The 1999 [Cherokee Nation] constitution convention created this new constitution which was voted and approved by the people during the 2003 tribal elections and enacted by Cherokee Nation in 2006.

At least 300 years prior to the passage of the United States Constitution, North American democracy began with the Iroquois Confederacy's Law of the Great Peace. The Cherokee belong to the Iroquois language family of eastern North America.

The representative democracy of the Iroquois was extensively studied and praised by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who proposed it as the basis for the United States Constitution. In a backhanded compliment at the Albany Congress in 1754, Franklin said he found it hard to believe that the 13 colonies could not agree to a political union when "Six Nations of ignorant savages" had formed one.

Today, the Cherokee Nation Constitution established a blueprint for our tribal government and allowed us to construct a set of laws to effectively govern the second largest Indian tribe in the United States.