Process Paper
My research started with me looking up topics I could easily write for, find sources for, and a topic that interests me. I also looked for a topic that interest other people.. I finally decided on comparing the rights and responsibilities of Romans and Americans for my website, as it is not a topic others would choose and slightly more difficult to do that other topics.
Once I had found a topic, I began searching online for good source material to use for the website. This involved looking through the very subjective websites for the true information, seeing as there are few primary sources remaining for Ancient Rome. There are plenty of sources about American citizenship, given its existence for only roughly 200 years. Since Rome was founded over 2000 years ago, its earliest sources have long since decayed or been destroyed by the various sieges and sackings of the city of Rome and the many wars its territory has gone through over the centuries. So a majority of my sources would be secondary sources.
Two sources that I decided on using are the codified laws of the nations themselves, the United States Constitution and the Twelve Tables of Rome. The Twelve tables is a document created during the early Roman Republic, before title of Tribune was created to give the Plebeians representation within Roman government. Up until this point, the Republic had been ruled by councils of magistrates, all of whom were Patricians. Plebeians were eventually fed up with the lack of any representation for a majority of Romans, and started putting pressure on the Patricians in various ways.The Patricians agreed and the Twelve Tables were drafted to give a codified set of laws that applied to all Romans, whether Plebeian or Patrician. The Constitution was created in a similar circumstance. The Articles of Confederation had failed in their goals, and the lower class Americans were agitating for more of a say and lower taxes. The Whiskey Rebellion, followed shortly by Shays’ Rebellion, proved to the Founding Fathers that the Articles had failed. They realized they needed to solidify federal control and tighten up the code of laws for the national government, and thus the Constitution was born.
American citizens and Roman citizen rights and responsibilities can be easily be compared and contrasted. It is very obvious that American government and rights were originally based on Roman, due to the similarities in focus and goals of their codified laws. They focused extensively on rights for the very few at the top, and put little emphasis on rights for all people living within their territory unless they fit their narrow definition of citizenship. But, since America’s creation, it has radically expanded its definition of citizenship, giving rights to all those who once had no rights, like minority groups and women. American citizenship is still changing in definition and meaning, while the Roman definition rarely changed. It continued meaning the same group of people. Many times throughout Roman history, however, they granted citizenship to people they conquered, but they had been assimilated into Roman life by then, so had lost most of their original identities. America did this as well many times, especially when it came to Natives and Immigrants to the United States.
The responsibilities of both nations’ citizens are varied, but in general it is to follow the laws. They had many precedents set down that governed how people were supposed to listen to and follow the laws of the land. But what the focus of these expectations meant were very different. Rome expected utmost loyalty from its citizens and compulsory military service for all men of a certain age. Roman laws were focused around military glory and advancing the state. By contrast, American laws expect people to listen to the government, but are generally much more focused on personal freedoms and giving people a voice in government to make it their own government and not one that just rules them. America had set ways to assimilate new territories and those territories were administered by the national government instead of by governors appointed by military fame, like was Rome’s practice. Roman laws became the base for American laws, but America took it further in terms of freedoms and providing for their citizens, improving upon Roman laws in many, many ways.
Once I had found a topic, I began searching online for good source material to use for the website. This involved looking through the very subjective websites for the true information, seeing as there are few primary sources remaining for Ancient Rome. There are plenty of sources about American citizenship, given its existence for only roughly 200 years. Since Rome was founded over 2000 years ago, its earliest sources have long since decayed or been destroyed by the various sieges and sackings of the city of Rome and the many wars its territory has gone through over the centuries. So a majority of my sources would be secondary sources.
Two sources that I decided on using are the codified laws of the nations themselves, the United States Constitution and the Twelve Tables of Rome. The Twelve tables is a document created during the early Roman Republic, before title of Tribune was created to give the Plebeians representation within Roman government. Up until this point, the Republic had been ruled by councils of magistrates, all of whom were Patricians. Plebeians were eventually fed up with the lack of any representation for a majority of Romans, and started putting pressure on the Patricians in various ways.The Patricians agreed and the Twelve Tables were drafted to give a codified set of laws that applied to all Romans, whether Plebeian or Patrician. The Constitution was created in a similar circumstance. The Articles of Confederation had failed in their goals, and the lower class Americans were agitating for more of a say and lower taxes. The Whiskey Rebellion, followed shortly by Shays’ Rebellion, proved to the Founding Fathers that the Articles had failed. They realized they needed to solidify federal control and tighten up the code of laws for the national government, and thus the Constitution was born.
American citizens and Roman citizen rights and responsibilities can be easily be compared and contrasted. It is very obvious that American government and rights were originally based on Roman, due to the similarities in focus and goals of their codified laws. They focused extensively on rights for the very few at the top, and put little emphasis on rights for all people living within their territory unless they fit their narrow definition of citizenship. But, since America’s creation, it has radically expanded its definition of citizenship, giving rights to all those who once had no rights, like minority groups and women. American citizenship is still changing in definition and meaning, while the Roman definition rarely changed. It continued meaning the same group of people. Many times throughout Roman history, however, they granted citizenship to people they conquered, but they had been assimilated into Roman life by then, so had lost most of their original identities. America did this as well many times, especially when it came to Natives and Immigrants to the United States.
The responsibilities of both nations’ citizens are varied, but in general it is to follow the laws. They had many precedents set down that governed how people were supposed to listen to and follow the laws of the land. But what the focus of these expectations meant were very different. Rome expected utmost loyalty from its citizens and compulsory military service for all men of a certain age. Roman laws were focused around military glory and advancing the state. By contrast, American laws expect people to listen to the government, but are generally much more focused on personal freedoms and giving people a voice in government to make it their own government and not one that just rules them. America had set ways to assimilate new territories and those territories were administered by the national government instead of by governors appointed by military fame, like was Rome’s practice. Roman laws became the base for American laws, but America took it further in terms of freedoms and providing for their citizens, improving upon Roman laws in many, many ways.