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16. Some claim the Iroquois did possess a bicameral legislature, and an executive
In recent years, to give support to the Iroquois influence thesis, some writers have argued the Great Council of the Iroquois was a de facto bicameral legislative body. The appearance of having two houses came from the manner in which the council deliberated. According to this argument, issues before the council were first debated by the Mohawk and the Seneca. After they reached consensus, the issue appeared before the Oneida and Cayuga. If they reached consensus the issue appeared before the Onondaga, who implemented the decision across the Confederation. Unless they disagreed, in which case the issue was returned to the tribes for further deliberation. If it again cleared the process with consensus, the Onondaga implemented the decision. This process gave the Onondaga, which had the most seats on the council, the authority to veto, and the other tribes the ability to override such vetoes.
The process as described leaves questions, the most obvious being: What of the Tuscarora? They joined the Confederation in 1722. If one of the five preceding tribes, say for instance the Oneida, failed to concede with all of the others the issue remained undecided, hardly a democratic result. Nor was this feature present in the plan for a colonial Great Council proposed by Franklin in 1754 at Albany. And as noted elsewhere, the Iroquois law apportioned sachems to the council based on the perceived importance of each tribe to the confederation, rather than on population. At one time the Seneca were the largest tribe of the Confederation by population. But the Onondaga held the highest number of sachems on the council, based on hereditary right of accession. The true political power of the Iroquois Confederation lay with the matriarchs who decided who represented their tribes on the council.