With the French skirmishes continuing on the frontier, and a growing fear that the Indians might be enticed into joining the French against the colonies, Governor Clinton reissued his invitation for a meeting at Albany with the Indians in 1754. Now, in addition to Franklin, others began to see the need for a common defense, and representatives of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland joined the conference. Much progress was expected of it. Franklin was chosen as a delegate from Pennsylvania, and on his way to Albany he promoted his plan of union with all the influential people he met, asking them for their suggestions to improve the plan. At Albany the representatives agreed that a union was necessary, and they formed a committee comprising one representative from each colony to consider the matter.
Franklin’s Plan of Union was a detailed extension of his 1751 ideas. It called for a federal system with two branches: the executive and the Grand Council, a body drawn from the elected legislatures of the colonies. The duties of this union would be to levy taxes, provide for defense, deal with the Indians, make new settlements, raise and pay soldiers, and construct forts and naval vessels to be available in case of war. Although a number of plans were presented, the representatives eventually selected Franklin’s and appointed him to draw up a concrete proposal to be acted upon by Parliament.
Afterward, on a trip to Boston, Franklin had the opportunity to discuss the plan with William Shirley, the king’s royal governor of Massachusetts. When Governor Shirley proposed an alternative to the Albany Plan that excluded representatives of the colonies on the Grand Council, Franklin objected:
I apprehend that excluding the people of the colonies from all share in the choice of the Grand Council, will give extreme dissatisfaction, as well as the taxing them by act of Parliament where they have no representative….Where heavy burdens are to be laid upon them it has been found useful to make it, as much as possible, their own act; for they bear better when they have some share in the direction. And when any public measures are generally grievous or even distasteful to the people, the wheels of government must move more heavily.
However, this discussion made little difference because all the colonies ultimately rejected Franklin’s Plan of Union adopted at Albany, and the British government did not even consider it. Franklin concluded that the individual colonies were unwilling to give up any of their prerogatives to a federal government, and as for the British government, it found the plan too democratic for its liking.
Finally, in 1755 the British government in London responded to the French military actions and sent two regiments of British regulars under General Edward Braddock of the Coldstream Guards to capture the French strongholds in the Ohio territory. Franklin met with Braddock in an effort to acquaint him with the Indian style of fighting. He cautioned Braddock that the slender line “near four miles long, which your army must make in going through the woods may expose it to be attacked by surprise in its flanks, and then cut like a thread into several pieces.” In reply, Braddock boasted, “These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the King’s regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible that they should make any impression.” Just as Franklin had anticipated, Braddock’s campaign was a disaster. The general was mortally wounded, more than 1,000 of his men were killed or wounded, and Franklin and other future revolutionaries learned a valuable lesson in the fallibility of the British.
In 1757 a dispute arose between the Pennsylvania Legislature and the sons of the founder of that territory, William Penn, who owned a large amount of land for which they were unwilling to pay taxes. The Penn family resided in London, so the legislature dispatched Franklin to England. While Franklin had an excellent record as a problem solver, this one proved to be difficult, involving as it did not only the Penns but also the British bureaucracy. Franklin was in England for six years and then, after two years at home, the issue of taxation led to his return.
Britain had allowed the colonies to tax themselves during the early part of the 18th century, but the struggle against the French had been costly and the government took the position that because the war had been fought for the benefit of the colonies, the colonies should have to share in paying for it. The colonists believed that they were British subjects, but since they had no representatives in Parliament, they should not be taxed without their consent.
Franklin, in essence, found himself serving as unofficial ambassador for all the colonies, pleading their case to the British government. This assignment kept him in England from 1764 to 1775 -- tumultuous years leading to the outbreak of the Revolution. First there was the Stamp Act, which the colonists violently opposed and which Franklin, with some fancy manipulation, help to get repealed. Then came a series of other taxes, arousing discontent in America that was countered by hostile reaction from the British government. The king and Parliament looked upon the colonists as spoiled, ungrateful children who were misbehaving and needed to be punished. By 1775 Franklin had lost hope of patching things up between England and its colonies and came home. While en route across the Atlantic, skirmishes at Lexington and Concord had already set revolution into motion.
As soon as Franklin arrived in America, he was pressed into service as a representative of Pennsylvania to the Second Continental Congress to decide what America was to do next. Franklin dusted off his Albany Plan of Union and presented it under the title The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. The members did not accept it, as they were not yet ready for a break with the mother country and thought that Franklin’s draft was too radical.
One year later, however, the atmosphere had changed. Franklin was on the committee with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams to draw up the Declaration of Independence. He was also appointed to the Committee on Safety to produce weapons and munitions for the colonies’ defense, the secret Committee of Correspondence to obtain friends and money abroad for the war effort and various other committees. Franklin’s Articles of Confederation plan was given to lawyer John Dickinson to rewrite, and it became the official constitution under which the Continental Congress then operated for 11 years.
Because of his renown and extensive contacts in Europe, Franklin was sent in 1776 to France to obtain help in the war against England. He spent the next nine years in Paris, where, as American ambassador, he coaxed Louis XVI into supporting the United States and providing the money, munitions and military to allow America to succeed in the struggle. Finally, after years of war, with John Adams and John Jay, Franklin signed the treaty of peace in 1783, in which England recognized the United States as a sovereign nation.
When he returned home in 1785, Franklin was elected president of Pennsylvania, and in that capacity he served as host to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia. When the Articles of Confederation had been in operation, the states were still very distinct entities and would not agree to a strong union. However, by 1787, experience had shown that unity was necessary if the nation was to survive, and the Constitutional Convention was held to see if this objective could be accomplished. At 81, Franklin was so ill he had to be carried into the meetings, much like an ancient potentate, seated in a sedan chair lifted by four strong men. Yet he managed to participate in almost all the meetings, which were conducted from May to September. When the convention was on the verge of breaking up over a dispute between the large states and the small states, Franklin proposed a compromise under which the number of representatives in the House of Representatives would be based on population, which pleased the large states, and in the Senate the number of members from each state would be equal, which satisfied the small states. When September rolled around, however, unsettled disputes made it doubtful that the Constitution would be accepted. Franklin then made a speech, addressing the acting president of the convention, George Washington:
Mr. President I confess there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I will never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration to change opinions, even on important subjects which I once thought was right but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment and to pay more respect to the judgment of others....For when you assemble a number of men to have their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does....Thus I consent, Sir, to this constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best.
On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of this convention who may still have objections to it would, with me on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.
Franklin’s passionate plea helped sway the convention and bring to fruition yet another set of ideals that have, with few amendments, served America and inspired the world for more than 200 years. Franklin had finally seen completed in his old age what he had set out to do 36 years before -- invent a United States of America.
At the core of this creation stood another of Franklin’s elegant solutions to a complex problem, succinctly expressed when he was appointed by the Continental Congress in 1776 to design the currency for the newly formed United States. The bills and coins Franklin designed display 13 interlocking circles ringing the outside, representing the 13 original states. Inside this was another ring in which were the words “American Congress,” and inside that ring were stamped the words “WE ARE ONE.”
Franklin's Unique Counterfeit Deterrent -1739
Benjamin Franklin's printing firm in Philadelphia printed colonial notes with nature prints---unique raised impressions of patterns cast from actual leaves. This process added an innovative and effective counterfeit deterrent to notes, not completely understood until centuries later.
Franklin's Unique Counterfeit Deterrent 1739
Benjamin Franklin's printing firm in Philadelphia printed colonial notes with nature prints---unique raised impressions of patterns cast from actual leaves. This process added an innovative and effective counterfeit deterrent to notes, not completely understood until centuries later.
Today's Educational Sources and suggestions for further reading:
historynet.com
