Page:The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.djvu/121

115 2. The official organ of the league was a federal council of fifty sachems, all equal in rank and prominence. This council had the supreme decision in a federal matters.

3. On founding this league the fifty sachems had been assigned to the different tribes and gentes as holders of new offices created especially for federal purposes. Vacancies were filled by new elections in the gens, and the holders of these offices could be deposed at will. But the right of installation belonged to the federal council.

4. These federal sachems were at the same time sachems of their tribe and had a seat and a vote in the tribal council.

5. All decisions of the federal council had to be unanimous.

6. The votes were cast by tribes, so that every tribe and the council members of each tribe had to vote together in order to adopt a final resolution.

7. Any one of the five tribes could convoke the federal council, but the council could not convene itself.

8. Federal meetings were held publicly in the presence of the assembled people. Every Iroquois could have the word, but the final decision rested with the council.

9. The league had no official head, no executive chief.

10. It had, however, two high chiefs of war, both with equal functions and power (the two "kings" of Sparta, the two consuls of Rome).

This was the whole constitution, under which the Iroquois lived over four hundred years and still live. I have described it more fully after Morgan, because we have here an opportunity for studying the organization of a society that does not yet know a state. The state presupposes a public power of coërcion