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Many of the founders were familiar with the 5, later 6, Nations - they were the dominant political power on the North American Continent (the "empire" stretched from Northeastern Canada, down well south of Virginia, and east to the Mississippi/Missouri River) prior to and during the colonial period...

And the Iroquois enforced their domination by musket, blood, and fire. They were indeed the mightiest of the Eastern nations by far. But their ceaseless wars, raids, and depradations againt their Indian brethren did much to depopulate the Northeast, the Ohio Valley, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi Valley--basically leaving this land open for the European settlers.

There is little evidence that the founders based the mechanisms of the new republic on the Iroquois confederacy. There were no checks and balances in the confederacy, short of the vengeance raid. The colonial system of justice was not based on wampum gifts. There was no fire to be covered over in the Halls of Congress if a consesus couldn't be reached. Don't get me wrong--the Iroquois had a brilliant system that held them together and made them more powerful than their enemies for a long, long time. But to consider it the basis for the US Constitution is not tenable anywhere outside a PC highschool classroom.

I certainly never said we were peace-loving, tree-hugging nature warshipping hippies - we were warriors. Period. Our system allowed us to avoid warfare among ourselves - it didn't apply to other tribes...

I never claimed that there is a massive amount of evidence that the Iroquoian system was an inspiration for the U.S. Constitution - our system was based on a myriad of influences, and it may be possible that the Iroquoian confederacy could have played a small role nonetheless - especially when you consider some founders lived among the 5 nations for a time... I'm not saying it's written in stone that there was influence, but to completely ignore the 5 nations as THE dominate power in North America during the early colonialization period, and even up into the French and Indian wars and beyond, would be ignore truth.

Enough founders were aware of, and understood, the nature of the condeferacy to make it a valid question, though - how much influence was there? To just flat out say "None" is to be in denial that such savages could possibly be worth anything...