What did the ancient greek and roman government and the English government contribute to American government?

The Greeks invented the idea of democracy. However, their concept of democracy was different. Nowadays we have indirect democracy, which means that the people elect representatives of the people and it is them who vote on bills. The Greek had direct democracy, which means that it was the people themselves, gathered in the assembly of the people, who voted on bills. Demorcacy means power by the people in Greek.

Both the Greeks and the Romans had the concept of citizenship and the idea that citizens had rights. During the Roman Republic and in the Greek democracies, this included the right to vote. It has to be noted that not all Greek states had democracies and in that other states (such as kingdoms, oligarchies and tyrannies) there was no voting. During the period of rule by emperors which followed the Roman Republic the people no longer voted and there was absolute rule by emperors.

During the Roman Republic there was also the power of veto. The idea for American veto system came from the Romans.