Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

the lower house agreed to appropriate twenty thousand pounds for the war,
and to levy an onerous poll tax to raise the money. The House refused to
draft militia for fighting outside Virginia, but did agree to conscript all
"vagrants" and to force them to fight for Virginian glory. Dinwiddie had
still not given up the idea of a winter campaign to recapture Fort Duquesne,
but the lack of interest by the other colonies finally forced him to abandon
the plan.
Meanwhile, in late 1753, the New York government decided to call a joint
conference of the Northern colonies, with the Iroquois and other Indian
tribes, for the following June at Albany. As one of many conferences with
the Iroquois and their followers, the idea was to try to mobilize the Indians
for a general assault on French possessions in the Ohio Valley. It was the
ineffable imperialist and warmonger Governor Shirley of Massachusetts
who seized the occasion to try to unite the colonies into a league or confederation.
Only when united under one central government could the full
resources of the American colonies be mobilized by the Crown for an all-out
assault on New France. The old imperialist dream of the Dominion of New
England was now to be revived and extended to all the British colonies.
The delegates to the Albany Congress were in the main appointed by the
governors, and largely taken from the councillors of their respective colonies.
The Indian conference was supposed to be the only problem on the
agenda, but under cover of these proceedings the delegates were persuaded
by Benjamin Franklin, a delegate from Pennsylvania, to seize the occasion
to propose a central government to rule over all the colonies and thus prosecute
a far broader and more intensified war against the French. Franklin did
this even though unauthorized to do so by Pennsylvania. This Plan of Union
—largely Franklin's—as approved by the delegates in July, urged the British
Parliament to impose over all the colonies a central supergovernment, whose
executive would be appointed by the Crown and whose legislature would
consist of a grand council chosen by the respective colonial Assemblies.
Executive salaries were to be provided by the Crown, thus bypassing the
salary troubles that the royal governors had all had with the colonial Assemblies,
and thus freeing the executive power from the checks and limits
imposed on it by the representatives of the American public. Of particular
significance was the taxing power, to be given to the president and the
Council, and to be appropriated for the functions of the general government.
The Albany Plan, however, was a total dud. The independent and libertyloving
colonists had had enough trouble with royal prerogative embodied in
the executive and judicial powers of the individual colonies. They had no
desire for another supergovernment to add still another and greater engine
of oppression. Rhode Island and Connecticut, now happily free of all royal
officials, were especially vehement in opposition. The Connecticut delegates
refused to sign the plan and the Connecticut Assembly attacked it
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