How Did The Greeks Influence American Democracy

To appreciate something, a person often has to know its history and where it started, because it shows how potentially hard it was to achieve. For democracy, the fascinating birth of it was in Athens, Greece, in 507 B.C. Greek Democracy was the first true government system where the people, their choices, and their votes were what mattered most. It influenced the American democratic government and what power the U.S. government has. It has also affected who can take part; and in specific, voters were the core of a democracy. Aspects of the Athenian democracy throughout time have only become more present and influential on many democracies; but it specifically affected American democracy, and the purpose the Americans created their democracy. First, most of the divisions of the American government are based on how the Greeks split their government. Pericles, a statesman, came up with the idea that local justices had to be born a citizen, and both of their parents were citizens as well. This has had a strong influence on the USA, even with the “birther” controversy with President Obama. The Athenians had three parts of their democracy,

A part of this is that in their previous system, if you weren’t rich, you didn’t have a say or a position on anything. When the Americans created their democracy, this was something that affected it, as they had recently separated from the controlling monarchy of Britain. In the Athenian Constitution, this was mostly eradicated (Aristotle). But, it wasn’t truly eradicated. The only people who qualified to be citizens were males, which excluded females and slaves. To add to that, not all males were even citizens, which left about 6,000 people who qualified to be citizens. The true main reason the Greek’s democracy was created, however, was to calm down the middle class of Athens