Benjamin Franklin's Albany Plan of Union
The Albany Plan represented an efficient approach to a more centralized government able to address general colonial issues but still under Parliamentary control.
Benjamin Franklin has been called the greatest Enlightenment thinker on this side of the Atlantic. In political matters, Franklin may have envisioned the future of the thirteen colonies better than anyone. His 1754 Albany Plan of Union was a daring first step in bringing together the colonies under one central government. Although rejected by colonial governments and the English Parliament, it represented a prophetic look at what Franklin felt was an inevitable future.
Benjamin Franklin’s Albany Plan
Franklin’s plan called for the establishment of a Grand Council, led by a President-General appointed by the king. Members of the Grand Council would be elected by colonial assemblies and serve for three years. The Grand Council would meet in Philadelphia once a year for a six week period and could not be dissolved “without their own consent or the special command of the crown” (point 7). The Council would have specific powers:
- Power to choose their Speaker.
- Power to regulate Indian trade.
- Power to make land purchases from Indians.
- Power to make new settlements and to make laws governing those settlements.
- Power to raise and pay soldiers and build forts to protect the colonies.
- Power to equip ships to guard the coasts and protect trade.
- Power to levy taxes for the above noted endeavors.
- Power to appoint a General Treasurer.
- Power to ratify military commissions.
Members of the Grand Council were to be paid for their services and the general constitution elaborating the plan of union was not to interfere with the individual colonial assemblies or their governors.
Future Constitutional Elements in the Albany Plan
Many of Franklin’s proposals foreshadowed the eventual Constitution of 1787. Representation was based on population with Massachusetts and Virginia having 7 delegates each. The power to levy taxes for the general good of the colonies, notably in military matters, would be absent in the Articles of Confederation (1777) but become an important express power of the House of Representatives in 1787.
Franklin’s plan would take Indian Affairs out of the hands of appointed Indian agents. Although there were superbly gifted agents such as Sir William Johnson, many colonists mistrusted the motives of the crown when it came to Indian matters, an issue made abundantly clear in 1763 when Parliament passed the Proclamation Line limiting colonial expansion beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
Although the President-General had the power to nominate “military commission officers” (point 23), these nominations had to be confirmed by the Grand Council, much as the Constitution calls for the confirmation of Executive Branch nominations by the Senate.
Point 21 of the Plan defers all final approval of laws made by the Grand Council to the King and details that any such laws must be “agreeable to the laws of England.” The Albany Plan was not a call for independence. It was a blueprint for more efficient governance with the aim of providing the colonies a faster vehicle of response to emergencies.
Like the earlier Mayflower Compact and the formation of Virginia’s House of Burgesses, Franklin’s Albany Plan represented a stepping stone toward a more organized and popular representation in line with Enlightenment notions limiting monarchical power. But this should not be construed to mean that the Plan’s intent, direct or indirect, was to slight the King. Colonists knew that English law was embodied in Parliament and that Parliament could make no laws violating the English Bill of Rights (Blackstone).
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Benjamin Franklin’s Albany Plan of Union
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