I thought this was common knowledge.

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Uhh, I thought it was from the Magna Carta.

hmmff.

Originally posted by mikerussellus
Uhh, I thought it was from the Magna Carta.

hmmff.

It was actually a hybrid of common law, the Magna Carter, the Iroquois, and enlightenment era ideals. To say it has one definitive source is a bit off base.

Originally posted by MikeNice81
It was actually a hybrid of common law, the Magna Carter, the Iroquois, and enlightenment era ideals. To say it has one definitive source is a bit off base.

If by Enlightenment Era ideals you mean the Greek works of Polybius (by way of Montesquieu's "The Spirit of the Laws"), John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu, Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Francois Rabelais, and Francis Bacon, then you would be correct.

However, there is an awful lot of our Constitution that was taken verbatim from the Iroquois. They were far from the Noble Savages that the proponents of Manifest Destiny would like us to believe.