Cicero and Adams: Architects of the Founding

Saturday, July 9, 2016

The republican ideals of Cicero heavily influenced the generation of the Founding Fathers in favor of a mixed constitution. The works of John Adams, the unsung hero of the era, brought Ciceronian republican prescriptions to the forefront of American political thought at the time of the Founding. The influence of Cicero through Adams ultimately shaped the structure of the American Constitution and brought about the birth of the American Republic.



SURS: Garrett Lysford from Hellenic Studies on Vimeo.

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I teach them all the good I can, and recommend them to others from whom I think they will get some moral benefit. And the treasures that the wise men of old have left us in their writings I open and explore with my friends. If we come on any good thing, we extract it, and we set much store on being useful to one another. - Socrates, Memorabilia
 
 
 
What we maintain is that in none of the problems of life can men afford to lose sight of the storehouse bequeathed to them by the ancients. In the complexus of everything which differentiates man from the brute creation, the voice of antiquity must be heard...

-H. Browne, quoted in "Classics and Citizenship" The Classical Quarterly, 1920