Benjamin Franklin. Plan of Proposed Union (Albany Plan), 1754. Manuscript. Hazard Papers in the Peter Force Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (2)
[Digital ID# us0002 — us0002_2]
Benjamin Franklin’s Idea for National Confederation
Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790), America’s consummate “wise man,” was among the first to imagine a national confederation. In 1754, he proposed a union of American provinces at a conference of provincial delegates at Albany, New York, to better battle the French and their Indian allies.
The Albany Plan, calling for proportional representation in a national legislature and a president general appointed by the king of Great Britain, served as a model for Franklin’s revolutionary Plan of Confederation in 1775.