How Did Classical Greece And Rome Influence The Government Of The United States?

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When creating the fundamental documents and establishing the newly formed United States government, the founding fathers pulled upon numerous sources for their inspiration. Perspectives from notable philosophers of the Enlightenment such as Locke, Voltaire, and Montesquieu were critical for the founding fathers in molding the new country to their image. These visionaries like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson went past their Enlightenment inspirations and looked at the original classical scholars and ideas of Greece and Rome that influenced those famous Enlightenment philosophers. Scholars from classical Greece were the ones to offer the idea of separating a central government into competing powers, an idea that would be heavily advocated by the founding fathers for their own government. Additionally, the original Roman Republic became a template for proper administration and rule for the authors of the …show more content…
The ancient philosophical and political ideals of classical Greece and Rome strongly impacts the current government of the United States.
Classical Greek scholars formulated the idea of separating powers of government, that is central to the model of the American government as well as many other nations in the modern day. Other key ideas offered by those ancient Greeks would also be important to the constitution of the United States. In spite of the huge cultural accomplishments of the Greek world, the best inheritance of classical Greece was in their philosophical tradition. A considerable amount of their philosophical scholars created political designs that would later impact the improvement of the United States of America, almost two millennia later.
Mixed government, a concept that was essential to both the advancement of the United States Constitution and the idea of separation of powers, was formulated by Plato around the fourth century BC. He thought that all methods of government that had

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