The New Roman Empire?

The Romans have always been popular as a benchmark in making comparisons to one's own culture, so much so that the practice has been out of style among the scholarly types recently. But apparently it's a respectable practice again as I've noticed a number of writers comparing present day America to the Roman Empire. Personally, I don't think there are many points of congruence between the two. To begin with, compared to Augustan Rome, the USA is still a mere infant. According to Titus Livius, the origins of Rome date back 1200 years before his time when Aeneas, a Trojan prince escaped the destruction of Troy at the hands of Agamemnon's famous army. That would be the equivalent today of something that happened during the era of Charlemagne. Another 1000 years were yet to pass before the founding of the American Republic.
Traditionally, Rome itself was founded by Romulus ca. 750BC, and a lot of things happened between then and the time Rome came of age, when they at last triumphed over their most deadly adversary, the Carthaginians of North Africa, in 246BC, following more than a century of warfare. This conflict decided who was going to control the Western Mediterranean. If the Romans had not destroyed Carthaginian power there would never have been a Roman Empire.
I enjoy Livius' history of Rome. Modern historians criticize the ancient historians, but i think the ancients compare rather favorably with these moderns, both for honesty and depth of understanding. Of course, the earlier writers didn't have libraries or the internet to help them. Books there were, but without printing they had to be laboriously copied by hand on expensive materials. Not many people could read or write, writing being a fairly recent invention. Travel was slow, difficult and dangerous, presenting many obstacles to research. Nevertheless, Livius was assiduous in seeking out sources such as inscriptions and family records. Family records, of course, were intended to glorify the family and may have been largely fictitious. Adding to his problems, the Latin language had rapidly changed over the centuries, so much so that it was difficult for him to read. Taking into account all these considerations, I think he did a remarkable job.
It's a fascinating account in which he shows that Rome expanded as a result of being attacked. First the neighboring Latins, then the Etruscans, then the other peoples of italy, and so on. He doesn't speak much about one of the primary benefits of warfare to Rome: slaves. But this would be like a modern historian writing about the California citrus orchards and failing to say much about the petroleum industry- without which there would be no way of marketing oranges outside of California. Slavery in ancient times was ubiquitous, the only way of organizing labour beyond the scale of family operations. I'm not justifying it, just pointing out that it was so common as to be barely worth mentioning to a Roman readership. But there is no doubt that war in those times was a way of getting rich. For the Roman senatorial class, the governorship of a province was the route to fabulous wealth. Rome, it can be reasonably argued, became an entrepreneurial warfare economy. They developed a model of tactics and strategy that was unbeatable in its day, and after conquest sent out traned administrators to organize the new conquest and to keep the peace.
For the United States slavery was an aberrant phenomenon economic structure that had the effect of holding back progress in the South. That's why the confederacy was at such a disadvantage in the War Between the States. The North had wage labour and this is always an incentive for a business to innovate. The innovation of the cotton gin was what led to industrial scale labour in the South by creating a huge market for cotton. Up until that time cotton was the most expensive of all the textiles to process. So while this innovation led to more jobs and business, an expansion of wealth to all segments of Northern society, in the South the institution of slavery led to stagnation.
The other difference between ancient and modern slavery is that the latter was race-based. But history has a way of going in unexpected directions. If it hadn't been for race-based slavery there would be almost no people of African descent in America today. Jazz would probably never have been invented. Strangely, when the blame game is played these consequences are rarely mentioned. Neither is it mentioned that the African slave trade was largely controlled by Arabs, and that it was the most important source of wealth to the West African kingdoms. Some of the loudest opponents to the abolition of the slave trade (a crusade led by the English Christian abolititionist William Wilberforce) were those very African Kingdoms.
It's true that the American Founders were inspired by Greek and Roman theories of governance, and the architecture of the capitol was based on classical models, but the circumstances of the founding of the Republic were just not comparable. Rome was a military society throughout it's history. America has always been entrepreneurial, individualistic and innovative. What the founders tried to do was to fulfill the promise of the Classical era, not imitate it. They saw not only its virtues but also its failings and tried to prevent their new country from falling into the same traps. Governing by consent of the governed was the principle. Putting in structures to prevent government from becoming too powerful was the object of the constitution they devised. For instance Republican Rome had a practice of appointing a dictator during times of emergency because the corporate method of lengthy debate was not agile enough to cope with a sudden invasion. The President in American practice was given certain powers to override a divisive legislative branch. Thus he is commander in chief of the armed forces and has other powers of his own such as the right to veto legislation. However there are checks on his power as well.
American expansion on its continent was one of the fruits of giving the presidency the powers needed to lead the country in a new direction. Thomas jefferson was able to take advantage of Napoleon's need for money to obtain the Louisiana Territory. This was an exceptionally prescient move since nobody at the time had much of an idea of what lay between the Mississippi and the Pacific. Most experts of the day thought there was a series of large lakes from which some rivers flowed east and others flowed west and south. It was for Lewis and Clark to discover that instead of lakes in the middle of the continent there was a series of mountain ranges. Nevertheless, Jefferson new that the viability of the country depended on its control of all the land between the Atlantic and Pacific. After the Civil War settled the political direction of the country, its energies were devoted to filling up those spaces.
Yes, it's true there were already people there who thought of it as there own. But let's face it folks. Hunting and gathering, stone age farming, and buffalo herding are just not viable economic strategies any more and nothing in that environment could possibly prepare the tribal leaders to function in the coming century. Undoubtedly injustices were committed. The treatment of the Cherokees comes to mind, a very sad and tragic episode. But there was never a national policy of extermination, and this is in itself an innovation by historic standards. Generally, when a new populace took control of another's territory the old one was exterminated...when they could. This includes native American groups. There were no compunctions about it. Overall, the American policy was to try to integrate native Americans in the new ways. In Canada residential schools were established for that purpose. Little did they know that the main beneficiaries would be future lawyers.
Although the Romans tried to adapt the peoples of its empire to Roman ways of doing things they didn't hesitate to exterminate whole populations. The example that comes to mind is Caesar's slaughter of the Helvetians, a Celtic people who tried to migrate into Gaul from Switzerland under pressure of German tribes. Caesar massacred them, man, woman and child... a very labour intensive task in the days before explosives.
There's a lot more to say on this subject and I'll try to return to it in the near future.