Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), America’s consummate “wise man,” was among the first to imagine a national confederation.  In 1754, he proposed a union of American provinces at a conference of provincial delegates at Albany, New York, to better battle the French and their Indian allies. The Albany Plan, calling for proportional representation in a national legislature and a president general appointed by the King of Great Britain, served as a model for Franklin’s revolutionary Plan of Confederation in 1775.