If we look at the political theory of this government it had traits both peculiar and prescient. Their councils were not constituted, primarily, by elective representation. Yet they secured the chief benefits of it. The chiefs, had a life office, and were incapable of transmitting it to their descendants. The organic council was a representation of tribes, not of members. This aristocratic feature, was balanced and its tendency to absorb authority prevented, by permitting the warriors to sit in these primary councils. In these councils, there was free discussion and full deliberation. But there was no formal vote taken, nor any measure carried by counting persons, or ascertaining a majority or plurality. Tradition declares against any such test. The popular sense appears to have been secured alone by the scope and tenor of the debates. I cannot learn that there ever was any formal expression, equivalent to the modern practice of taking of the sense of the council on a measure. Perhaps something of this kind is to be found in the approbatory response, from which the French are said to have made up the word IROQUOIS. If the aristocratic feature of life-sachemship, was counteracted by the influence of the warriors in council, at the Council Fire of the Tribes; this feature was shorn still more of its objectionable tendencies in the General or Central Council of the Confederacy. Chiefs attended this national assemblage, as delegates or representatives, although not elected representatives, of their tribes. The number depended on circumstances; and varied with the occasion. They were sent, or went, to deliberate on a specific question, or questions, for which, the tribe was summoned, by the Executive Sachem of the Nation holding the high office of Attotarho,[C] or Convener of the Council. This central council, headed by this kind of a Presidency, was in fact, more purely democratic in its structure, than the home councils. It consisted essentially of a Congress of Chiefs, having a right as chiefs to attend, or delegated for the purpose, and aided also, by the warriors. It had the character of being a representative national body, delegated for a single session; and of a local body of life chiefs constituting the home sachemry, or a limited senate. [C] The corresponding word in the Seneca dialect is Tod-o-dah-hoh. Such I apprehend to have been the structure of the Iroquois government. It was strong, efficient and popular.--It had its fixity in the life tenure of the chiefs and the customs of proceeding. The voice of the warriors constituted a counterbalance, or species of second estate. But practically, whatever the theory, the chief and warriors, acted as one body. They came, generally, to advocate, or announce what had already been decided on, in the body of the tribe.