Albany Plan

Based largely on his observations of the Iroquois and their system of common government, Franklin strongly urged fellow colonial leaders to consider the plan.

[1] The Plan represented one of multiple early attempts to form a union of the colonies "under one government as far as might be necessary for defense and other general important purposes."

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 consist of delegates nominated by the lower houses of the colonial assemblies.

[4][7] Benjamin Franklin wrote of the rejections: "The colonial assemblies and most of the people were narrowly provincial in outlook, mutually jealous, and suspicious of any central taxing authority.

They proposed that colonial governors, along with some members of their respective councils, order the raising of troops and building of forts, to be funded by the treasury of Great Britain.

On the basis that such defense measures were the mutual responsibility of the colonies, Parliament decided to impose, for the first time, a direct tax on American colonists through the Stamp Act to recoup the costs of the war.