Older than Dirt

Answers From the FAQ, Page 6 - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net

It may surprise you to know that--ALLEGEDLY--the US Constitution has a source of inspiration that outdates it by 300+ years. At least, some people claim it does. Quote:

During the bi-centennial year of The Constitution of the United States, a number of books were written concerning the origin of that long-revered document. One of these, The Genius of the People, alleged that after the many weeks of debate a committee sat to combine the many agreements into one formal document. The chairman of the committee was John Rutledge of South Carolina. He had served in an earlier time, along with Ben Franklin and others, at the Stamp Act Congress, held in Albany, New York. This Committee of Detail was having trouble deciding just how to formalize the many items of discussion into one document that would satisfy one and all. Rutledge proposed they model the new government they were forming into something along the lines of the Iroquois League of Nations, which had been functioning as a democratic government for hundreds of years, and which he had observed in Albany.

An interesting bit of trivia.