J
0 I N,
or DIE.
The Spirit of
54
More than two decades before the Revolution broke out, a group of
Americans voted on a scheme to unite the colonies. For the rest of his life,
Benjamin Franklin thought it could have prevented the war. It didn'tbut it did give us our Constitution. By Richard M. Ketchum
I
MPROBABLE IT MAY SEEM,
BUT AN INDUSTRIOUS,
aquatic, fur-bearing rodent deserves a share of the
credit for the first real effort at unifying Britain's
American colonies. Just as we tend to forget that the
Americas were discovered as a byproduct of the search
for pepper, the reason the beaver's contribution has gone
unsung all these years is, in the words of the journalist
Henry Hobhouse, "Men have always liked to believe in
their own influence."
Almost from the beginning, the colonials engaged in
the fur trade, which was centered in Albany, New York,
and managed by Dutch traders, who relied for their supply of pelts on the Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida,
Onondaga, and, later, Tuscarora Indians: the League,
or Six Nations, of the Iroquois. Those Native Americans occupied an enormous area south and east of
Lake Ontario, but the insatiable demand for furs so
reduced the population of fur-bearing animals that a
Canadian governor wrote as early as 1671 that "they
experience the greatest difficulty in finding a single
beaver there." Responding to this challenge, the Iroquois expanded their hunting grounds into lands across
Lake Ontario and began to function as middlemen for
the transfer of furs from Western tribes to Albany.
At the same time, hundreds of Pennsylvania and Virginia traders and land speculators were pushing deeper
into the Great Lakes region and the Ohio Valley. Nat-
urally, that alarmed the French in Canada, whose ties
to the Western Indians were as strong as those of the
English with the Iroquois. They reacted by building forts
on the Niagara River and on Lake Champlain and by
sending some 200 troops into the Ohio Valley to warn
potential trespassers that the land on both sides of the
river and all streams flowing into it belonged to France.
To further thwart British actions, the French began
cutting a trail to the headwaters of the Ohio and constructed Forts Presque Isle, Le Boeuf, and Venango to
cover the approaches to the Allegheny River.
Now it was the Iroquois' turn to worry, and in the
spring of 1753 the Mohawk sachem Theyanoguin, or
Tiyanoga-known
to the Dutch as Hendrick-led
a
tribal delegation to Manhattan to voice their concerns.
Hendrick was a commanding figure, revered for his
wisdom and courage in battle, from which he bore a
hideous tomahawk scar running from his mouth to near
his left ear. He informed the Governor's Council that
had the British not reneged on their commitments in the
last war the Mohawks would have "torn the Frenchman's heart out." Now that the English were doing nothing to halt the theft of his nation's lands, the colonials
had left the Indians defenseless against French attack,
and his patience and respect for them were exhausted.
"So, brother," he said, "you are not to expect to hear
of me any more, and, brother, we desire to hear no
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
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AMERICAN
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57
IIHUTCHINSON
said immodestly that the assembly
OF MASSACHUSETTS
"WAS THE
MOST DESERVING OF RESPECT OF ANY WHICH HAD EVER BEEN CONVENED IN AMERICA .... "
more of you!" With that he stalked out,
followed by his angry braves, effectively dissolving the century-old covenant
between the English and the Iroquois
League.
When that shocking news reached
London weeks later, the Board of Trade
and Plantations, the effective governing
body of the colonies, wrote the governor
of New York, directing him to summon
representatives of the other colonies to a
meeting. They were to negotiate a treaty
with the Indians, improve the handling
of Indian affairs, and see to it that all
lands purchased thenceforth from the
Indians be bought in the King's name.
Lt. Gov. James De Lancey, acting
governor when the letter arrived, soon
dispatched invitations to Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, requesting that they send delegates to discuss
the crisis in Indian affairs and, above
all, repair the vital Iroquois alliance.
The Board of Trade and Plantations,
in London, despite its distance from the
scene, its customary focus on the bottom
line, and the fact that they had neither
spoken with nor laid eyes on the Native
Americans, proved to have a remarkably
accurate and sensitive perception of how
the Iroquois alliance had gone wrong. In
their letter to the governor, the Lords
laid the blame squarely on officials of
the province of New York for being "so
inattentive to the general interest of his
Majesty's subjects in America, as well as
to their own particular security" in ignoring complaints made by the Indians.
Then, referring to the angry departure of
Chief Hendrick and the Mohawks from
their meeting with the governor, they
condemned "the dissatisfactory answers
given to the Indians" and the inexcusable failure to redress their grievances.
The instructions from the Lords of
Trade made it clear to De Lancey that it
was up to him to restore the alliance
with the Six Nations, which was crucial
to "all his Majesty's Colonies and Plantations in America in general, as well as
58
AMERICAN
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to New York in particular." He was told
to select delegates well acquainted with
the Indians and their customs and interpreters who were men of ability and
integrity, versed in the Indian language.
Since it was customary to give the Indians "presents" at these affairs, he was to
be generous, affording them every reason
for "burying the hatchet and renewing
the covenant chain."
URTHER
F
INSTRUCTIONS
STIPU-
lated that delegates to the congress must be scrupulous in examining the Indians' complaints
of having been defrauded of their lands,
take legal steps to redress their grievances, and make reasonable reimbursement for lands "unwarrantably taken
from them." In the future any land the
natives decided to sell was to be bought
from them in the name of the King and
with public funds. This was a tall order,
and whether De Lancey could bring it off
would depend on the diplomatic skills he
and the other men brought to the table.
As it happened, several of those invited to the conference had an idea in
mind that went well beyond holding yet
another powwow with Indians. It was
apparent to them that the overriding
problem of the colonies-a problem that
militated against successfully combating
the French and Indian menace to the frontiers, as well as forming a common front
in pressing their case in London-was a
lack of unity.
Benjamin Franklin, who was one of the
Pennsylvania delegates, had been thinking about a union of the colonies since
1751, and before leaving Philadelphia
he published in his Pennsylvania Gazette of May 9 what may be the first
American cartoon-which
he probably
drew-showing
a snake in eight pieces.
One piece was "NE" to represent the
New England colonies. The others bore
the initials of New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North
Carolina, and South Carolina, and it
ran with the caption JOIN, OR DIE. En
2002
route to Albany he stopped off in New
York to visit Archibald Kennedy and
James Alexander, two members of the
governor's council, and he wrote out for
them what he called "Short Hints Towards a Scheme for Uniting the Northern Colonies."
Getting to Albany was easier said than
done. Although winter and the mud season were only memories now, the journey was long and arduous for almost
all the envoys, and it was a wonder that
so many completed the trip. The Boston
contingent, for instance, took 12 days to
get there, while the delegates from Maryland and Pennsylvania spent three days
on the road from Philadelphia to New
York, where they boarded schooners for
the trip up the Hudson knowing that
depending on the winds and tides, anywhere from three days to two weeks
might pass before they reached Albany.
For that upriver community the opportunity to play host to a congress ordered
by the Lords of Trade was of course a
major event, and the local militia company turned out to give De Lancey and
the New York delegation a proper salute. To those from the other colonies
their first encounter with the little Dutch
town must have seemed like a visit to a
foreign land.
The commissioners, as the delegates
were called, discovered that they were in
for several disappointments. First they
were told that New Jersey's assembly
had refused to authorize the appointment of commissioners on the grounds
that the province had never negotiated
treaties with the Six Nations or traded
with them and had no wish to do so
now. Virginia, which probably had the
most to gain from a united front among
the colonies, turned down the invitation
because its lieutenant governor had
scheduled a meeting with several Southern Indian tribes, and the House of
Burgesses rebelled at the prospect of paying to send delegates to two conferences.
Worse, it turned out that the Indians,
who were, after all, the reason every-
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one had traveled so far, were very
poorly represented. The Mohawks,
the most influential nation, had not
shown up at all, and no one knew
if they would.
All the delegates except those
from New York were officially commissioned. The reason New York's
had no such authorization may have
been De Lancey's hope of keeping control of them in his hands.
He had no enthusiasm for the idea
of union, and it seems significant that three New York councilors who did not attend (all of
them political foes of De Lancey)
-James
Alexander, Cadwallader
Colden, and Archibald Kennedywere known to support Franklin's
Plan of Union.
After Thomas Hutchinson arrived from Massachusetts, he surveyed his colleagues and observed
rather immodestly, considering he
was one of them, that the assembly
"was the most deserving of respect
of any which had ever been convened in America, whether we consider the Colonies which were represented, the rank and characters of the
delegates, or the purposes for which it
was convened." Boastful or not, he was
quite right. In fact, as Hutchinson appreciated, the meeting was going to be
one of the true landmarks of America's
colonial era, attended by a group of unparalleled distinction.
Hutchinson, one of five Massachusetts
representatives, was the former speaker
of his colony's House of Representatives
and later would be its chief justice and
governor. Meshech Weare was a justice
of ew Hampshire's superior court and
later president of the state. Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island, former speaker
of that province's assembly, went on to
become presiding judge of its Superior
Court, governor, and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Connecticut
sent William Pitkin, its deputy governor,
the former governor Roger Wolcott, and
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o French
the president of Yale, Elisha Williams.
Pennsylvania's delegation included Benjamin Franklin, John Penn-a grandson of
William and later the lieutenant governor
of the colony-and
Richard Peters, the
provincial secretary. From Maryland came
Benjamin Tasker, a member of the provincial council.
Twenty-four envoys were present when
the first session convened in the courthouse at 10:00 A.M. on June 19, 1754,
and for the first few days they sat wherever there was an empty chair until someone complained about this haphazard
arrangement. Then the New York councilors, as hosts, sat at the head of the table
and the others took positions according
to the location of their province from
north to south, starting with Massachusetts (whose District of Maine was the
northernmost of all the colonies) and
ending with Maryland. That, he declared,
Territo,:!
would "avoid all disputes about the precedency of the Colonies."
It was probably fortunate that so few
of the Iroquois put in an early appearance,
because not until June 27 was the draft
of a welcoming speech to them finally
agreed on. In the meantime, however,
the delegates voted on a most significant
and unusual subject: "whether a Union
of all the Colonies is not at present
absolutely necessary for their security
and defence." When the question passed
unanimously, a committee consisting of
one representative from each colony was
appointed to receive and study various
schemes and settle on a single plan.
The appointed business was with the
Indians, of course, and such periodic
conferences with the Iroquois Nations
had already evolved into highly ritualistic affairs. The meetings were calm and
at the same time prolix-calm
because
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
2002
AMERICAN
HERITAGE
59
pen, ink, and paper." Given the
the very idea behind them was to
likelihood that this predicament
achieve the unanimity demanded
would continue, what was esby the Iroquois for a binding sosential for the colonies' mutual
lution, prolix because eloquent
defense was confederation, and
oratory was the equivalent of
the question before the repreIroquois literature. Because Irosentatives was how best to bring
quois society had no written lanthis about.
guage, ornate figures of speech
It was a tricky business, and
and cadences, repeated again
as Franklin and James Alexander
and again, were essential elehad already concluded in New
ments of what became an oral
York, its ultimate success would
history to be remembered and
hinge on whether a union could
handed down. In lieu of pieces
be structured without "affecting
of paper, belts, or woven strings
our liberties on the one hand,
of elongated beads made from
or being ineffectual on the othseashells, constituted the records
er." On the basis of what he
of what transpired.
had heard over the years, FrankIt was June 28 before Henlin greatly admired the Iroquois
drick and his tribesmen arrived,
The man most responsible for the congress was Chief
League and believed that the
and on June 29 De Lancey de- Hendrick; a year after it, he died fighting for the British.
system of government they had
livered his opening address to
their manifold grievances, they had de- devised could serve as a model. He wrote
the assembled natives. That was followed
to Archibald Kennedy, "It would be a
parted in fairly good spirits. And at that
by nine days of speeches and exchanges
the conferees turned to the question of strange thing if Six Nations of ignorant
of belts, which were mostly fashioned
savages should be capable of forming
of dark purple wampum. On them the colonial union.
a scheme for such an union, and be
Although most of the delegates lacked
Indians' castles, or lodges, were repreable to execute it in such a manner as
instructions concerning a plan of union
sented by square figures made of white
... has subsisted [for] ages and appears
beads. Alliances were symbolized by and exceeded their powers by underindissoluble; and yet ... a like union
"human figures holding a chain of friend- taking to establish one, several schemes
were broached and discussed both in should be impracticable for ten or a
ship, each figure representing a nation."
dozen English colonies, to whom it is
The belts varied in size according to the committees and in plenary sessions, and
more necessary and must be more adit was evident that Franklin's proposal
importance of the subject under discuswas the one preferred by all. Wisely,
vantageous, and who cannot be supsion. A belt was "thrown" by a speaker
the delegates recognized that what lay posed to want an equal understanding of
before a new topic was introduced and
their interests."
at the heart of the problem with the
was kept on display while that subject
It may be hoped that the PhiladelFrench was the disunity of the colonies
was under consideration. Once a decision
phian revised his opinion of the Six Naand their failure to act together. The
had been reached, the belt was stored
congress noted bitterly that France's af- tions as "ignorant savages" after seeing
away, to be retrieved if the subject came
them and hearing their eloquent speeches
fairs on the North American continent,
up again at a future meeting.
in Albany. In any event, he was asked
by contrast with those of England, "are
After the torrent of words and the
under one direction," emanating from the on July 9 to prepare a draft of the plan
throwing of hundreds of belts, it was
"as now concluded upon," and the next
court at Versailles.
time for the presentation of traditional
Against the ever-growing menace to the day his draft was adopted by the asgifts-400
firearms, bars of lead, 50
colonies' frontiers, a system based on vol- sembly and ordered transmitted to the
barrels of powder, and 10,000 flints from
seven colonies represented at the conuntary contribution of men and money
the King, plus a contribution from each
had not worked in the past, nor was it gress, plus New Jersey, Virginia, and the
colony, altogether enough to fill 30 wagCarolinas.
likely to in the future. As Franklin was
ons. As the last native disappeared from
In the give-and-take of debate, Frankto write: "the colonies cost England nothview, the commissioners congratulated
lin's "Short Hints" underwent changes,
ing in forts, citadels, garrisons, or armthemselves on a job well done: The Indibut he accepted them in order to carry his
ies to keep them in subjugation. They
ans, they felt, had had plenty of oppormain point. It was essential, he successwere governed at the expense of a little
tunity to air their complaints, and despite
60
AMERICAN
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2002
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form a union) said Franklin)
THING IF ... A LIKE UNION SHOULD BE IMPRACTICABLE"
fully insisted, that the proposed government be established by act of Parliament,
not by Americans. (Franklin was a realist and saw no hope of achieving union
through some sort of voluntary association.) According to his scheme, the government was to have an executive and
legislative branch. The chief executive, to
be appointed and paid by the Crown
and known. as the president-general, was
to have the power to make treaties with
the Indians and declare war and peace,
with the advice and consent of the legislative body. The legislature, to be known
as the grand council, would consist of
members chosen every three years by
the assemblies of the colonies in numbers
proportional to the taxes they paid into
the union treasury. Placing power in the
hands of provincial assemblies rather than
the more aristocratic and conservative
governor's councils was a decidedly democratic innovation.
LL
A
IN
ALL
IT
WAS
A BOLD,
novel proposal that would create a central government with
the power to levy taxes and
make laws concerning matters within its
jurisdiction, even though these would
have to be submitted to the King in
Council for approval. The new government would also deal with the many
problems of defense, raising and supporting armies, building forts and ships,
and regulating the Indians. Significantly, the delegates resolved to limit
the power of the colonies over Western lands, stipulating that all land purchases from the Indians be made in the
name of the Crown and that the boundaries of some colonies be "reduced to
more convenient dimensions." (Virginia,
for instance, claimed a swath of land as
deep as the colony's north to south borders, extending across the continent to
the Pacific.)
Because of its central location, Philadelphia was chosen as the place where
the union was to be organized. The Plan
would permit members to select a differ-
ent meeting place every year, but Franklin predicted that Philadelphia would
remain their choice except in time of
war, when they would gather in the colony nearest to the hostilities.
The records aren't wholly clear, but
the only delegates who seem to have objected to the Plan were those from Connecticut, mostly on the grounds that the
land area involved was too large to administer and the population growing too
fast to be governed under a single executive. They also quarreled with giving the
president-general the right to veto measures of the grand council, and they opposed the taxing power as contrary to the
rights of Englishmen. Yet Franklin and
Thomas Hutchinson stated that the Plan
was adopted unanimously, although with
"a great deal of Disputation about it,
almost every article being contested," according to the former. This suggests that
the Connecticut delegation, despite its
reservations, may have refrained from
casting a negative vote. Two other delegates recalled that every member of the
congress approved the Plan except James
De Lancey.
The delegates' enthusiasm and support reveal a great deal about the mindset of the group. Franklin and the others
were American colonials, but they thought
of themselves as Englishmen. That attitude was at the heart of the "Short Hints"
Franklin took to Albany in 1754, which
he and his colleagues refined until they
had a highly original conception of the
American colonies' place within the British Empire. They understood that the
colonies must think of themselves not
individually but as a whole, a whole that
was an integral part of the empire and
whose only separation from the mother
country happened to be the ocean between them.
Although no one at the congress could
have known it, on the same day that
James De Lancey delivered his speech
to the Indians, fate took a hand some 350
miles to the southwest, where George
Washington and a party of Virginians
"IT WOULD BE A STRANGE
FOR THE COLONIES.
were overwhelmingly
defeated by a
French and Indian force at Fort Necessity. That event prompted James Alexander to write to Cadwallader Colden
saying that he hoped the recommendations of the Albany Congress would "prevail on King & Parliament ... to unite
the force of the Colonies, and [do sol
at the first meeting of parliament, for
a Delay of it may be fatal, as there's
nothing to hinder the french at this very
time to make a Conquest of the Colonies,
and put it then out of our power to hurt
them by our intended union."
Despite Fort Necessity's dramatic warning of the colonies' urgent need to unite,
the Plan of Union was opposed or ignored by every provincial assembly that
considered it except New York. In fact,
the efforts of the commissioners, prominent as they were, were received with
outright scorn by the very provincial
governments that had deputized them.
However surprising that seemed, what
it came down to was that in 1754 no
colonial legislature was willing to yield
any of its powers to a grand council and
an executive appointed and paid by the
Crown.
The delegates had assumed that the
provincial assemblies would comment
on the Plan of Union and then it would
be sent to London. But De Lancey ignored their wishes and sent a copy of
the proceedings straight to the Lords
of Trade, who passed it on to George II
without comment. When nothing favorable was heard from the colonies, no
action was taken in England, and the
ambitious project died.
In December of that year, Franklin,
in Boston, spoke at length with Gov.
William Shirley, who had his own ideas
about how a colonial union should
function. Shirley believed that the colonies should have little power and should
get the money they needed for defense
from taxes levied on them by Parliament. Franklin disagreed, and he expanded on his views in three letters to
Shirley that contained all the ingredients
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AMERICAN
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liTHE
REVOLUTION WON,
Franklin could bephilosophical
ABOUT THIS GRAVE
FAILURE, ONE OF THE GREAT MIGHT-HAVE-BEENS OF AMERICAN HISTORY.
of the arguments the colonies would make
two decades later.
He maintained that it was patently
unfair to tax the colonists unless they
were represented in Parliament and had
a say in the matter. People in the colonies,
not members of Parliament, were the
proper judges of how much money was
needed for defense and how it should be
spent. He hammered the point home,
insisting that it is "an undoubted right
of Englishmen not to be taxed but by
their own consent given through their
representatives." Forcing them to do so
without their agreement "would be rather
like raising contributions in an enemy's
country than taxing of Englishmen for
their own public benefit."
Think of the situation this way, he
said. An empire's frontiers must be defended at public expense. The American
colonies bordering on Canada were Britain's frontiers and were already contributing to the cost of their defense through
the indirect taxes they paid to England.
Not only did Britain restrain their trade
with other countries, it forbade most
manufacturing in the colonies. These restrictions not only amounted to secondary taxes on colonials, they also enabled
British merchants and manufacturers to
pay their own taxes out of the pockets
of Americans.
In Franklin's opinion it was in England's self-interest to promote colonial
manufacturing, and he explained it this
way: Since there were already about a million people in North America ("though
'tis thought scarce 80,000 have been
brought over seas"), and since that population could be expected to double every
20 years (marriages being more frequent
in America than in Europe), he foresaw
the day, a century thence, when the people of the colonies would outnumber those
in England. "The greatest number of Englishmen will be on this side of the water."
In fact, Franklin took insufficient account of the thousands of English, Scots,
Welsh, Swiss, Germans, French Huguenots, and Ulster Presbyterians who were
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pouring into the colonies, in addition to
involuntary black slave and indentured
white immigration. He knew, of course,
that although these new arrivals would
concentrate initially in coastal areas, they
would soon move into the vast interior,
which would take ages to fill. As they
struck out for new land, they would set
up their own trades, so labor would
never be cheap in the colonies. A growing America was a growing market for
manufactures, whether British or American, and Britain should not restrain these
enterprises. "A wise and good mother
will not do it. To distress is to weaken,
and weakening the children weakens the
whole family."
At the end of December 1754 Franklin
wrote his friend Peter Collinson in England: "Every Body cries, a Union is absolutely necessary; but when they come to
the Manner and Form of the Union, their
weak Noodles are presently distracted."
Some 30 years later Franklin offered an
explanation of why his scheme had been
rejected on both sides of the Atlantic. The
colonial assemblies, he asserted, turned
it down fearing that there was too much
"prerogative" in it-that it would benefit
a privileged few. And England, he said,
failed to adopt it because it was too democratic. All of which led him to suspect
that his plan "was really the true medium;
and I am still of [the1 opinion that it would
have been happy for both sides of the water if it had been adopted." But, he added,
"such mistakes are not new; history is full
of the errors of states and princes ....
Those who govern, having much business
on their hands, do not generally like to
take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects."
By then he could be philosophical about
this major failure of British-American
statesmanship, one of the great mighthave-beens of American history. The
Albany Plan of Union, which was his
more than any other man's, had been
rejected, but it was far from forgotten. It
became the basis of the form of governance that initially took effect with the
2002
First Continental Congress in 1774. The
Articles of Confederation embodied a
number of ideas included in the Plan,
notably federal control of Western lands,
which was established by the Northwest
Ordinance of 1787.
The ultimate recognition of Franklin's
vision came in 1787, when the Constitutional Convention adopted the essence
of the Plan of Union, merely substituting a president for the president-general
and adding a second house to the legislature. The Constitution granted Congress all the same powers as were to be
given the grand council, except for the
power to purchase Indian lands and make
new colonies of them.
Writing in 1789, when the new federal government of the United States of
America was functioning, Franklin indulged in speculation about what might
have been had the Plan of Union been
adopted: "On reflection, it now seems
possible, that, if the foregoing plan, or
something like it, had been adopted and
carried into execution, the subsequent
separation of the colonies from the mother country might not so soon have happened, nor the mischiefs suffered on both
sides have occurred, perhaps, during another century. For the colonies, if so united, would have really been, as they then
thought themselves, sufficient to their
own defense: and, being trusted with it,
as by the plan, an army from Britain,
for that purpose, would have been unnecessary. The pretences for framing the
Stamp Act would then not have existed,
nor the other projects for drawing a revenue from America to Britain by acts of
Parliament, which were the cause of the
breach, and attended with such terrible
expense of blood and treasure: so that the
different parts of the empire might still
have remained in peace and union."
*
Richard M. Ketchum's latest book, Divided Loyalties: How the American Revolution Came
to New York, will be
published in October.