10-10-10 Plan
“So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes.”
Deuteronomy 1:15
It would be extremely difficult to provide enough detail on this web page to cover the subject of the Anglo-Saxon's and their ancient system of social order. There are literally thousands of books on the Anglo-Saxon culture. The simplest overview of the Anglo-Saxon system is to be found in W. Cleon Skousen's book, "The Making of America - The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution."[1]
The Anglo-Saxon culture originated in Europe and migrated to Britain around A.D. 450. Two Anglo-Saxon brothers, Hengst and Horsa, along with some of their relatives, were invited by the King of Kent to help fight the King's enemies in Britain. The Anglo-Saxon's spread from the southern part of Britain to much of the rest of the country. The demise of the Anglo-Saxon's and their ways came to an end when William the Conquerer conquered them in A.D. 1066.
When our founding fathers were setting up the the Constitution, they researched as many nations and their systems of government that they could find. They discovered that the Anglo-Saxon system of government had many of the principals, features, and freedoms that our current system of Government now contains as a result of that research.
“Are we not better for what we have hitherto abolished of the feudal system? Has not every restitution of the ancient Saxon laws had happy effects? Is it not better now that we return at once into that happy system of our ancestors, the wisest and most perfect ever yet devised by the wit of man.”
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson made the following comment with respect to that form of government: "Are we not better for what we have hitherto abolished of the feudal system? Has not every restitution of the ancient Saxon laws had happy effects? Is it not better now that we return at once into that happy system of our ancestors, the wisest and most perfect ever yet devised by the wit of man, as it stood before the eighth century?" [2]
This system consisted of an elected leader of ten households. Then a leader was chosen over hundreds, then over each thousand, and finally a King. This appears to be a similar system mentioned in the Bible from the days of Moses. From Wikipedia: "Frankpledge, earlier known as frith-borh (literally "peace-pledge"), was a system of joint suretyship common in England throughout the Early Middle Ages. The essential characteristic was the compulsory sharing of responsibility among persons connected through kinship, or some other kind of tie such as an oath of fealty to a lord or knight. All men over 12 years of age were joined in groups of approximately ten households. This unit, under a leader known as the chief-pledge or tithing-man, was then responsible for producing any man of that tithing suspected of a crime."[3]
Associated with the principal of tithings was the use of your neighbors for character witnesses and a trial by your peers. Sharon Turner, an expert on the Anglo-Saxons said this, "To this principle was attached at length the right of trial by jury. No record marks the date of its commencement."[4]
“And also that every one shall help another, as it is ordained...”
Laws Of King Aethelstan
It is evident that another purpose of this social order was a system of welfare that was separate from the Government. How was it accomplished? The basic principle was that of not taking that which belonged to another. "That everyone twelve winters old should swear that he would not be a thief, nor the advisor of a thief." From the work of John M. Kemble, "Anglo Saxon Laws and Institutes", we find the other principal, "And also that every one shall help another, as it is ordained, and by 'weds' confirmed..... if he aught of this neglect, which stands in our writings, and we with our 'weds' have confirmed."[5]
“They doubtless had a constitution; and although they have not left it in a written formula, to the precise text of which you may always appeal, yet they have left fragments of their history and laws, from which it may be inferred with considerable certainty.”
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson summed things up when he wrote the following in a letter to John Cartwright, "I am much indebted for your kind letter of February the 29th, and for your valuable volume on the English Constitution. I have read this with pleasure and much approbation, and think it has deduced the Constitution of the English nation from its rightful root, the Anglo-Saxon. It is really wonderful, that so many able and learned men should have failed in their attempts to define it with correctness. No wonder then, that Paine, who thought more than he read, should have credited the great authorities who have declared, that the will of Parliament is the Constitution of England. So Marbois, before the French Revolution, observed to me that the Almanac Royal was the Constitution of France. Your derivation of it from the Anglo-Saxons, seems to be made on legitimate principles. Having driven out the former inhabitants of that part of the island called England, they became aborigines as to you, and your lineal ancestors. They doubtless had a constitution; and although they have not left it in a written formula, to the precise text of which you may always appeal, yet they have left fragments of their history and laws, from which it may be inferred with considerable certainty."[6]
People often travel great distances to view monuments that tyrants have built through the means of slavery. How about taking a moment to view some of the prosperity from a system of freedom:
Additional references:
“These wards [of approximately 100 families], called townships in New England, are the vital principle of their governments and have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government and for its preservation.” (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Samuel Kercheval The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, p. 74-75. 1816.) The rest of the letter can also be found here: http://www.ourrepubliconline.com/Author/20
A Miracle That Changed the World, The 5000 Year Leap, W. Cleon Skousen, ISBN: 0-88080-148-4, National Center for Constitutional Studies
[1]: The Making of America - The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution, W. Cleon Skousen ISBN: 0-88080-017-8
[2]: Julian P. Boyd, ed., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 20 vols. by 1982, Princeton University Press, 1:492.
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankpledge
[4]: Sharon Turner, The History of the Anglo-Saxons, Vol. 3, 6th Ed. p. 223
[5]: John M. Kemble, Anglo-Saxon Laws and Institutes, Incunabula Juris Anglicani, Extracted from the British and Foreign Review, or European Quarterly Journal, No. XXIII, p. 89
[6]: http://www.constitution.org/tj/jeff16.htm. Letter to Major John Cartwright. June 5, 1824