America’s Roman Foundations

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorWest, Garrett
dc.date.accessioned2014-10-30T17:41:20Z
dc.date.available2014-10-30T17:41:20Z
dc.date.issued2014-06
dc.description102 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of Classics, History, Political Science, and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Arts, Spring 2014.en_US
dc.description.abstractIn 1776, the United States of America was born. In the following decades, the leaders of the new nation struggled to win their freedom and autonomy from Great Britain, define what their nation would look like, and construct a unifying and enduring national government. Almost a century after the Revolution, when the American experiment was tested by civil war, President Abraham Lincoln explained America’s founding. Lincoln said, “Our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” In order for the founders of the United States to create a nation that could endure through the ages, they needed to create a national self-identity and establish national symbols and icons, while simultaneously striving to implement the antithesis of British monarchism. In order to legitimize the United States as an independent nation and as a republic, the leaders of the early United States looked, as did other products of the Enlightenment, to the culture and history of Ancient Rome for inspiration. Rome’s historical success demonstrated that a stable republic could ensure liberty for its people and prosper on the international stage. American leaders employed Roman icons in their discourse, publications, and artwork, to define and represent the aspirations of the new republic. The audience for this program is readily apparent in the selections: namely, the intellectual elite of Enlightenment Europe and Britain, an elite that was already much influenced by Roman ideas of liberty and government. The founders of the United States employed the culture and history of Ancient Rome in America’s new political institutions and national symbols, which helped facilitate comparisons between Americans and the Romans, thus legitimizing the United States as an independent nation and as a republic.en_US
dc.description.embargo10000-01-01
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/18571
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Oregonen_US
dc.relation.ispartofseriesUniversity of Oregon theses, Dept. of Classics, History, Political Science, Honors College, B.A., 2014;
dc.rightsAll Rights Reserved.en_US
dc.subjectHistoryen_US
dc.subjectClassicsen_US
dc.subjectGovernmenten_US
dc.subjectUnited Statesen_US
dc.subjectFounding Fathersen_US
dc.subjectRomeen_US
dc.subjectConstitutionen_US
dc.titleAmerica’s Roman Foundationsen_US
dc.typeThesis / Dissertationen_US

Files

Collections

Clark Honors College Theses