U.S. Historical Documents: The 1754 Albany Plan of Union

The former was the projection of Dr. If Hutchinson was correct in , he was wrong three times in the s, and Franklin was wrong twice in and once in Both these drafts are in the handwriting of Jonathan Trumbull, not an Albany commissioner but a member of the Connecticut Council who apparently served as secretary of the committee appointed by the Assembly to report on the Albany Plan after it was brought back by the commissioners. Internal evidence establishes that the shorter of the two plans is the earlier in composition, though they are bound in reverse order among the Trumbull Papers.

Merely for convenience, they will be called here the Trumbull Short Plan and the Trumbull Long Plan, without any intention of ascribing authorship by these names.

No contemporary document has been found that mentions a written plan prepared by Hutchinson or any other person in Massachusetts before the Albany meeting. No proof of either assumption has been found. Certainly the Massachusetts commissioners arrived with some plan in mind, whatever its content and form.

Proceedings of the Albany Congress, 19 June 1754–11 July 1754

After careful study of all the available evidence, the present editors believe that neither the Trumbull Short Plan nor the Trumbull Long Plan, with or without the emendations appearing on the manuscripts, represents the text of a paper written before the Albany meeting and presented to the Congress or its committee for consideration. A complete exposition of the reasons for this conclusion would require far more space than is appropriate for this headnote. A major reason for rejecting the Gipson identification is found in a detailed textual analysis of the five central documents concerned.

The Trumbull Short Plan; 5. The Trumbull Long Plan. For this purpose an arrangement of the five documents in parallel columns is necessary, with those phrases or sentences relating to the same topics placed together, without regard to their order in the different documents. Gipson has used the similarities within each of the two groups and the differences between the two as a major basis for his hypothesis. In this way Gipson both explains the similarity in wording of the final Albany Plan and the Trumbull plans and supports his hypothesis that the Trumbull plans were written before the Congress met.

Just why Franklin should have made such a borrowing is not clear. By he had been writing for the public—and writing fluently and well—for more than thirty years; moreover, as an active member of the Pennsylvania Assembly he had repeatedly taken part in the drafting of committee reports, messages to the governor, and bills, which embodied the results of discussions of a deliberative body.

In short, he was an old hand at just the sort of writing the Congress asked him to undertake. With all this background, he certainly would have felt no need to resort to the phraseology of a document written by another man which had not served as the basis for the Congress debates.

Such a suggestion must be rejected unless positive evidence in its favor can be produced. Closer examination of the wording of the five documents, arranged in parallel columns by topics, suggests strongly that both Trumbull plans were written after the Albany Plan, not before it. They are almost certainly two stages of an attempt to revise it into something more acceptable to many New Englanders. It is true that in many passages there is nothing to indicate an order of composition. In others, however, the priority of the Albany Plan seems probable, and in a few almost conclusive. The latter is especially the case if the emendations in the Trumbull documents are taken into account.

To order all Indian Treaties. Each of the documents after the first adds words not found in that next above it. The nature of these additions suggest strongly that the documents were composed in the order here indicated. Their altered phraseology appears to be a conscious effort to soften the implications of wording adopted by a more widely representative group:.

That they Make all Purchases from the Indians for the Crown, of Lands now not within the Bounds of Particular Colonies or that shall not be within their Bounds when some of them are reduced to more Convenient Dimensions.

The Albany Plan of Union,

James DeLancey had summoned the Albany Congress to meet on June 14, but its opening session did not take place until the 19th. The delay was caused chiefly by the failure of some of the Iroquois to come to Albany on time, but even the colonial representatives did not arrive until after the scheduled opening date.

DeLancey himself landed from his voyage up the Hudson promptly enough, June 13, but none of the commissioners from other provinces are known to have arrived before the 15th, and some reached Albany only on the 17th. Some changes had taken place in the list of colonies participating in the Congress since the Board of Trade had directed that it be held. Commissioners were therefore present from the four New England colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and from the two proprietary provinces of Pennsylvania and Maryland. DeLancey presided at nine of the thirty-two sittings and officially represented his province at the Congress, but four members of the New York Council also attended most of the sessions.

The sessions took place in the Albany court house. For the first two days Banyar probably attended and took the minutes, but on June 21 Peter Wraxall was chosen secretary, and thereafter kept the official record. Presumably each delegation received an official copy and the Congress ordered that all British governments on the continent might take copies of the whole or any part of the proceedings upon paying for them.

It is not certain, therefore, how many official copies were made and certified by Wraxall. Five complete, or virtually complete, copies are known to survive, one incomplete document is probably the largest part of another; some other manuscript versions—uncertified copies or later transcripts of the whole or parts of the record—also exist.

The entire text runs to over 20, words, not including the heading and attendance record of each of the thirty-two sittings. The text has been printed in full several times, 6 and it seems unnecessary to reprint it here. Instead an abstract of the minutes for each session is given below, omitting entirely the substance of the speeches delivered to or by the Indians which actually took place at separate gatherings and indicating attendance or absence of particular members only when the fact seems pertinent. A few significant phrases or longer passages are marked as being direct quotations from the minutes.

The texts of important documents are printed separately below under their own dates, with cross-references to them in the abstract.

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Proceedings of the Congress at Albany. June 19 , A. All above commissioners present except Hutchinson. Commissions, part of Board of Trade letter, Sept. Indian commissioners, June 15 and 18, read. DeLancey promises attendance of N. Same day , P. Whole of above letter of Board of Trade and above minutes of N. Indian commissioners read and entered on minutes. Committee appointed to prepare draft of speech for DeLancey to make to Indians. June 20 , A. Board adjourns without business. June 21 , A. Hutchinson attends for first time. Board agrees colonies should be named in minutes in north-to-south order.

June 22 , A. Draft speech agreed upon. June 24 , A. Oath to be administered to Wraxall. DeLancey proposes building two forts in Indian country to protect Indians; Board determines to proceed on this question after considering some method for colonial union. DeLancey names Smith to represent N. June 25 , A. Above committeemen all absent. June 26 , A. Draft speech further considered. June 27 , A. Draft speech settled upon, read, and unanimously approved; text entered in minutes.

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