John Rutledge of South Carolina, delegate to the Constitutional Convention, read excerpts of various Iroquois Treaties to the drafting committee, however an English translation of the Great Law of Peace was not created until the 19th century.[37][38]
The influence of Six Nations law on the U.S. Constitution is disputed by scholars.[39] Haudenosaunee historian Elisabeth J. Tooker has pointed to several differences between the two forms of government, notably that all decisions were made by a consensus of male chiefs who gained their position through a combination of blood descent and selection by female relatives, that representation was on the basis of the number of clans in the group rather than the size or population of the clans, and that the topics discussed were decided by a single tribe. Tooker concluded there is little resemblance between the two documents or reason to believe the Six Nations had a meaningful influence on the American Constitution and that it is unclear how much impact Canassatego’s statement at Lancaster actually had on the representatives of the colonies.[40] Stanford University historian Jack N. Rakove argued against any Six Nations influence, pointing to lack of evidence in U.S. constitutional debate records and examples of European antecedents for democratic institutions.[41]
Journalist Charles C. Mann has noted other differences between The Great Law of Peace and the original U.S. Constitution, including the original Constitution’s allowing denial of suffrage to women and majority rule rather than consensus. Mann argues that the early colonists’ interaction with Native Americans and their understanding of Iroquois government did influence the development of colonial society and culture and the Suffragette movement but stated that “the Constitution as originally enacted was not at all like the Great Law.”[41][42]
Other critics of the Iroquois-influence theory include Samuel Payne, who considered the Iroquois division of powers as seen by Adams as being unlike those in the U.S. Constitution;[43] William Starna and George Hamell, who described errors in Grinde’s and Johansen’s scholarship, particularly on Canassatego and the Lancaster Treaty;[44] and Philip Levy, who also wrote that Grinde and Johansen had misused Adams’s material, stating that he was not describing the Iroquois Confederacy government separation of powers and model of government but that he was instead describing England’s structure.[45]
Nice citation of Britannica that says absolutely nothing about your claim, by the way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Law_of_Peace#Influence_on_the_United_States_Constitution
Nice citation of Britannica that says absolutely nothing about your claim, by the way.