The Iroquois Confederation Constitution: An Analysis

The Iroquois Confederation was not an influence on the U.S. Constitution, but it is worthy of study as an independently developed political system with the oldest surviving constitution in North America. A systematic institutional analysis of the Great Binding Law, the orally transmitted constitutio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Publius 1998-04, Vol.28 (2), p.99-127
Main Author: Lutz, Donald S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
AMERICAN INDIANS
Analysis
Clans
Confederation
Consensus (Social sciences)
Constitution
Constitutional law
CONSTITUTIONS
Democracy
FEDERALISM
Historical analysis
History
Inequality
Iroquoians
Laws, regulations and rules
Libertarianism
Men
Methods
Native Americans
Peacetime
POLITICAL EVALUATION
Political history
Political science
Political Systems
REGIMES
Social aspects
Tribal chiefs
Tribal constitutions
Tribal councils
Tribes
U.S.A
United States
UNITED STATES PRIOR TO 1945
War
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Summary:The Iroquois Confederation was not an influence on the U.S. Constitution, but it is worthy of study as an independently developed political system with the oldest surviving constitution in North America. A systematic institutional analysis of the Great Binding Law, the orally transmitted constitution of the Confederation, reveals, among other things: tribal inequality despite their formal equality under a unanimity rule; a high level of responsiveness despite a nondemocratic, elitist method for selecting leaders; many ancillary institutions for achieving a traditional form of consensus rather than simple majority rule; two means of elevating men to the Confederation Council, each a paradoxical blend of the pre political and the post-traditional; the first use of a formal amendment process in constitutional history; and an underlying “code of imperialism” that, together with the second method of selecting Confederation Council members, transformed a defensive alliance into a potent actor in North American history. Overall, the Confederation institutionally approximated an Aristotelian “mixed regime” which, despite its creation under circumstances the Iroquois describe in Hobbesian terms, was quite libertarian.
ISSN:0048-5950
1747-7107
DOI:10.1093/oxfordjournals.pubjof.a029971