A little-known historical fact about the Constitution is that it is founded on Indian Law.
Exemplar of Liberty:
Native America
and
the Evolution of Democracy
By
Donald A. Grinde, Jr.
Rupert Costo Professor of American Indian History
University of California at Riverside
A NEW CHAPTER
Images of native America in the
writings of Franklin, Jefferson,
and Paine
At this time, Adams became interested in formulating “constitutions for single colonies” and a “great model for Union for the whole.” A few months later in April of 1776, Adams published his Thoughts on Government , which was intended as a handbook for the implementing of new American state and national constitutions as independence unfolded. Later, Adams would write in his Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States (1787) of the “precise” separation of powers that were present in American Indian nations on the eve of the creation of the United States Constitution.
As with the earlier Thoughts on Government, the Defence was meant to be used as a handbook at the Constitutional Convention. American Revolutionaries like John Adams sought to retain their sacred “property rights” as Englishmen which they felt the British Crown was usurping through its taxation policies. Often, their rationales have been interpreted as “conservative” in order to thwart some of the objectives of more radical colonial politicians.[6]
In this environment with colonial Americans’ passion for liberty about to break into revolution, Thomas Jefferson addressed the world as a political seer:
This whole chapter in the history of man is new. . . . Before the establishment of the American states, nothing was known to history but man of the old world, crowded within limits either small or overcharged and steeped in the vices which that situation generates. [7]
> Anyone who believes the United States was molded primarily in Europe’s image should listen to Benjamin Franklin, who so much embodied the spirit of America in Europe that he came to be called a “savage as philosopher.”[8]
Whoever has traveled through the various parts of Europe, and observed how small is the proportion of the people in affluence or easy circumstances there, compared with those in poverty and misery; the few rich and haughty landlords, the multitude of poor, abject, rack-rented, tythe-paying tenants, and half-paid and half-starved laborers; and view here [in America] the happy mediocrity that so generally prevails throughout these States, where the cultivator works for himself, and supports his family in decent plenty, will, methinks, see the evident and great difference in our favor.[9]
The assertion of an independent identity for America, and Americans, sometimes became almost messianic. Thomas Paine enthused: “We see with other eyes; we hear with other ears; we think with other thoughts, than those we formerly used.”[10]
I am sure you join me in the detestation of the corruption of the English government that no man of earth is more incapable than yourself of seeing that copied among us, willingly. I have been among those who have feared the design to introduce it here, and that has been a strong reason with me for wishing there was an ocean of fire between that island and us. [12]
https://ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/EoL/index.html#ToC
The Native American Government That Inspired the US Constitution
When the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met in 1787 to debate what form of government the United States should have, there were no contemporary democracies in Europe from which they could draw inspiration. The most democratic forms of government that any of the convention members had personally encountered were those of Native American nations. Of particular interest was the Iroquois Confederacy, which historians have argued wielded a significant influence on the U.S. Constitution.
