The Albany Plan resulted from a meeting of colonial leaders in
Albany, New York, in 1754. Known as the Albany Conference, the
meeting brought together prominent men from a number of colonies
to plan a united colonial response to the imminent threat posed
to the English by French and American Indian fighters in the
early days of the French and Indian War. In what amounted to the
first attempt to form a centralized governmental body for all
the colonies, Benjamin Franklin proposed the Albany Plan, which
included a president general appointed by the king and a grand
council of representatives chosen by the various assemblies of
the colonies. Despite the need for a pan-colonial body to
coordinate war policy, the Albany Plan was rejected both by the
British government, worried that this would give too much power
to a unified group of colonial leaders, and by the colonial
assemblies, who feared the loss of local power. The Albany Plan,
coming as it did 22 years before the Declaration of
Independence, offers an intr