American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The British Government cannot be our model. We have no materials for a similar one. Our manners, our laws . . .and. . .the whole genius of the people are opposed to it. -James Wilson (delegate to the Constitutional Convention from Pennsylvania), 7 June 1787 We have gone back to ancient history for models of Government, and examined different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstance. -Benjamin Franklin's speech in the Constitutional Convention, 28 June 1787 As John Rutledge, delegate to the Constitutional Convention from South Carolina and chairman of the Committee of Detail, finished writing the first draft of the United States Constitution, Thomas Jefferson wrote him a letter revealing a sentiment that was present among many of the Founders and the American people. In observing the "civilized" European governments such as France, Jefferson wrote to Rutledge that most of the European societies were autocratic monarchies and thus not comparable to the more egalitarian governments of the United States. However, Jefferson went further in his observations on the nature of American government when he wrote Rutledge that "[t]he only condition on earth to be compared with [American government] . . . is that of the Indians, where they still have less law than we.” Furthermore, according to his letter, Jefferson believed that American government and its Native American aspects were a vast improvement over the European models, which he viewed as "governments of kites over pidgeons. "When Jefferson wrote of American Indian governments to Rutledge, he had the League of the Haudenosaunee, or the Iroquois Confederacy, in mind. Before the Constitutional Convention, Jefferson had published an account of the Mingo, or Iroquois, Confederacy in his Notes on the State of Virginia.