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What History Says About Whether The United States Will Fall Like the Roman Empire
The Federalist ^ | 07/02/2022 | Kenneth Calvert

Posted on 07/02/2022 2:41:23 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Yes, the history of Rome often sounds like our own. But then, it sounds like most every other civilization that has existed in any part of the world at any time in history.

The bad news for Americans wondering if we are “like ancient Rome” is that all civilizations come to an end. This often happens on the heels of great success.

Nowhere was this truer than with the Roman Republic. The Roman general Scipio Aemilianus burst into tears as he and his troops finally and thoroughly destroyed the city of Carthage. We are told,

After being wrapped in thought for long, and realizing that all cities, nations, and authorities must, like men, meet their doom; that this happened to Troy, once a prosperous city, to the empires of Assyria, Media, and Persia, the greatest of their time, and to Macedonia . . . without any attempt at concealment Scipio named his own country . . . when he reflected on the fate of all things human.

Remarkably, Scipio seemed to be something of a prophet in 146 B.C., as the Roman Republic soon began to unravel. Rome had been rooted in local rule, agrarian pursuits, selfless citizenship, and republican virtues. Now they fought over land, wealth, luxuries, slaves, and the power that came with empire.

Over the following century, political assassinations, mob rule, and the rise of tyranny became the norm. At the end of it, the fate of the republic was left to emperors who, for all intents and purposes, were kings posing as traditional Romans.

At the end of the first century A.D., the historian Tacitus considered the death of the first emperor, Augustus. He wrote,

. . . the Republic had been revolutionized, and there was not a vestige left of the old sound morality. Stripped of equality, all looked up to the commands of a sovereign . . . as the end was near and new prospects opened, a few spoke in vain of the blessings of freedom, but most people dreaded and some longed for war. The popular gossip of the large majority fastened itself variously on their future masters.

The history that followed certainly had moments of genius. However, the ultimate sack of Rome in A.D. 410 arose from long centuries of internal struggles very much like those that destroyed the republic.

Added to greed, avarice, and incompetence was a mix of climate change, unstable borders, and an elite population soaked in corruption. All told, you have a basic understanding of what destroyed the Roman world.

Yes, the history of this civilization often sounds like our own. But then, it sounds like most every other civilization that has existed in any part of the world at any time in history. There is something consistent and familiar everywhere you travel in human history.

Believe it or not, this is where the good news is found. Yes, America is a republic, but it is not, by any means, Rome. This observation was made in correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in 1819. Jefferson wrote,

I ask myself What was that government which the virtues of Cicero were so zealous to restore, & the ambition of Caesar to subvert? . . . I do not say to restore it, because they never had it . . . if their people indeed had been, like ours, enlightened, peaceable, and really free, the answer would be obvious. ‘restore independance (sic) to all your foreign conquests, relieve Italy from the government of the rabble of Rome, consult it as a nation entitled to self-government, and do it’s will.

What is important here is that the American Founders were not naïve about the weaknesses of Rome. In particular, they despised the emperors and sought whatever good they could find in the old republic.

The American Founders admired the Roman virtues of citizenship and piety, and the Roman government balanced by the citizens, Senate, and magistrates. However, there was no idea of “rights” among the Roman citizens. Only power.

The Romans would never have created a “Declaration of Independence” in which these beautiful, high-minded words would be announced: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This sort of thinking could only have emerged after the prohibition of the gladiatorial bloodlettings of the Roman world, or the imperialistic greed of the emperors. It could never have been written by a society that believed the enslavement of human beings to be the norm. While some signers of the Declaration, like all humans, struggled with hypocrisy, their ideals have made America great in a way that Rome could have never imagined.

America, like all republics, has freedoms that allow citizens the right to go insane. No free nation will be free of human nature. The current internal and external threats to America do not have to bring, out of necessity, its destruction.

The good news is that America has stronger foundations than Rome ever knew, and those foundations not only seem to be holding, many Americans are rediscovering those foundations in the midst of a modern contest for the soul of the nation.


Dr. Kenneth Calvert is a professor of ancient history at Hillsdale College. His lectures on Rome can be found in the Hillsdale online course: "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic," free at online.hillsdale.edu. The course was introduced on the Ides of March, 2022.


TOPICS: Education; History; Society
KEYWORDS: bloggerkaren; bloggertrash; climatechange; decline; globalwarminghoax; godsgravesglyphs; hillsdalecollege; kennethcalvert; michigan; ntsa; romanempire; rome; usa
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To: SaveFerris
Woke culture is the Whore of Babylon.

Decent People will prevail.

41 posted on 07/02/2022 4:00:39 PM PDT by Savage Beast (You are not walking this path alone--all who walked before you are lifting you. --Michael Singer)
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To: Savage Beast

Time is going to tell

✝️🙏🛐


42 posted on 07/02/2022 4:05:17 PM PDT by SaveFerris (The Lord, The Christ and The Messiah: Jesus Christ of Nazareth - http://www.BiblicalJesusChrist.Com/)
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To: Savage Beast

Pinochet was good for Chile long after he was gone but now they elected a socialist.

Perhaps we need more Bernie Goetz’s.


43 posted on 07/02/2022 4:06:46 PM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
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To: x

We were a protectionist country until free traitors took over.


44 posted on 07/02/2022 4:14:01 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: SeekAndFind

Another surrender monkey parade where Soros trolls and FR’s gloom-and-doom defeatists can strut their stuff.


45 posted on 07/02/2022 4:15:51 PM PDT by sergeantdave
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To: SeekAndFind; All

No republic escapes anacyclosis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacyclosis

Who will be out Caesar and cross the Rubicon?


46 posted on 07/02/2022 4:17:52 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: SeekAndFind

There have been civilizations that lasted far longer than The US.

Just ask your Sumerian ambassador about his.


47 posted on 07/02/2022 4:23:17 PM PDT by Vermont Lt
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To: SeekAndFind

As long as demonrats are tolerated and allowed to exist this country is inevitably doomed.


48 posted on 07/02/2022 4:33:45 PM PDT by Newtoidaho (All I ask of living is to have no chains on me.)
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To: SeekAndFind

If AOC and the Dems have their way the USA would fall in a week.


49 posted on 07/02/2022 4:36:13 PM PDT by chopperk
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

Re: “...many Americans are rediscovering those foundations in the midst of a modern contest for the soul of the nation.” ( from the article)

I agree. Can the discovery happen quick enough?America has two potentially fatal problems:

...One is vitally important and **urgent**! Election fraud! Our elections are non-transparent and therefore completely untrustworthy.

...The second is also vitally important but sadly not perceived as urgent. Schooling from Pre-K through university level graduate school is stuffed with Marxists. Nearly every teacher in this nation ( pre-K through university) was trained by godless Marxists in Marxist-run colleges and universities. This is true for both private an government schools.

Both are fatal threats and both are urgent. If freedom is to survive both must be fixed QUICKLY!


50 posted on 07/02/2022 4:39:33 PM PDT by wintertime ( Behind every government school teacher stand armed police.( Real bullets in those guns on the hip!))
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To: SeekAndFind
That's just great.

According to the evolutionists, almost all species go extinct too. So we have that going for us.

And astronomers say the Sun will supernova eventually.

So in the words of Solomon..."Eat Drink and be Merry for tomorrow we die."

I give this thread the Depression stamp of approval.


51 posted on 07/02/2022 4:41:18 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: Vermont Lt

RE: Just ask your Sumerian ambassador about his.

From what is now known as the Dysfunctional country of Iraq today.


52 posted on 07/02/2022 4:45:20 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: LS

Thanks...I totally agree.....


53 posted on 07/02/2022 4:45:34 PM PDT by JBW1949 (I'm really PC.....Patriotically Correct)
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To: LS

Re: Red Wave

Only if there are honest elections.


54 posted on 07/02/2022 4:48:09 PM PDT by wintertime ( Behind every government school teacher stand armed police.( Real bullets in those guns on the hip!))
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To: ProtectOurFreedom
but I'm very surprised he put climate change in the list of root causes of the loss of the Roman Republic:

Surely you do not claim climate change does not exist? Historical evidence proves it does and has been a key factor it the destruction of societies going back too the days of the Mesopotamian societies.

What you fail to see, is he never claimed it was human's fault. Climate does exist, because it is the natural sequence of events just like the ice age was.

Even the leftist in their inability to tell the facts of their historical studies of empires of the. past. admit that the end of the Yucatan Mayan empire came about dies to a natural assurance of climate change that wiped out most of the Amazon forest which their culture needed to survive.

Nineveh was eventually depopulated, not only because of wars they lost, but because the climate changed, Babylon existed at a time when the area was more lush and water was nearer by, today one cannot imagine anything but a dead dry area.

The Summer that never was, was. climate change due to volcanic activity when Krakatoa exploded, and thousands years earlier the destruction of the Minoan Civilization from the eruption of Santorini Volcano changed the very balance of power in the Mediterranean which rests all standards humans had grown to be accustomed by at the time.

Just because liberals want to give man credit for climate change, does not mean it does not nor never did exist, nor does it mean that drastic climate change created by earthly changes has not destroyed empires while leaving room for other more powerful empires to grow up in the vacuums of such power.

Until there is a worldwide nuclear war, we will always have nature occurrences of climate change. One day we may have a world wide nuclear war, and when it happens, we can then blame mankind, but what the left does not realize is, it will be their fault, not mans desires to live as free men by using the the natural fuels built in our planet for our use.
55 posted on 07/02/2022 4:49:29 PM PDT by OneVike (Just another Christian waiting to go home)
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To: wintertime

There will be a red wave.

Mark it down. 45 seat (floor) in House, to 60 seat (ceiling). Net gain of 1-3 Senate seats. This will be a wipeout all the way down to dogcatcher, and the Dems are already warning all their people it’s coming.


56 posted on 07/02/2022 4:50:14 PM PDT by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually" (Hendrix) )
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To: SeekAndFind

President Retard is piddling while the country burns down financially 🤪

Libtards are even more decadent than the Romans


57 posted on 07/02/2022 4:52:56 PM PDT by NWFree (Somebody has to say it)
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To: DannyTN

“ And astronomers say the Sun will supernova eventually.”

All stars die out eventually - I think we have 3 billion years left 🤪


58 posted on 07/02/2022 4:57:59 PM PDT by NWFree (Somebody has to say it)
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To: SeekAndFind
The good news is that America has stronger foundations than Rome ever knew, and those foundations not only seem to be holding, many Americans are rediscovering those foundations in the midst of a modern contest for the soul of the nation.

Let's at least wait and see if America will last as long as the Roman Republic before making such a judgment.

59 posted on 07/02/2022 4:58:14 PM PDT by Ultra Sonic 007 (There is nothing new under the sun.)
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To: Savage Beast
Woke culture is the Whore of Babylon.

Yes.
My understanding is that The Whore of Babylon is a wicked culture and is not confined to geographical boundaries or time.

60 posted on 07/02/2022 5:11:06 PM PDT by SisterK (recognize and resist tyranny)
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