Albany Plan of Union proposed by Benjamin Franklin (early unity idea)

In June and July 1754, delegates from seven British colonies met with Iroquois representatives at the Albany Congress in Albany, New York. Benjamin Franklin presented the Albany Plan of Union on June 28, 1754, proposing a President General appointed by the Crown and a Grand Council chosen by the colonial assemblies. The delegates approved Franklin's plan at Albany, but neither the colonial assemblies nor the Board of Trade put the proposal into effect.

The Albany Plan exposed a constitutional problem inside the British Empire: the Ohio Valley war against New France required coordinated defense, but each colony guarded its own taxing power and legislative independence. Franklin and Thomas Hutchinson believed a continental council could negotiate with the Iroquois Confederacy and raise money for forts, while many assemblies feared a central institution that might dilute local authority. British ministers also distrusted Franklin's design because the Albany Plan gave elected colonial bodies a larger role in imperial decision-making than London wanted to concede in 1754.

The failure of the Albany Plan left Britain and the colonies to fight the French and Indian War without a permanent intercolonial government. Franklin later pointed to the Albany Plan when Americans created the Stamp Act Congress, the Continental Congress, and eventually the Articles of Confederation as later attempts at colonial union.