[Chad Fairbanks]

Of course - Ben Franklin was well aquainted with the political and military confederation my ancestors created BEFORE the Europeans arrived. He figured if a bunch of ignorant savages could build such a successful political system, why couldn't the "Americans"?

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...

[Antoninus]

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.