procedure will be found in Exodus, chapters 21 and 22.) The one crime for which no "satisfaction" could be given was first-degree murder. The penalty was death. (See Numbers 35:31.)
5. Leaders were elected and new laws were approved by the common consent of the people. (See 2 Samuel 2:4; 1 Chronicles 29:22; for the rejection of a leader, see 2 Chronicles 10:16; for the approval of new laws, see Exodus 19:8.)
6. Accused persons were presumed to be innocent until proven guilty. Evidence had to be strong enough to remove any question of doubt as to guilt. Borderline cases were decided in favor of the accused and he was released. It was felt that if he were actually guilty, his punishment could be left to the judgment of God in the future life.
Memorializing These Two Examples of People's Law on the U.S. Seal
It was the original intent of the Founders to have both the ancient Israelites and the Anglo-Saxons represented on the official seal of the United States. The members of the committee were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin.
They recommended that one side of the seal show the profiles of two Anglo-Saxons representing Hengist and Horsa. These brothers were the first Anglo-Saxons to bring their people to England around 450 A.D. and introduce the institutes of People's Law into the British Isles. On the other side of the seal this committee recommended that there be a portrayal of ancient Israel going through the wilderness led by God's pillar of fire. In this way the Founders hoped to memorialize the two ancient peoples who had practiced People's Law and from whom the Founders had acquired many of their basic ideas for their new commonwealth of freedom. 5
As it turned out, all of this was a little complicated for a small seal, and therefore a more simple design was utilized.
However, here is a modern artist's rendition of the original seal as proposed by Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin.
Artist's version of the original proposal for the American seal
Obviously, this is a segment of America's rich heritage of the past which has disappeared from most history books.
The Founders' Struggle to Establish People's Law in the Balanced Center
In the Federalist Papers, No. 9, Hamilton refers to the "sensations of horror and disgust" which arise when a person studies the histories of those nations that are always "in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy." 6
Washington also refers to the human struggle wherein "there is a natural and necessary progression, from the extreme of anarchy to the extreme of tyranny." 7
Franklin noted that "there is a natural inclination in mankind to kingly government." He said it gives people the illusion that somehow a king will establish "equality among citizens; and that they like." Franklin's great fear was that the states would succumb to this gravitational pull toward a strong central government symbolized by a royal establishment. He said: "I am apprehensive, therefore -- perhaps too apprehensive -- that the Government of these States may in future times end in a monarchy. But this catastrophe, I think, may be long delayed, if in our proposed system we do not sow the seeds of contention, faction, and tumult, by making our posts of honor places of profit." 8
The Founders' task was to somehow solve the enigma of the human tendency to rush headlong from anarchy to tyranny -- the very thing which later happened in the French Revolution. How could the American people be constitutionally structured so that they would take a fixed position at the balanced center of the political spectrum and forever maintain a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," which would not perish from the earth?
It took the Founding Fathers 180 years (1607 to 1787) to come up with their American formula. In fact, just eleven years before the famous