Albany Plan of Union

The Albany Plan of Union was a plan to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin, then a senior leader (age 45) and a delegate from Pennsylvania, at the Albany Congress on July 10, 1754 in Albany, New York. More than twenty representatives of several northern and mid-Atlantic colonies had gathered to plan their defense related to the French and Indian War, the front in North America of the Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France. The Plan represented one of multiple early attempts to form a union of the colonies "under one government as far as might be necessary defense and other general important purposes."

The Congress discussed the Albany Plan, after a committee reviewed different plans offered by delegates; its members chose Franklin's plan, with some small modifications. Benjamin Chew, then a young lawyer from Dover, Pennsylvania, served as secretary, and Richard Peters and Isaac Norris, both from Philadelphia, were among the members of this committee and the Pennsylvania delegation.

It went beyond the original scope of the Congress, which was to develop a plan of defense related to near-term threats by France. The northern colonies were most concerned, as they shared a border with the French colony in Canada, but the mid-Atlantic colonies were also affected by differing loyalties of various Native American nations, usually related to their trading with France or Great Britain. The New England and northern tier colonies had long been subject to raiding from Canada during times of conflict. The Albany Plan was the first proposed unification of the colonies.

The Plan called for a general government to be administered by a President General, to be appointed and supported by the Crown, and a Grand Council to be chosen by the representatives of the colonial assemblies. After the larger group of delegates discussed their issues and objections, they resolved most of them and adopted the Plan. They sent copies of letters to each of the Colonial Assemblies and to the British Board of Trade in London. The colonial assemblies and the British representatives rejected the Albany Plan.

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