Question

Roman contributions paved a path for the American Legal system. How did it do this? Specifically, how has ancient Rome affected the American legal system?

Answer 1

They brought democracy and republicanism to the West during the 18th-century during Enlightenment. Enlightenment was a time of learning and intellectual development by the way.The founders of the United States were also a part of the movement so they were inspired by their understanding of the ancient Greek and Roman world when building the U.S. Our founders held many of the values of the civilization in great esteem, but they were also aware of the limitations; So basically we took all the strengths of the Romans and Greece and tried to improve the weaknesses so they brought checks and balances in the political system to ensure that no single branch of government would become too powerful.

Answer 2

Are you sure you've got that quite right? The Roman LEGAL system had very little influence on the American LEGAL system, which is largely derived from English common law, which itself rests on Anglo-Saxon -- i.e., tribal Germanic, Celtic and Norse traditions. The Roman legal system influenced the direction of French law, which is a different beast entirely.

Now if the question is how how the Roman POLITICAL system influenced the American political system, that's another story: the Founders took a great deal from Roman ideas on politics and the relationship between ruling power and the people.

Answer 3

Carl has a valid point. However, I wouldn't ignore the vast influence Roman Law has on the American Legal system. Look only as far as the Latin terms we use in our legal system to see this. Stare Decisis (Let the decision stand) is a Roman concept that protects us from double jeopardy. The writ Habeas Corpus comes from Cicero, and was made Roman law in (I believe) his time to protect Roman subjects from conscriptions. This writ requires us to stand present against a trial brought against us.

Yes, common law is an Anglo-Saxon derived system which developed out of a town's commoners and elders gathering together and ruling based off of precedent, but Rome did leave its indelible mark on English culture. There is much in our legal system today that can be attributed to Roman Law.

Answer 4

I don't think that's quite accurate, peedle. There is an excellent essay on this distiction from the Boalt School of Law here:

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/library/robbins/CommonLawCivilLawTraditions.html

Again, while there is certainly some influence on American law from Roman traditions, American law derives largely from Anglo-Saxon common law tradition, which is a very distinctly different system. Continental (e.g. French) law derives much more directly from Roman law.

Habeas corpus is actually an example of this. The original form of the Great Writ was an order from the king to a local official, e.g. sheriff, to produce himself and his prisoner (hence "habeas corpus" = "have the person") before the king (or his agent, later) to prove that he had legal custody of the prisoner, that is, that he was not in violation of common law traditions or the prerogatives of the king. It is essentially an appeal outside of the normal machinery of the civil law, and only common-law tradition even allows for such things. In Roman, civil, law, every avenue of legal procedure is predetermined -- you cannot appeal to ancient unwritten rights and traditions. In the Anglo-Saxon system, you can.

The terms are Latin not because they derive from Rome, but because Latin was the lingua fraca and language of the educated in the Middle Ages, when these things became written down. Latin is used for the same reason in the names of species in biology: not because the Romans founded modern biology (they of course did not), but because the founders of modern biology read and wrote Latin because it was the common language of the scholar.

Answer 5

This isn't going to become a bickering match, because the original question asked HOW ancient Rome impacted the legal system. It undoubtedly has. Common law did not simply appear out of thin air one day, and your suggested article supports that.