The earlier governmental functions were administered through a council of chiefs elected by the gentes. The thoroughly democratic character of the gens may be observed in the fact that any member, female or male, who desired to communicate with the council on matters of public interest, might express her or his opinion either in person or through an orator of her or his own selection.[106] Hence, we observe that government originated in the gens, which was a pure democracy.
Regarding the council of the gens, Mr. Morgan remarks:
It was a democratic assembly because every adult male and female member had a voice upon all questions brought before it. It elected and deposed its sachem and chiefs, it elected Keepers of the Faith, it condoned or avenged the murder of a gentilis, and it adopted persons into the gens. It was the germ of the higher council of the tribe, and of that still higher of the confederacy, each of which was composed exclusively of chiefs as representatives of the gentes....
All the members of an Iroquois gens were personally free, and they were bound to defend each other’s freedom; they were equal in privileges and in personal rights, the sachem and chiefs claiming no superiority; and they were a brotherhood bound together by the ties of kin. Liberty, equality, and fraternity, though never formulated, were cardinal principles of the gens. These facts are material because the gens was the unit of a social and governmental system, the foundation upon which Indian society was organized.... At the epoch of European discovery the American Indian tribes generally were organized in gentes with descent in the female line. The gens was the basis of the phratry, of the tribe, and of the confederacy of tribes.[107]
From the foregoing it would seem that the gens—the earliest organization of society of which we have any accurate knowledge—was founded on the “mother-right” or on the supremacy of women. We are assured that the gentile organization is not confined to the Latin, Grecian, and Sanskrit-speaking tribes, but that it has been found “in other branches of the Aryan family of nations, in the Semitic, Uralian, and Turanian families, among the tribes of Africa and Australia, and of the American aborigines.”[108]
A tribe was composed of several gentes, the chiefs of which formed the council. This council was invested with the power to declare war and to regulate terms of peace, to receive embassies and make alliances; it was in fact authorized to perform all the governmental functions of the tribe. The duties performed by the council of chiefs may be regarded as the first attempt at representative government. In process of time, as the affairs of the tribe became more complicated, a need arose for a recognized head, one who when the council was not in session could lead in the adjustment of matters pertaining to the general interest of the group. In response to this demand, one of the sachems was invested with a slight degree of authority over the other chiefs. Hence arose the military chieftain of the Latter Status of barbarism. That the powers delegated to the incumbent of this office differed widely from those of a modern monarch, is shown in the fact that as he had been elected by the members of the group he could by them be deposed. We have seen that the powers exercised by sachem and chief were alike transmitted through women. The mother is the natural guardian of the family; so soon therefore as the actions of the leaders of the group were not in accord with those principles of equality and justice which had characterized society since its organization, they were deposed, or, as in the case of the Senecas described by Ashur Wright, they had their “horns knocked off” through the influence of women.
At the head of the family, or gens, producing and controlling the principal means of subsistence, and forming the line of descent and inheritance, women, until the closing ages of the Middle Status of barbarism, were without doubt the leading spirits, and thus far the progress of mankind had been in strict accord with those principles which since the separation of the sexes had governed development.
In process of time, however, the simple form of government which has been described was found inadequate to meet the demands arising from the more complicated requirements of increasing numbers and the general growth of society; therefore, during the opening ages of the Latter Status of barbarism, a form of government was evolved which was better suited to their changed conditions. When the idea of a coalescence of tribes, or of a combination of forces for common defence had taken root, and when under such confederation the council of chiefs had become co-ordinated with a military leader for the general management and defence of the community, it was thought that an important step had been taken in progressive governmental functions. Yet, along with the higher development of the governmental idea is to be observed also a growing tendency toward the usurpation of power. Scarcely was the office of military chieftain created, than we find the people inaugurating measures with which to protect themselves against encroachments upon their liberties, and devising means whereby they might be enabled to check the personal ambition of their leaders.
The extreme egoism developed within the male constitution was already manifesting itself in the excessive greed for gain, and in the inordinate thirst for military glory; hence, as a safeguard against usurpation, in the earliest stages of the Latter Status of barbarism, we find the tribe electing two military chieftains instead of one, two leaders invested with equal powers and responsibilities and subjected to the same restrictions and limitations in the exercise of authority. The Spartan government upon its first appearance in history is characterized by the existence of two war-chieftains, who, by historians of later ages, have been designated as kings; a closer investigation, however, of the functions performed by them shows that they were lacking in nearly all the prerogatives which characterize a modern sovereign.
So jealously had the rights of the people been guarded that the basileus or war-chief of the Latter Status of barbarism, who is said to represent the germ of our present king, emperor, and president, had not succeeded in drawing to himself the powers exercised by a monarch of modern times. The selection of a military leader, during the Latter Status of barbarism, doubtless represents the first differentiation of the civil from the military functions of government, and indicates a virtual acknowledgment of the fact that society had outgrown the primary and more simple form of government administered by the council of chiefs.
The third stage in the development of the idea of government was represented by a council of chiefs, a military commander, and an assembly of the people. In this further growth of the administrative functions may be discovered the same solicitude for individual liberty and the rights of the community which had characterized the former stage of development, and also the fact that still greater precautions were deemed necessary to insure the people against tyranny and the usurpation of their established rights. The council of chiefs, although representing a pure democracy, and co-ordinated with two military chieftains, between whom was an equal division of power and responsibility, was found to be an insufficient safeguard against despotism; hence the measures devised for the management of the confederacy must henceforth be subjected to an Assembly of the People, which, although of itself unable to originate or propound any plan of government, was invested with the power to accept or reject any measures offered for adoption by the council.