made considerable leaps in how people lived. Forming new governments, and expanding the economy, Rome changed the world to a great extent. These changes influenced most parts of the world including America. Ancient Rome inspired so many aspects of America during its creation but the most notable were its influence on the Constitution, system of government, and architecture. Ancient Rome influenced the formation of America to a great extent. When the founding fathers created the constitution, they …show more content…

On March 9, 1789 the constitution went into effect and America officially became a republic. A republic is a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law. Within this republic was a senate which was also originally a Roman idea. “Rome still has lessons that can guide our republic. Polybius, a Greek who saw Rome’s republic conquer the world, believed those statesmen and citizens who knew Roman history could shape the future with wisdom and justice. This is what the Founders did, adapting the lessons of Rome to new problems” Comparing the way the US government was created, and the way the Ancient Roman government functioned you will find countless similarities. Not only were the Founding Fathers able to avoid tyranny, similar to what happened to countries like France, but they also created a stable government that would continue functioning hundreds of years …show more content…

Many American architects in the 18th and 19th centuries looked to classical Roman architecture as a source of inspiration for their own designs. The White House and U.S. Capitol share similar architectural styles to that of Roman buildings like the Coliseum which has been standing for nearly 2000 years, and the Pantheon. “More recently, many official buildings built in the US are very strongly influenced by Roman architecture. The most obvious is the White House, which displays Roman influences in the arches and columns on the exterior” The Romans were skilled engineers and builders. They used advanced construction techniques such as arches, domes, and vaults to distribute weight and stress evenly throughout a building, which helped to prevent collapse.Once again, something that derives from Ancient Rome that is very eminent in the US is the architecture, which played a much bigger role in the development of America than most would

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The United States of America’s Constitution, written and ratified in 1787, and it has shaped the U.S. to what it is today. After many attempts at making a government for the young country, the Constitution was made. One of the first documented government was the Articles of Confederation. The Articles did not have much power. For instance, It could not tax, and it gave more power to the State governments instead of the National governments.

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Believe it or not, the Constitution was not America 's first form of government. Our country started out with the Articles of Confederation, which were...shall we say... less than perfect. They gave the states much more power than the central government, due to a pervasive fear of strong central governments. This fear stemmed from the reign of the tyrannical King George III, and the founding fathers did not want to give their country the ability to establish another monarchy. In the Articles of Confederation, the central government had no power to tax, regulate trade or commerce, enforce laws, settle disputes between states.

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Many Americans today many not be the most familiar with ancient Greek and Roman history but our founding fathers certainly were and in “their quest to match the deeds of the ancients the founders became our heros… [t]he founders drove the ancients from their pedestals and occupied their places” (ix). Carl J. Richard seeks to highlight the influence the ancients had on our founders. I believe that Richard is very effective in accomplishing his goal of demonstrating what lessons the founding fathers learned from the greeks and the romans as well as how those ideas shaped the foundations of the American government. He accomplished this through his use of clear and specific examples throughout greek and roman history and he showcases direct connections

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